This is weird. It may just be a function of how little experience the campaign workers had in that riding — I know the NDP were a skeleton crew in Quebec for this election (which makes their huge haul of seats from the province even more amazing), but forging signatures? It just doesn’t add up at all. Why do I say that? Let me tell you a little story . . .
Oddly enough, I had a discussion with a Returning Officer (not the RO for my riding) a few weeks ago about nomination papers and the requirements for signatures. It was rather illuminating.
Every candidate for parliament has to submit nomination papers to the constituency’s Returning Officer within a set number of days after the writ has dropped. Many would-be candidates for smaller or less well-organized parties have to depend on going door-to-door to gather signatures, as they don’t have enough party members in the riding to meet the requirement internally. I’ve done this for Libertarian candidates, and I’m sure most of the NDP candidates in Quebec this time around had to do the same thing. (Signing the nomination paper does not mean you’re a supporter of that candidate, it merely acknowledges that you have been informed that they are hoping to run in the election.)
So, a few bare minutes before the deadline, each of the candidates has to drop off their nomination papers with all of the required signatures. Elections Canada is not a huge organization (by government standards, they’re tiny). They don’t have the resources to do an instant check of the nomination papers. What they do is to verify that each of the signatories on the list is a registered voter in the riding.
Even this low barrier can be a problem, so Elections Canada recommends that candidates provide more than the minimum 100 signatures, as some of them may not be acceptable. Once all the names have been checked, if there are still not at least 100 acceptable signatures, then the Elections Canada folks do another pass through the list, and accept signatures from people whose addresses had registered voters in the previous election (the hurdle gets even lower).
Did you notice that last little bit? If you live at an address which had one or more registered voters living there in the last election, you are deemed to be a registered voter for the purposes of signing nomination papers. Is that not a low enough hurdle to avoid the need to submit forged signatures?
Update: Here’s the Globe & Mail story.
Update the second, 6 May: Elections Canada has declared the nomination papers to be valid. The other candidates still have the opportunity to challenge the result in court, although there may not much hope for them to succeed.
Nick, a V. Interesting post, for which many thanks.
Are you going to write a book on the worms that you have uncovered over the past 20? years?
Comment by Chris Greaves — May 4, 2011 @ 16:02
Write a book? Oh, hell no! That’d be too much like work. Blogging’s lighter pace works much better for me.
Comment by Nicholas — May 4, 2011 @ 16:34