Very interested, but have to work afternoon shift Fri - Mon and I haven't a blog.If you have any use for this SDA minion :) let me know.

That would be illegal if done before 10:30 p.m. EST. I hope that everybody is careful about this.

I'm in if there is something I can do. Jason is leery of the idea.........Yea, Im in.

Syncro

I just spoke to Elections Canada at (800) 463-6868 and after being transferred to an expert on this matter I was informed that section 329 of the Canada Elections Act is in fact in force in this election. This is the section that was temporarily lifted for the 28 June 2004 election, following a decision by the British Columbia Supreme Court.

The exact words in effect are: "329. No person shall transmit the result or purported result of the vote in an electoral district to the public in another electoral district before the close of all of the polling stations in that other electoral district."

If my blog is back online by then, I will be blogging results from Surrey. Since I am out west, I am sure any results I broadcast will not contravene 329.

yep Vitruvius and Cherniak are correct:

http://electionresultscanada.com/news.html

Cherniak is right about something? Well I suppose there's a first time for everything :D

It won't have much effect, as I understand it the polls from Quebec to Alberta will all close at the same time (GMT).

That means Nfld. and the Maritimes one and a half hours earlier and B.C. one hour later.

No???

Syncro

CQ should be of help, no?

I'm sure CQ prolly will maz :))

fuck 'em! what'll they do arrest everybody blogging that night? it's unstoppable and the Libs hate it.

I called Elections Canada at (800) 463-6868 again, and asked what hours the polls are open in each time zone, in local time.

Newfoundland: 08:30 to 20:30
Atlantic: 08:30 to 20:30
Eastern: 09:30 to 21:30
Central: 08:30 to 20:30
Mountain: 07:30 to 19:30
Pacific: 07:00 to 19:00

So here's the deal: section 329 applies until the closing local time shown above in each zone, so in Mountain for example, we can't report to Pacific when our polls close at 19:30, because it's still 18:30 there. But in Eastern, they can report to Central when their polls close at 21:30, because it's already 20:30 Central.

So it's really a matter of two simple rules. (1) You can report your zone results to your zone and any zone east of you after your polls close. (2) You cannot report to zones west of you until their polls close, which may or may not be after yours do (check using the above table of local times).

But, and this is a big But, publishing a web site does probably count as "transmitting to the public", so if you publish a web site that can be viewed in Canada, you should not publish any election results until 19:00 Pacific Standard Time, unless you are intending to deliberately engage in civil unrest I suppose.

By the way, I spoke to two very nice people on my calls to Elections Canada as above. I explained the information I was seeking, and why: to post the correct data to a web site where there is currently a discussion about this going on. They seemed quite delighted to provide a straighforward answer to a straightforward question by a happy person. After hanging around in web logs comment sections, I can just imagine some of the calls they must get.

You might also like to know that section 323 prohibits transmitting any advertising information on election day, unless it's already been published, and section 328 prohibits publishing any "election survey" on election day, unless it has already been published. These sections are explicitly said, by Elections Canada, to apply to the Internet, unlike clause 319(d).

Oops, I forgot to mention that clause 319 does seem to exempt publishing opinions, by individuals for non-commerical purposes, at any time, even by the Internet:

"319. The definitions in this section apply in this Part.

"election advertising" means the transmission to the public by any means during an election period of an advertising message that promotes or opposes a registered party or the election of a candidate, including one that takes a position on an issue with which a registered party or candidate is associated. For greater certainty, it does not include

"(a) the transmission to the public of an editorial, a debate, a speech, an interview, a column, a letter, a commentary or news;

"(b) the distribution of a book, or the promotion of the sale of a book, for no less than its commercial value, if the book was planned to be made available to the public regardless of whether there was to be an election;

"(c) the transmission of a document directly by a person or a group to their members, employees or shareholders, as the case may be; or

"(d) the transmission by an individual, on a non-commercial basis on what is commonly known as the Internet, of his or her personal political views."

I'm certainly no laywer, but it seems to me that 319 gives some blanket protection, and then 323, 328, and 329 place some explict restrictions.

The Canada Elections Act is at: http://www.canlii.org/ca/sta/e-2.01/

Good to know. Thanks Vitruvius.

Syncro

If they stop bloggers then they got's ta stop gay marriages. One form of freedom of expression can't ban another....

...one more of Paulie's legacies. Ban bloggers. What's wrong Paul, gonna take your ball and go home?

thx Vitruvius. However, I doubt that the law extends into other countries.Persons in other countries can post wotever they want without being charged.Can't you just see the govt telling the US to hand over those bloggers who posted election results before the poles closed?! Oh yeah!

Hi Kate,

I e-mailed you yesterday about my article pertaining to this very issue. Thanks for your incredibly quick response; I appreciated it.

As per your question, I don't have the names of people who are planning to blog election results handy, but I have come across at least two dozen blogs/blog comments in which people have expressed an interest in posting results over the past month or so. I'm trying to dig some of them up, but it looks as though posts have been removed (for legal reasons?). I've also spoken with a number of people (who are by no means 'big names' in the blogosphere, but they have blogs) who plan to post results. They've asked that I not share their URLs until E-day, lest Elections Canada take pre-emptive action.

History Lesson... "BTW, the results blackout was invented by Trudeau,
just after he conducted the 50 year census. The census,
probably the last of its kind, asked people to voluntarily
identify themselves, ethnically, religiously, and politically,
if they wished. From that they had a map of basically,
what type of people voted how, and what therefore the same name
in any phone book indicated also on a house-by-house basis.
THEN Elections Canada was created, and every riding in
the country was "redistributed geographically", which is
another word for gerimander. That's why Trudeau kept
getting elected, people imagined he was popular, so they
followed the flow. The blackouts helped conceal occasional
conservative gains in the east from encouraging conservative
voters in the west.

If you KNOW you can't win, it is a lot
easier to stay home and not vote at all. But if you saw a
close race, you might get down to the poll and vote blue
to tip the balance.

That's how we got the blackout.

Ironically, I know about this because my mother was a
census taker."
This excerpt is from a letter from my cousin in Ottawa.

I have every intention of blogging I if I hear the results from back east I will write about it.
If not just to get rid of this ridicules law.If enough bloggers do so what can or will the government do.
I am sure Canadians vote more on personal convictions than poll results.

My Unique situation:

-Currently at school in Hungary
-"live" in Don Valley East Riding
-What limitations would there be on me to blog results from here? (where would i get results from my own riding, back home, anyway?)

any suggestions?

...Do you think someone would be breaking the law if they posted the information behind a link with a specific warning that viewing such information might break the law depending on the reader's timezone?

One might argue that the onus would then be on the reader to respect the conditions of the blog...?

ProjectAlberta.com just created a USA mirror site at ProAlberta.com (the site will mirror ProjectAlberta after the election) and for posting election results we'll disabled the IP tracking and are allowing anonymous posts for added security.

So http://www.proalberta.com/ is a USA based website, where anonymous posts are allowed and IP address are not tracked - the database will be wiped cleaned ASAP on Monday evening to add even more security.

After the election the site will be used as mirror as I prepare to move ProjectAlberta.com outside Canada for added freedom of our members - Thanks.

What everybody seems to be ignoring is that websites don't transmit anything. It doesn't work like radio where we're sending out signals unsolicited across the airwaves.

A website exists only on a local computer, and rather than transmiting anything, another computer has to go across and retrieve anything we write about.

It's really more akin to somebody in Vancouver getting their hands on a (very) late edition Toronto newspaper than anything being transmitted.

I'm in Barbados. I doubt if Canadian law applies to Canadians in foreign countries, using a foreign ISP.

I'll be doing what I can over at http://www.ekonoline.com

Another case of bureaucratic left hand / right hand stupidity. If it is that important that voters in BC don't know who got elected in Nfld, why doesn't Elections Canada just withhold the results until all polls are closed ? Too simple ?

Probably posted wrongly here but i just can't stand it anymore!!!
Why do low income taxpayers pay for the university education of the children of the rich it is so unfair,the benefits of a stable economic future plain mental stability are part of what accures to students ,you should know that the tuition pays very little ,perhaps 20 percent of the cost.
Is this a case of the poor subsidizing the rich?
In B.C. even people who live in horrendously expensive housing can defer paying a portion of muni taxes ,again because only a few ,60thousand households are benefitting,WHy?
The private schools for the posh kids are also receiving funds from the general tax fund ,including the poor ,WHY?

I don't understand the outcry and hoopla about this section's law. In the hand, we're looking for discussion about the results. Does delaying this discussion for a few hours harm anybody? What is the convincing story against lifting such restrictions?