Best Practices in Election Reporting

The CEO was asked to conduct research on best practices on election reporting in other jurisdictions across Canada. Committee had previously noted changes in style and content in how election results had been reported during the last few elections. Some polls had been combined due to small numbers and the introduction of online voting in 2019 was not differentiated from mail-in ballots, nor from other advance voting opportunities.

Committee noted that Elections NWT has moved from a table format to a more visual representation of official results since 2007. Section 265 of the Elections and Plebiscites Act requires the CEO to provide, to the Speaker, a report setting out by polling division, the following:

• The number of votes cast for each candidate;
• The number of declined ballots;
• The number of rejected ballots;
• The number of names on the list of electors; and,
• Any other information the CEO considers should be included.

In their report, the CEO notes that due to small population sizes in some communities, some voting opportunities are not well attended and could have only a handful of people using such an opportunity. Reporting such small numbers could ultimately compromise the secret ballot. As a result, in some cases these polls cannot be reported separately.

The CEO recommends that the Legislative Assembly not be overly prescriptive in the reporting requirements under section 265 of the Act. The CEO notes that Elections NWT is committed to the principles of open data and will work to ensure future reports contain as much detail as possible, without compromising the secrecy of individual's votes.

Committee agrees with the CEO's recommendation, and at this time is not in favour of setting out more detailed reporting requirements in the Act but encourages Elections NWT to adopt a consistent approach to reporting from election to election.

Publicly Disclosing Addresses

The Assembly directed the CEO to conduct a review of the requirements to publicly disclose a candidate's residential address and return to the Legislative Assembly with the findings of that review and any potential amendments to the Elections and Plebiscites Act. The CEO notes that in addition to the requirement to publish a candidate's address, the Act requires the publication of the address of official agents. The CEO also noted that candidate's financial reports are required to include the addresses of contributors to their campaign and this information has been included in summary reports on the Elections NWT website. As a result, the CEO expanded their review to include these disclosures.

Across Canada, seven jurisdictions do not publish physical addresses of candidates, and two jurisdictions have noted that they will be stopping this practice in the immediate future. The CEO notes that the NWT is one of only three jurisdictions to publish the address of an agent, and one of four that publishes the addresses for donors.

It is important to note that the Act requires that a candidate, agent, and contributor must be a resident of the Northwest Territories but does not require they be resident in the electoral district they are running in. As a result, as long as the community they reside in is identified and not their physical address, the goals of the Act would still be met.

The CEO concluded there is limited value in publishing a candidate's residential address. The loss of privacy for the candidate is not outweighed by the public of interest of disclosing the location of a candidate's home. There are other safeguards in the Act to ensure that a candidate is resident in the Northwest Territories, and none of these require the candidate's home address to be made public.

This also holds true for publishing an official agent's residential address as part of proclamation of a poll. The Act requires that any campaign material include a name and phone number so that the public can ask questions of the campaign without requiring the official agent's address.

In regards to contributors, any contributor to a campaign must disclose their residential address to the campaign so that the official agent can properly report all donations, financial or otherwise, in the required financial report. This information has been included in the summary report prepared by Elections NWT, but it is not required.

In response to complaints from the public, and advice from the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Elections NWT will no longer include addresses in the candidate financial report summaries posted on the Elections NWT website. Only their community of residence will be posted. Committee is satisfied with this step taken by Elections NWT.

Recommendation 2

The Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures recommends that the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to remove the requirement to publish a candidate's or official agent's residential address under sections 96 and 97, and to substitute community of residence.

I will now turn to the Member for Nahendah. Thank you.