Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, March 16, 2012

Robocalls strike at the heart of democracy

So what's the big deal about these robocalls and why is it a scandal?

If you watch, listen to, or read any kind of news you know that during the last federal election many voters are complaining to Elections Canada that they were contacted by telephone by someone claiming to be from the national body's office.

The calls consisted of an automated message telling voters that polling places had changed within their ridings and directed them to erroneous locations.

A number of these voters nevertheless found their way to their correct polling stations to cast their ballots.

But perhaps some did not. There's a lot of finger pointing going on in Ottawa over who is responsible for the calls. At this point, nobody knows for sure.

We think it's unlikely that these calls succeeded in changing the election outcome, particularly the overall party seat count results.

And the election seems like a long time ago now.

So why rake up the muck? Answer: this is a big deal.


Even this long after the fact this isn't something that should be relegated to the ancient history pile.

If even one person missed voting because of a robocall, they were essentially illegally disenfranchised.

If we don't get to the bottom of who did it this time, the problem only seems likely to grow when we next head to the polls.

We don't tend to think that these kinds of dirty tricks happen in Canadian politics.

It is our duty to make sure they don't happen again.

Otherwise we're headed for a democratic system that it is impossible to believe in.

On person, one vote is sacrosanct.

In fact, we wish more people would exercise that right, looking upon it as an obligation as a citizen of this country.

You have the right to choose who you think will best represent you in government and have your voice heard.

Nobody has the right to silence any voice.

After all, it's not impossible in ridings where the vote was close that a small handful of votes one way or another could have put a different person in office.

Even if the chance of that is tiny, it's serious. An interloper cannot be allowed to pervert the will of the people.

Voter apathy is a growing problem. With far too many people already claiming that they don't think their vote will make a difference, so they don't bother, we can't give people a legitimate reason to believe the democratic system is fundamentally broken in Canada.

We must at least ensure that people know they can head to the right polling place, without fear of being tricked and misdirected. We must ensure that everyone's vote is, indeed, counted.

Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: the Citizen

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