Safeguarding our Elections
Going into this election campaign, there is still ongoing concerns about election interference. Even within our borders, we are faced with ongoing disinformation campaigns from domestic players that risk undermining confidence in our elections. While Elections BC has functioned as a professional and competent body, it's ability to deal with a serious threat or a major partisan misinformation campaign has ever been seriously tested.
One of our proposals when examining voting reform was to examine who was given ultimate deciding authority if a poll needed to be extended due to an unknown threat, or a major contravention levelled midcampaign by a player. Would the Chief Electoral Officer on his own be able to exercise their authority in an unknown scenario in a highly partisan environment?
To ensure our electoral authority has the legitimacy and authority to deal with a major threat or foreign interference at a high level, a quasi-judicial electoral integrity tribunal be formed consisting of the the Chief Electoral Officer, a Supreme Court judge, and other qualified individuals who will have the ability to make decision in regard to the conduct of an election with appeals directly to the Appeals Court.