At the time this article was
written R. Kenneth Carty was Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science
at the University of British Columbia. This is a revised version of a paper
presented at a round table organized by the Canadian Study of Parliament Group
at the Canadian Political Science Association meetings at Brock University in
June 1996.
This article looks at previous
examples of televoting for selecting party leaders and explores something of
the reaction of televoters themselves to the process. What was their experience
with televoting? What do they think about it? In the end, it is answers to
questions like these that are likely to determine whether or not televoting
will be acceptable in the wider political system.
On February 28, 1996, the Chief
Electoral Officer of Canada sent a report to Parliament calling for a
wide-ranging series of amendments to the Canada Elections Act. The many
proposals reflect the impact of rapid changes transforming both the country’s
social organization and its evolving democratic norms, as well as the new
technologies available for conducting elections. At the same time, the report
implicitly points to the organizational rigidities inherent in a system in
which detailed electoral procedures must be spelled out in legislation that is,
by its nature, not always easy to amend. One recommendation calls for giving the
Chief Electoral Officer the power to conduct pilot projects in order to
"test new electoral procedures". The intention is obviously to allow
the CEO to experiment with rapidly changing technologies and procedures before
proposing that they be adopted across the system. The example the report offers
is telephone voting.
For many, telephone voting seems
almost inevitable, an obvious feature of the electronic democracy that seems to
be rushing towards us. Its promoters argue that televoting technology promises
real organizational efficiencies and that televotes may be the tool by which a
continuous universal franchise becomes a vital aspect of public
decision-making. Others, less sanguine, fear that televoting will become one
more aspect of an increasingly alienating and fragmenting electoral process in
which the collective, public dimension of politics gives way to a set of
individualized, private interactions.
While small scale tests of
televoting (perhaps in by-elections as suggested by the CEO) might help to
evaluate the broader utility of the technology, the fact is that we already
have some important evidence. Since 1992, four Canadian provincial political
parties have now used televoting to choose their leader, one of whom has gone
on to become a premier.1 What do the stories of those leadership
contests tell us about the strengths and weaknesses of televoting? The analyses
done on three of these contests have revealed much about the impact of new
processes of leadership selection for the parties and the decisions they made.2
Provincial Party Televotes
The record of the four provincial
leadership televotes is mixed. None of them involved very large electorates yet
two were beset by technical difficulties. The numbers voting were: Saskatchewan
Conservatives 3,298; British Columbia Liberals 6,540; Nova Scotia Liberals
6,998 and Alberta Liberals 11,004. The Nova Scotia Liberal televote, the first
to use the new technology, had a system crash and the party was forced to rerun
the vote two weeks later; the Alberta Liberal party leadership vote had a
number of difficulties and at one point balloting had to be suspended so that
the phone lines could be cleared and the process restarted. These experiences,
with the two largest of the party electorates, are hardly encouraging. On the
other hand, however, it must be noted that the Nova Scotians were ultimately
able to use the televote over two successive ballots on the same day and the
Albertans did manage to conduct a preferential vote on its second ballot. These
were no mean feats for a new and unfamiliar (to the voters and candidates
alike) process. By contrast the British Columbian and Saskatchewan televotes
went smoothly and were generally regarded a success.
Choosing a voting system involves a
host of decisions, big and small, that raise questions ranging from the meaning
of the vote as a social as well as an individual act down to a simple matters
of organizational capacity and competence.
Adopting televoting for party
leadership contests has been one aspect of a general movement away from
delegate conventions and towards direct votes by the entire party membership.
The intention has been to empower all party members and in doing so weaken the
grip over the leadership held by the elite groups which have traditionally
dominated conventions. A number of the criticisms of the televote leadership
contests have in fact been criticisms of universal membership voting but the
two should not be confused. Televoting is but one mechanism for conducting
universal votes. While it now appears that universal voting, in one form or
another, is going to be adopted by most Canadian political parties, it is not
clear whether traditional paper ballots cast in public polling places or
televoting from home will be the method of choice. Those technologies are not
value free. Each carries its own biases and prompts parties to organize and
operate in particular ways.
Given the role election systems
play in legitimating democratic decision-making, the attitude of the electors
towards the process used is critical. These attitudes are in part determined by
principle (such as one-person one-vote or secret ballots), but they are also a
function of voters’ experience. For instance, most Canadians appear to accept a
degree of malapportionment as a workable response to the geographic realities
of their country.
Positive Televote Experiences
So what has been party members’
experience with televoting? To answer that question we can begin by simply
asking those who participated if they think that their party should continue to
use the televote technology. The answer, for the three parties for which we
have survey data, is clearly yes. Alberta Liberals, whose leadership process
was the least positive, are most equivocal: Only thirty-three percent of them chose
televoting when asked to indicate the system they wanted to see used the next
time their party chose a leader. But that said, televoting was preferred over
any of three other options and a majority opted for it rather than a
traditional delegate convention. By comparison, British Columbian Liberals are
considerably more positive: seventy percent of those who televoted thought that
their party should continue to use the system in leadership contests, and
three-quarters of these who had participated in the provincial televote would
recommend it for use by the federal party in its next national leadership
selection. The first televoters, Nova Scotia Liberals, are apparently the most
enthusiastic of all about the new process. Despite the fact that it failed them
on the first try, ninety percent said that the party should use it again.
Comparing Televoting with
Ballots
This general willingness to endorse
televoting, and support its continued use, suggests a good measure of voter
satisfaction with the technology and confidence in its ability to organize fair
and efficient electoral choice. The consistency with which televoting has won
the support of those who have used it is striking. But what is it about this
technology that recommends it to those who have employed it in a real election
contest? To explore this we can draw upon the results of a detailed survey of
British Columbia Liberals conducted soon after their 1993 leadership televote
exercise.3 Analyses of the data show that there are a number of
regular attitudinal differences between party members who participated in the
televote and those who did not. In part those differences reflect other
unrelated party divisions, for one of the (unsuccessful) leadership contestants
made the adoption of televoting a campaign issue and, sensing defeat, his
supporters were less inclined to vote. But the differences may also reflect
something of the lessons of experience.
While it is possible to question
voters about their experience with a particular process, such questions are
rather abstract. To try and elicit a judgment rooted in experience, BC Liberal
televoters were asked to compare televotes with paper ballots (cast either at a
polling place or at a party meeting) on seven dimensions. They responded by
indicating which of the two processes they believed to be better, or whether
they thought there was no difference between the two .
On the two criteria that speak most
directly to "user friendliness" – convenience and ease – voters
overwhelmingly choose televoting as a better process. That is hardly surprising
for the ability to vote from one’s home rather than traipse out into Canadian
weather is an obvious advantage of televoting. On a related issue, that of cost
effectiveness, voters are less positive about televoting although a majority
still rate it higher than a traditional paper ballot. This comparatively high
support for paper ballots is due to the way in which the BC Liberals financed
their leadership vote. It was those who objected to the televote fee that were
significantly more likely to rank paper ballots better on the cost
effectiveness dimension. Had the leadership vote been paid for in some more
indirect fashion many of those voters might easily have come to different
conclusions about its cost effectiveness.
The other four comparisons pit
televoting against paper ballots on more obviously political qualities:
privacy, fairness, democracy and security. On all of these dimensions
televoting is not so obviously preferred as it is on the efficiency and economy
type dimensions, although on none of them is the traditional ballot rated
better. Televoting remains the choice of the largest number but about a third
of the respondents do not see any difference between the two voting methods on
these criteria. It is worth noting that those BC Liberals who did not
participate in the televote thought paper ballots better on all of these four
measures. This difference suggests that experience does teach some lessons: the
very process of televoting for the first time appears to have convinced many of
its merits. The measure on which televoting does least well among those who
have used it is security. This takes us to a consideration of some of the hard
criticisms made of televoting and an assessment of what televoters think of
them.
Televoters’ Criticisms
The BC televoters were asked about
a number of criticisms, some of which related to the mechanics of the process
as they had experienced it, some which addressed wider political criticisms.
One of the sharpest complaints about televoting is that, unlike a traditional
process where a voter must appear in person, there is no easy way to ensure
that the individuals voting are those entitled to do so. The fear, of course,
is that this could allow slick operators to buy up PIN numbers and cast a large
number of votes. A PIN is the unique personal identification number that each
voter uses to log into the vote system. Given that the abolition of purchased
seats and plural voting are generally seen as victories in the evolution of a
democratic electorate, this problem with televoting is not insignificant and a
majority (53.7%) of the televoters admit the validity of the charge. It is
precisely this group of televoters that rate paper ballots significantly better
on the security dimension.
The only other criticism that
attracts near majority support (48.8%) from televoters is the fact that those
participating had to pay a fee. No doubt that practice smacks of long
discredited poll taxes. This is hardly a major issue for no election process is
without cost and there are many ways in which elections can be funded other
than through user fees. While detailed cost benefit analyses remain to be done,
it would be surprising if the overall cost of a televote were greater than that
of establishing and running traditional staffed polling places.
Televoters are much more dismissive
of three more explicity political criticisms. Only about a fifth think that the
process strengthens the hand of party strategists in the process, and a
somewhat smaller proportion accept the notion that televoting is not attractive
to potential participants in the political process. A final criticisim of
televoting is that as a highly individual (as opposed to social) act it is
inherently alienating. BC leadership televoters do not seem to agree for only
twenty-two percent of them thought that the process weakened the connection
between them and the candidates in the contest. Thus, except for the real
problem of ensuring that it is eligible voters who are actually televoting,
there is not much support among these BC Liberals for televote criticisms.
Conclusions
Televoting may seem futuristic to
many. No doubt it challenges our very images of democracy which feature citizens
coming together at public polling places to cast their ballots. Almost
certainly it would lead to unexpected changes in the way we do politics. The
concerns that those skeptical of the process raise are important and need to be
debated. But it is difficult to believe that televoting will not be on the
agenda as more Canadians have some experience of the technology at their
workplace or in the market.
The evidence of the leadership
televotes held by political parties in three regions of the country suggests
that Canadians can easily embrace the technology and when they do so their
experience is generally very positive. So much so that they are keen to
continue to use it. The principal reservation televoters are left with is a
concern that the technology cannot guarantee that only properly qualified
electors cast ballots. As this is a version of the problem of equality
(allowing only one voter per elector), and thus the integrity of the democratic
process, it is not an insignificant issue. Televote advocates will have to find
a way to deal with it before their technology can or should find a ready
acceptance.
Notes
1. The premier is John Savage of
Nova Scotia. Gordon Campbell of British Columbia led his party to the largest
vote share in the subsequent provincial election but the vagaries of the
electoral system left him as leader of the opposition.
2. Stewart, I. et al.
"Pressing the Right Buttons: The Nova Scotia Liberals and
Tele-Democracy", in I. Stewart, Roasting Chestnuts: The Mythology of
Maritime Political Culture, UBC Press, Vancouver, 1994; Blake, D.E. &
R.K Carty, An Analysis of Televoting in the British Columbia Liberal Party a
report prepared for Maritime Tel. and Tel. of Halifax, N.S. 1994 and available
from them pp. 83; Archer, K. & D. Stewart, "Electronic Fiasco? An
Examination of the 1994 Liberal Leadership Selection in Alberta" paper
prepared for the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association,
St. Catharines, 1996. See also Leonard Preya, "The 1992 Nova Scotia
Liberal Leadership Convention", Canadian Parliamentary Review, Vol.
13, (No. 2, 1993) pp. 2-11.
3. This study was conducted with my
colleague Don Blake and was supported by M.T. & T. and the Liberal Party of
British Columbia. Despite their obvious interest in the study, neither of those
organizations sought to influence the research in any way. The data is on
deposit at the UBC library and available to researchers under standard terms of
access. Blake is not responsible for any of the analysis present here.