Strange Rumblings In Far West Lotusland: Scrutineers Or...

...Suppressionists?

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Update, Lunchtime Tues Apr 23rd....Had a bit of a back-and-forth on the comment thread to this post about whether the students were actually voting or just registering, given that organized advance polls don't happen until the last few days before the general...However, just received confirmation via the Twittmachine from Mr. Eby that the students were, indeed, voting....I outline the how and why in the comment thread...In my opinion, this bit of extra info actually suggests that something not so nice really may have been going down with respect to the 'scrutinizing'...That's explained in the comments as well...

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The race between Christy Clark and David Eby in Vancouver-Point Grey is likely to be a close one.

After all, they were only separated by a few hundred votes in the relatively recent by-election.

So.

The votes of kids going to school at UBC who live in the riding (ie. ALL the kids who have lived in residence during the academic year just ending) could be the difference between one candidate winning or losing.

Which means that you would expect that both candidates would be doing all they can to get kids to vote.

Right?

Well....

Perhaps not.

Zoe McKnight of the VSun has the story. Here is her lede:

Liberal party scrutineers are challenging the proof of residency submitted by some University of B.C. students attempting to vote in Premier Christy Clark’s riding.

A get-out-the-vote campaign sponsored by the New Democratic Party of B.C. brought about a dozen students by bus to the Elections B.C. district office on West Broadway last Wednesday in the riding of Vancouver-Point Grey to vote to cast advance ballots.

But when fourth-year geography and political science student Quinn Runkle tried to use a printout of her university account proving she lives in Acadia House on UBC campus, her residency credentials were challenged by Liberal party members acting as “candidate representatives.”...


Now.

I'll stop there for the moment so that we can go and have a look at the Elections BC webpage about how University kids can prove their residency in a riding where they are living while going to school:


School/college/university-issued document 
Examples: admissions letter, report card, transcript, residence acceptance/confirmation, tuition/fees statement, student card


Hmmmmm...

Didn't the student concerned, above, indicate that she had "a printout of her university account proving she lives in Acadia House on UBC campus"?


With that we will now return to Ms. McKnight's VSun piece (but I highly recommend you go and read the whole thing for complete context):


...Liberal party communications officer Sam Oliphant said the party’s scrutineers had concerns about whether a screen shot is unreliable proof of residency.

“We asked for clarification about what would constitute an acceptable proof of residency and whether a screen shot of a residency page or simply showing a smartphone image would be something (Elections B.C.) would accept,” he wrote in an email, adding university transcripts or proof of registration were more commonly used....


So.

Based on that, here's what I would like to know....

Why didn't the spokesperson, a fine fellow named Mr. Oliphant, apologize profusely and explain to the VSun's reporter that the BC Liberal party would stop this practice immediately and tell its scrutineers to actually follow Elections BC's published rules and guidelines rather than assuming they should only accept documents that they perceive are "more commonly used".


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Now, of course, one could never possibly imagine that the good Ms. Clark, or any of her volunteers or people that work for her, even those most recently hired, would ever engage in a deliberate voter suppression strategy....Right?
As for the good Mr. Oliphant himself....He sure does get around, eh?

The supreme irony in all this?...Well...While the BC Liberal Party appears to be workin' it, hard, in Vancouver Pt. Grey, their candidate is, most definitely not.

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