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    Canadian Political Science Association
    2020 Annual Conference Programme

    Confronting Political Divides
    Hosted at Western University
    Tuesday, June 2 to Thursday, June 4, 2020
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    Presidential Address:
    Barbara Arneil, CPSA President

    Origins:
    Colonies and Statistics

    Location:
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 05:00pm to 06:00pm
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    KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
    Ayelet Shachar
    The Shifting Border:
    Legal Cartographies of Migration
    and Mobility

    Location:
    June 04, 2020 | 01:30 to 03:00 pm
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    Keynote Speaker: Marc Hetherington
    Why Modern Elections
    Feel Like a Matter of
    Life and Death

    Location:
    Wednesday, June 3, 2020 | 03:45pm to 05:15pm
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    Plenary Panel
    Indigenous Politics and
    the Problem of Canadian
    Political Science

    Location: Arts & Humanities Building - AHB 1R40
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 10:30am to 12:00pm

Canadian Politics



A03 - Election Administration and Reform

Date: Jun 2 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Simon Kiss (Wilfred Laurier University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Louise Carbert (Dalhousie University)

I came, I saw, I voted: Polling Locations in Canada: Holly Ann Garnett (Royal Military College of Canada), Sean Grogan (Polytechnique Montréal)
Abstract: In recent years, election administrators have sought to make the voting process easier, through a variety of convenience voting measures, from mail-in ballots to advance voting. In Canada, while there are some postal and absentee voting options, most Canadians still vote at an assigned physical polling location, be that in advance or on election day. However, despite the importance of physical polling locations in the Canadian context, there is little research on this topic. This paper will look at one issue regarding polling locations that has yet to be studied in the Canadian context: the geographical locations of polling stations, particularly in reference to where voters live. It considers two major questions: Firstly, how accessible are polling locations by a variety of methods of transportation (car, walk, public transport)? How does this vary by riding/region? And secondly, does distance and travel time to polling location impact turnout in a polling division? Is this relationship conditional on socio-economic status? The responses to these questions have important scholarly and practical implications. For scholars, this add evidence to the literature on the costs of voting, particularly whether distance travelled to a polling location impacts voter turnout. For practitioners, this will speak to a number of key issues that election administrators must balance in their pre-election planning: including whether to have more polling locations closer to where voters live, or provide better equipped and larger polling stations, though more sparsely placed around the country.


A Bayesian Multi-Level Model with Post-Stratification for Forecasting Multi-District Elections in Canada: Rohan Alexander (University of Toronto), Monica Alexander (University of Toronto), Michael Chong (University of Toronto)
Abstract: The overall outcome of an election in a multi-district system such as Canada's turns on the number of electoral divisions won by each party. Despite this, traditional polling in Canada tends to focus on broad national-level estimates of support for major parties. In this paper we forecast the number of ridings won by each of the larger political parties in Canada at the 2015 and 2019 federal elections. Our approach uses data from the Canadian Election Study along with census data and a Bayesian multi-level regression model with post-stratification to estimate riding-level vote shares. We find that our approach performs well out-of-sample, and it has additional advantages over traditional polling including improved interpretability, transparency, and better communication of statistical uncertainty.


The Language of Electoral Reform in Canada: Rimmy Riarh (York University)
Abstract: The recent federal election in Canada has reignited debate around the issue of electoral reform. For the first time in federal history, the ‘runner up’ in terms of the popular vote won a plurality of seats in parliament, with Liberal Party (33.1%) having received 157 out of 338 seats. Following on the heels of a 2015 federal election in which the Liberal Party campaigned on the promise of electoral reform, the issue was quickly abandoned once the Liberals had secured a majority government. At the provincial level, campaigns around electoral reform have spurred referendums in BC (2005, 2009, 2018) as well as PEI (2019), all of which ultimately failed at the ballot box. This paper will analyse the discursive strategies of political actors in promoting and discouraging electoral reform. Through an analysis of the aforementioned campaigns on electoral reform, this paper utilises Norman Fairclough’s CDA approach to assess the rhetoric of political actors, as well as the media’s representation of electoral reform. This paper has three primary areas of focus: (i) the ways in which actors attempt to decontest (Freeden, 1996) particular understandings of concepts such as representation, democracy, and community in mobilising support for/against electoral reform (ii) the promotion of FPTP in mainstream media iii) the ideological/institutional orientations of political parties which affects the availability of the language of electoral reform. Thus, this paper is an attempt to expound the effectiveness of particular discourses surrounding this issue as well as interrogate the potentialities for future endeavours in electoral reform.


Estimating Historical Election Results in Canada Under Counterfactual Electoral Systems: Samuel Baltz (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Abstract: The political conversation about electoral system reform might be Canada’s single most important policy discussion, but political scientists have very little evidence for what its effects might be. I develop and apply a series of formal and empirical models to estimate how electoral system reform might affect Canadian elections. I begin by proposing methods for estimating historical elections under several different counterfactual electoral systems, first using the strong assumption that strategic voting does not exist. For some systems, such as party list proportional representation with the largest remainder method, estimates in the absence of strategic voting can be exact and are quite simple to estimate. For other systems, for example ranked choice voting or party list proportional representation with runoffs, more sophisticated methods are required. In these cases, the estimates are not exact, and they require more information than just historical vote counts, such as information from public surveys. Of course, electors’ vote choices are known to be a function of the electoral system, through the mechanism of strategic considerations. To account for this, I extend a formal model of strategic voting to cover electoral systems other than single-member district first-past-the-post. Using several rulesets for electors to select either a vote choice or abstention, and given certain the features of Canadian institutions in each historical election, I present preliminary estimates of Canadian elections under counterfactual electoral systems. This analysis will inform expectations about how Canadian elections would change in response to a change in the electoral system.


How do Canada’s Election Administrative Tribunals Measure Up to a Best-Practice Independent Enforcement System?: Duff Conacher (University of Ottawa)
Abstract: The paper presents the first examination of whether Canada’s election administrative tribunals measure up to a best-practice independent enforcement system. The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) position was established in 1920, and the Commissioner of Canada Elections (Commissioner) was established in 1974. Together, they ensure that federal election officials, candidates, parties, and third parties, all comply with wide-ranging standards that help protect the integrity of Canadian elections, and integrity in politics in between elections. The paper develops a best-practice model for enforcement of the key election and political integrity rules that apply to all of these actors using a Legal Pluralism approach, including standard theory law enforcement approaches as well as behavioural psychology approaches aimed at establishing a culture of integrity. The model also draws from best-practice international standards for law enforcement as set out by international organizations such as the United Nations and OECD, and best-practice domestic standards as determined by the results of research conducted by legal, political science and behavioural economics scholars. The paper then analyzes the legal structure and operations of the CEO and Commissioner to determine if they measure up to the best-practice model in terms of independence and effectiveness of enforcement policies and practices. Recommendations for changes are set out to close any gaps between their legal structure and operations and the best-practice model. The recommendations will likely also apply to other tribunals that play any role in ensuring the integrity of any part of government operations in Canada,




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