Quote:
Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
Someone can correct me if I am wrong but these list of signatures does not becomes something that is available to parties or candidates for election purposes so who is going to have this list of numbers and will be making calls? The list becomes available for public inspection but personal information such as address and contact info is supposed to be blacked out. There are rules and penalties around what can be done with the list of names.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
Once again, someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I'm certain that the Recall Act doesn't allow political organizations to gain information from recall processes to be used during an election campaign. If they can't and canvassers are following their code of conduct where they state that they will not use information obtained while canvassing for any purpose not authorized by the Citizen Initiative Act or Regulation then I sure hope people going door to door aren't willingly breaking the rules. But of course, I wouldn't be surprised if people are trying to garner information from these processes.
|
Ok, so you have made this comment twice—so I became curious enough to actually check the act and regulations.
Bottom line is this: the Act prescribes limits on what can be done with the petition documents and the list of signatories. You seem to be thinking of the obligation under s 10(1) to destroy documents after the CEO has issued a report. But that governs specific documents prepared under the act. It does not, nor does the Act otherwise, limit the ability of canvassers to keep their own ledger of who they talked to and what they talked about.
When it comes to laws like this, the ability to use the recall process in order to mine voter information is a “feature not a bug”. Recall that virtually the entire point of the idiotic “Recall Gondek” petition was to collect information from voters likely to vote against her in the next Mayoral election.
In other words, this government fully intended that consequence; they just didn’t think it would be used against them. This is a classic example of being “hoist on your own petard.”