A permanent voters' list for elections.

• Author: Lavoie, Louis

The importance of reducing expenditures and improving programs, systems and procedures concerning voter registration in Canada is again on the public agenda. This article argues that in order to find ways for saving substantial amounts of money it is necessary to do away with the repetitive and antiquated enumeration systems at all levels of government and in the process reduce the election period by up to fifteen days. Times have changed and so have the life styles and our systems must reflect that.

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Voter registration is the basis of the democratic process. Without it, citizens could not legitimately cast the ballot to which they are entitled. If a voter registration system is to be judged appropriate to a free and democratic society like Canada it must be designed according to the following principles:

* it must enable all qualified citizens to be included on the list of electors.

* it must be designed so as to prevent fraud.

* it must be widely accepted as an authoritative and legitimate means of orderly listing the electoral population.

* it must provide universal accessibility, be widely perceived as fair and reasonable, and work effectively in terms of cost.

Canada is the only major democracy in the world that waits until an election is called to register electors to vote. Since the exact date is always unknown, the federal and provincial governments assume much more responsibility for voter registration than do governments in other democracies.

Few of the basic details of the registration system in Canada have changed since 1938. The fundamentals that were put in place at that time largely define the system today which is lengthy, complicated and cumbersome. Registration is also the most costly part of the election and is certainly a less practical system than the ones in force in other countries which do not enumerate at each election The United States, Mexico, United Kingdom and France all have some form of permanent lists.

At the federal level in Canada, by far the most expensive portion of the election is the enumeration organized by Returning Officers in each of the 295 electoral districts with an average of 70,000 electors each. The cost of the 1988 federal enumeration was about $24,655,000 for payments to enumerators. In addition, an amount of $3,145,000 was paid for Revision which follows enumeration There was also an amount of over $8,500,000 for the printing and mailing of "vote at cards". Hence the total cost of voter registration for the 1988 federal election was just over $36,000,000. When indexed to 1995 costs this amount comes to nearly $50,000,000.

Available provincial data would indicate that a comparable amount was spent to register voters for recent provincial and territorial elections. At this time only British Columbia maintains a permanent list. At the municipal level, lists are sometimes prepared from available local records and often computerized.

The Minister responsible for electoral reform in the province of...