Friday, April 15, 2011

Elections Canada Declares Guelph Votes Valid

Good news for democracy, and for the students of University of Guelph.

Elections Canada has ruled that the ballots cast on Wednesday by the students will be considered valid.  Recanting his previous party statements, Stephen Harper has declared "We encourage Canadians of all regions, all walks of life from all backgrounds to participate in the election and vote for the candidate of their choice," However the Prime Minister sidestepped any mention of wrong doing on the part of his MP running for office, or any of their volunteers or staff.

  • "The Marty Burke campaign states that none of its workers or volunteers interfered with the process; in particular, none of its workers or volunteers touched a ballot box or ballot," the Conservative statement said.
However, counterpoint to this, is an innumerable number of student witnesses who immediately posted about it.  Here's a section of the article the CBC posted from Bren Anstett, a Guelph student.

  • She said she was trying to vote when “a guy came up making a huge scene stating that this polling station was illegal and tried to grab for the ballot box.”

    “I found this to be disruptive and disrespectful, as many students were in the line at the time to vote,” Anstett said the posting on her Facebook page.

    “It was clearly a legal polling station, as there was Elections Canada, Special Ballot written on all of the documents present.”
Other students have come forward as well corroborating her statement.

In other news, perhaps Mr Marty Burke is feeling the pressure, he's already missed two of three of his scheduled debates, and he's not the only Conservative candidate to do so.  Diane Ablonczy of Calgary Nose Hill (my previous Calgary riding) has apparently declared she will not attend any debates. 


The CBC article:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/04/15/cv-election-guelph-student-vote.html

The Official Conservative Article:
http://guelphmercury.blogs.com/guelphvotes/2011/04/tories-national-office-comes-to-burkes-defence.html

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