BY KATHRYN MARSHALL - from CANADA.COM
Elections Canada has decided to take on the Twitterverse. It has announced that it will apply a law from the 1930s to prevent election results from Atlantic Canada being posted on Twitter before the polls close in the rest of the country. Elections Canada claims that it is merely enforcing the law, but it applies it so unevenly that its argument does not hold water. This is why bureaucrats shouldn’t be let anywhere near social media—their instinct is to control it.
Section 329 of the Elections Act states that “no person shall transmit the results” from one riding to another before the polls are closed. The fine for breaking this can be up to $25,000 – and Elections Canada has a history of prosecuting people under this section. After the 2000 election it raided the home of a man who had posted the early results on his website, fined him and seized his computer.
So posting results on a website is taboo, but Elections Canada says it is ok to share them by email, phone call or even a Facebook message. Still sounds like transmitting to me. But it is forbidden to post the results to your Facebook profile or on your Twitter feed. Read More
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