Howaboutthat wrote:Or here's a thought. Treat the people who vote like adults who know what they're doing, and get rid of the archaic rules regarding results.
It has hit me as very odd how strongly, over the last few months, some federal government officials, elected and otherwise, have defended the rules, which date from 1938. A little background on the time period helps make sense of it all.
Radio was the great threat, as it provided the only affordable (for the average voter) instant communications over distance. Not that a voter in Vancouver would be listening to a CBC station in Newfoundland or Halifax. Newfoundland wasn't yet a part of Canada. And, even back then, DX'ing that far wasn't that easy on AM/medium wave/broadcast band. Most of the shortwave repeaters of CBC and private stations did not come on the air until World War II.
Radio stations had wire service and/or network feeds that gave them near instant access to election results from other time zones.
The real eye opener though was the federal government's view of Radio. They were so scared of it that, in the early 1930s, they had set up the legal means to control Radio in Canada. By Control, I mean: own every radio station in this country. As the U.K. did the BBC. They didn't even allow other levels of government to own radio stations.
Fortunately, it was the Great Depression and the federal government couldn't come up with the funds to cover the country in federally-owned radio stations. So, they used private stations as affiliates of the CBC.
Point being: with that kind of federal mindset, it is easy to see how the 1938 law came about to control radio stations on voting day.