2015 Federal Election

[chutten]

One way in which advanced polling differs from the process on the day of the election is that they transcribe your name and address onto a separate list, and you are asked to sign next to the information.

That's what the media reported and what I suggested could be computerized, not the actual balloting itself that others have criticized above.

Indeed. This could at the very least be a duplicate of the original list with a signature field.

Presumably the list from which voters' names and addresses are transcribed is in some computer database already.

This is the list of registered voters stored by Elections Canada. It is compiled from many sources, the primary one being the information taken down on your T1 General by the Canada Revenue Agency every spring (if you tick the box that says "please share my name and address with Elections Canada").

P.S. I never understood the point of collecting all those entry cards we have to fill in on flights that enter Canada. There must be 10s of millions of them every year. Once you've been allowed to enter Canada what's the point of keeping them? Does someone in Ottawa actually read them?      At least now you have the option of scanning them with some basic OCR validation and data collection. If that became universal it might actually provide some useful statistical data.

This helps figure out a lot of things: number of people entering Canada, by what means, for how long, for what purpose, bringing what declarable items. To say nothing of how it's a useful visual token for the Border Security and Customs and Immigration folks (like a bording pass is for airline and security staff).

This information can be used in a lot of useful ways from determining which entry points are most used and are, thus, in most need of funding; to what areas of the country will be more likely to receive tourism funding to develop or protect the area; to what goods people are purchasing abroad showing trade deficiencies.