Ballot-eaters take a bite out of federal politics

Vivian Belik
The Uniter (University of Winnipeg)

WINNIPEG (CUP) -- While most people will be placing an “X” on their ballot during next week’s election, a few will choose to add ketchup to theirs and eat it.

Shelagh Pizey-Allan, a first-year student at the University of Winnipeg, chose to eat her ballot at an advanced polling station this past week as a way to protest a political system which she feels is not working.

“I think that voting in general legitimizes the [political] system that we have — there are some small changes that can be achieved, but I think that the system is very undemocratic, and when we vote for it we legitimize it — that is why I’ve decided to eat my ballot,” said Pizey-Allan.

Pizey-Allan ran in the Fort Whyte provincial by-election this past December on a Green Party platform and is helping Green Party candidate Vere Scott with his federal campaign. She says that the existence of alternative political options in the federal election is important, but admits that she won’t be voting for the Green Party this time around because she does not agree with all of its platform policies.

“When you vote for a party you endorse all of their policies, and personally, I have some problems with some of the Green party policies.”

Pizey-Allen is not the only disillusioned young citizen who is hungry for change. Beau Burton, Coral Maloney and Chris Webb also chose to eat their ballots at advanced polling stations around Winnipeg on Monday. Burton, a member of the New Socialist Group, ate his vote because he did not want to support what he considers a capitalist system of democracy here in Canada.

Burton spoke at a political forum last week held at the University of Winnipeg entitled “Does the Federal Election Matter?” In it, he stated that he believes the current political system is highly corporately-influenced, and he thinks that influence “radically subverts the power of the people,” disconnecting them from the issues.

Much like Pizey-Allan, Burton also thinks that very little change can be accomplished through the federal electoral system.

Chris Webb, a landed immigrant who has been living in Canada for the past five years, cannot vote and has chosen to eat a fake ballot instead.

“I’m eating a [fake ballot] in solidarity with the immigrant community in Canada [that] is given no voice in the democratic system,” said Webb.

“I think the system needs to be reformed [to take into account] the way that votes are represented in the House and who is eligible to vote.”

According to Elections Canada, eating one’s ballot is an offense. On their website it states that: “eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act.”

In the 2000 elections, three voters in Edmonton were charged for eating their ballots. Although the charges were later dropped, it prompted Elections Canada to sternly warn voters about the repercussions of defacing ballots in the 2004 election.

It is not the illegality of eating one’s ballot, however, that is stopping other frustrated voters from carrying out similar acts of protest.

Sally Rudd, a fifth-year political science student working as a briefing secretary for the Minister of the Environment in Ottawa, agrees that the system needs reform but feels that there are ways of enacting change by working within the current framework.

“A more constructive way of achieving change in Canada is to vote for a party which has participatory democracy as part of its ideological platform,” said Rudd.

She believes that if people feel alienated from the democratic system in Canada it is not for lack of avenues open to citizens to become involved in the political process.

“It’s the citizen’s own responsibility to get involved in politics. There are a lot of opportunities to do so beyond voting, such as taking part in forums, online debates and political party events — it just takes a little more work than voting.”