PoliBlog

Hello Waterloo Region Electorate! It’s time again for a Federal Election. To head off the usual dearth of information I’ve collected information about the candidates running in the five ridings of Waterloo Region.

Federal Election 2015 – WR Candidates

This page will be updated as I get more information about each candidate, so if you’d like to stay up-to-date you can subscribe to the page updates via ChangeDetection.com, or add the RSS feed to your favourite reader.

I’m also maintaining a calendar of public events where the candidates will be appearing.

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[ai1ec view=”agenda” cat_name=”federal_election_2015″ exact_date=”2015-8-2″]

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You can add the iCal feed to your favourite calendar application.

This year it should be easier for me to gather that information, as I’m running for the Green Party in Kitchener-Conestoga. But still, if you find Errors or Omissions, or have Additions or Updates for either the candidates’ info or the calendar then please let me know at bjonkman@sobac.com or leave a comment on this page.

With both the City of Waterloo (warning: 88 kByte PDF document) and the City of Cambridge (warning: 4,000 kByte PDF document) considering Internet voting for 2014, I wrote that E-voting is Considered Harmful. Although I discussed only the integrity of Internet voting, not the many security issues of voting online, the Cities should consider that some of the largest sites on the Internet have not been able to protect themselves against malicious intrusion.

Jeremy Epstein from the technology blog Freedom to Tinker provided expert testimony to a Virginia state Senate Committee Hearing on a bill to allow military voters to cast their votes via the Internet, and has written an article comparing Hacking newspapers vs. hacking elections:

The past few days have revealed that the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post have all been hacked by Chinese government-affiliated organizations, for the purpose of spying on reporters. The Washington Post says that the attacks were detected over a year ago, and had been going on for at least a year before that. Commercial security products like anti-virus did not detect the malware, which isn’t surprising to anyone who is familiar with signature-based schemes. The attacks on major newspapers were significant enough that Krebs on Security quotes Gunnar Petersen saying it would be “more surprising would be a major newspaper outlet that wasn’t hacked by the Chinese”. (This in turn reminded me of the Nixon enemies list, where being omitted from the list was a sign that one was unimportant, and “Newsman Daniel Schorr and [actor] Paul Newman stated, separately, that inclusion on the list was their greatest accomplishment.”.)

 

So what does this have to do with voting? The NY Times story appeared on Jan 30. On Jan 29, I testified to the Virginia Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections hearing in opposition to SB 830 and 874. These two bills would require the Virginia State Board of Elections to allow military voters to cast their votes via the Internet. (The Patron (sponsor) of 874 said that it was not internet voting, but rather returning the ballot via electronic format, which is to say by email or web site. I fail to see the a meaningful difference between that an internet voting.)

 

In my testimony, I explained that internet voting is harder than almost any other kind of activity on the internet including banking – and that the only reason we can do banking and other activity online is because of cross-checks and the willingness to accept a level of fraud that’s not possible with voting.

 

In response to my testimony, representatives of the State Board of Elections were asked by the senators whether they were confident that the system was secure. The SBE representative assured the senators that the system was secure. Unfortunately I was not permitted to respond to that assertion, and the SBE wasn’t challenged why they believe that they can provide the necessary protection.

 

I continue to be amazed that elected officials can read constant articles about hacking, and yet readily accept the assurances that there will be no problems with internet voting. If the SBE is so good at stopping attacks, perhaps they should supplement their paltry budget by providing security for banks, Federal government agencies like DOD, and the nation’s leading newspapers!

In reply to my request for permission to republish his article, Jeremy Epstein wrote:

[…] There’s been a number of ill-considered internet voting experiments in Canada, unfortunately. Probably the worst was in Edmonton AB, where there was a “mock election” to select a favorite jelly bean color. Based on that experiment, which disallowed any effort to break the system, the city concluded that the system was secure. I don’t understand how they came to that conclusion – or even to the much simpler conclusion that the apparent winner of the jelly bean contest was actually the selection of the majority of the voters. The only conclusion that I could reasonably draw is that people like internet voting – which we already knew. What we don’t know is how it can be done securely, and that experiment did nothing to further our understanding.

Updated 5 February 2013 to clarify that Jeremy Epstein testified at the Virginia state senate hearing, not a federal one.

Hacking newspapers vs. hacking elections by Jeremy Epstein from the Freedom to Tinker blog is republished with permission of the author.

During last year’s provincial election the Waterloo Region Chapter of Fair Vote Canada hosted a very successful all candidate’s meet & greet called Politics on the Patio. It’s election time again in K/W so we are reprising Politics on the Patio!

You are invited to meet with Eric Davis of the Liberal Party, Stacey Danckert of the Green Party, Elizabeth Rowley of the Communist Party, Allan Dettweiler of the Ontario Libertarian Party, John Turmel of the Paupers Party, Catherine Fife of the NDP and Garnet Bruce, Independent for an informal opportunity to enjoy a beer and have a chat with the candidates on Saturday, 1 September 2012 starting at 8:00pm at the Huether Hotel (map) in the Malt Room (ground floor at the back). We invited all the candidates so we may have some surprise last minute guests as well!

It was a great event last year and we expect it to be great this year as well. So, hope to see you at the Huether on the 1st!

wemakevotingeasy.ca? This is supposed to be the official Elections Ontario site? It seems a crass attempt at making a “folksy” website, but all the cute domain name does is cast doubt on the veracity of the site’s content. I’m still not sure if “We Make Voting Easy” is truly the official site. And similar content is scattered across both sites, making it hard to find information. Protip for Web designers: If you have an official domain name, use it!

Originally posted on 13 August 2012
Added Twitter and Facebook links, 27 August 2012

New 29 August 2012 — Twitter list of candidates: @fairvotewrc/kitwat2012

There seems to be no comprehensive list of candidates for the upcoming Kitchener Waterloo by-election, nor a convenient list of their contact information.

The Waterloo Region Votes site comes close, but the We Make Voting Easy site is absolutely pitiful. It lists only three candidates Update 22 Aug 2012: All candidates are listed. Now, it’s true that the Elections Ontario site Important Dates – 2012 By-Elections page indicates that nominations don’t actually open until Thursday, 16 August 2012. But if that’s true, why does “We Make Voting Easy” already have a list of candidates?

Here’s the list of candidates I’ve found. The list is subject to change as I find a more official source.

Stacey Danckert, Green Party

E-mail: stacey@danckert.ca
Phone & Text Message: +1-519-800-0476
Website: http://danckert.ca/
Twitter: @StaceyDanckert
Facebook: Stacey Danckert | Green Party of Ontario KW

Catherine Fife, NDP

E-mail: catherinefife@on.ndp.ca
Phone: +1-519-725-4888
Website: http://www.catherinefife.com/
Twitter: @CFifeKW
Facebook: Catherine Fife
Postal address: 182 Weber Street North, Waterloo, Ontario N2J 3H4

Eric Davis, Liberal Party

Email: info@ericdavis.ca
Phone: +1-519-746-1234
Website: http://ericdavis.ca/
Twitter: @eric_m_davis
Facebook: Eric Davis
Postal address: 380 King Street North, Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2Z3

The e-mail @ symbol was selected by Ray Tomlinson in 1971. Here we have contact information for candidates running in 2012, 41 years later. I’ll bet that e-mail is older than some of the candidates… Protip for candidates: You need to have a real e-mail address. With a web form my message to you doesn’t appear in my Sent Items, and so I’m going to forget you when it comes time to include you in events, debates and getting quotes in the media…

Tracy Weiler, PC Party of Ontario

E-mail (online form only): http://ontariopc.wufoo.com/forms/x7s9a7
Phone: +1-519-208-4133
Website: http://kw.ontariopc.com/
Twitter: @traceyweiler
Facebook: Tracey Weiler
Postal address: 156 King Street South, Waterloo, Ontario N2J 1P6

Kevin Clarke, The Peoples Political Party

E-mail (online form only): http://peoplespoliticalparty.net/contact.html
Phone: No phone number listed
Website: http://www.peoplespoliticalparty.net
Twitter: @voteClarkePeace
Facebook: The Peoples Political Party
Postal address: 75 Silver Springs Boulevard Unit 609, Toronto, Ontario M1V 1W2

Allan Dettweiler, Ontario Libertarian Party

E-mail: allan.dettweiler@libertarian.on.ca
Phone: +1-519-622-2527, +1-519-716-4359
Website: http://www.libertarian.on.ca/profiles/allan-r-dettweiler
Twitter: @LPOntario
Facebook: The Ontario Libertarian Party
Postal address: 7-91 Rylander Blvd., Box 121, Scarborough, Ontario, M1B 5M5

 
Added 22 Aug 2012:

Garnet Bruce, Independent

E-mail (online form only): http://garnetbruce.com/contact/
Phone:
Website: http://garnetbruce.com
Twitter:
Facebook:
Postal address:

David Driver, Freedom Party of Ontario

E-mail: ddriver@rogers.com
Phone: +1-519-590-3352
Website: www.freedomparty.on.ca
Postal address: 240 Commissioners Road West, London, Ontario N6J 1Y1

John Turmel, Paupers

E-mail: johnturmel@yahoo.com
Phone: +1-519-753-5122 or Cell: +1-519-717-1012
Website: http://johnturmel.com/
Facebook: John KingofthePaupers Turmel
Postal address: 50 Brant Avenue, Brantford, Ontario N3T 3G7

Elizabeth Rowley, Communist Party of Canada (Ontario)

E-mail: erowley@live.ca
Phone: +1-647-994-4976 & +1-519-584-7531
Website: http://communistpartyontario.ca/
Twitter: @RowleyCPCOforKW
Facebook: Liz Rowley
Postal address: 290A Danforth Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4K 1N6