House of Commons Elections Act 1895

Current legislation governing elections for the House of Commons. Covers qualifications for voters and procedures for controverted (i.e., disputed) elections in general and provincial courts. But it also covers election security and protecting the voting rights of North Americans who were subject to discrimination by their race in the Southeastern Provinces. 

This Act permits general courts of appeal for a group of provinces, i.e., an EPR (upon a request by the Governor-in-Council of a province in that group). to appoint general supervisors for parliamentary elections (essentially for the duration of a general election). Supervisors would have the power to attend elections, inspect electoral rolls, verify doubtful voter information, administer oaths to challenged voters, stop illegal aliens from voting, and certify the vote count. Perhaps most controversially, the supervisor would have the power to request inter-provincial/general police authorities to secure elections by force if deemed necessary.

This security by force for parliamentary elections also included stopping Sons of Liberty copycat groups that roamed rural areas in SE provinces and intimated Black North Americans from voting.

Amendment in 1980: Each electoral district shall return a Deputy; each electoral district within a Province shall be contiguous; the smallest district shall have at least nine-hundred-ninety-nine persons for every thousand persons in the largest district, and the average straight-line distance between each person’s residence and the geographic center of that person’s district shall be the minimum known to be possible at the time prescribed by provincial or federal law for the determination of districts.

Amendment in 1969: (establishment of optional open primary elections for general parliamentary elections) - local people of a parliamentary riding—supported by one or more parties—could petition their returning officer to organise a primary contest at the same time as a pre-existing local or provincial ballot. The primary election would be piggy-backed on an election already due to take place. The returning officer would have to include an extra ballot paper with the names of those on the shortlist. Each party that chose to take part would have to pay the marginal additional cost for having its ballot paper included, but it would cost hundreds NA pounds typically. These are not automatic primary contests, but would require support of the electors in a given constituency for a particular election. Also, most primary contests possibly could not be organized in the chance of a snap election. However, the NAU's Terms of Union that limits the Viceroy's ability to request for dissolution and then have a snap election has made primary contests more predictable and thus used more by all parties. Riding nomination contests, the historical method of selecting candidates before the actual election, now called closed primary contests, are used in areas that historically saw rare use of open primary contests in ridings. Overall, open primaries mostly ended the practice of “parachuting” “star candidates” into safe seats simply so that they can take a seat in the House of Commons. Open primary contests are seen frequently in the more populated provinces of Upper California, Texas-New Mexico, and the provinces east of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Overall the default is closed riding nominations but optional open primary contests are possible anywhere in the NAU.