Ballot selfies? Not if @ElectionsON has anything to say about it

TORONTO – Don’t tweet and vote: You may get scolded by Elections Ontario.

Alex Simakov voted June 3 in the advance polls in the riding of Thornhill. While he was in the ballot box, he tweeted a photo of his marked ballot.

The tweet went largely unnoticed until early Thursday afternoon when Elections Ontario tweeted at him asking him to remove the photo. He has no plans to remove it, he said.

In fact, he suggested Elections Ontario should focus their resources on increasing voter turnout.

The province looks like it’s headed for its lowest turnout ever. And some voters have been complaining about poll accessibility or voting information.

When Global News asked Elections Ontario about abysmal turnout earlier in the campaign, especially in ridings in the 905 area surrounding Toronto, a spokesperson said this wasn’t solely their job.

“Elections Ontario is actually the how, the where, the when for voter turnout, to make sure voters are aware of information that they require if they do want to vote,” said deputy chief electoral officer Loren Wells.

There are several subsections of the Ontario Elections Act that might prohibit tweeting a marked ballot. A voters isn’t allowed to use phones while inside the polling location, isn’t allowed to “display his or her ballot” to let someone else know how she or he voted and can’t tell people how someone else voted.

That means both tweeting and retweeting photos of marked ballots is prohibited.

Breaking those rules can mean a fine of up to $5,000. Elections Ontario spokesperson Peter Berry wouldn’t say whether they plan to charge anyone with violating the act.

“By tweeting out and just letting the people know that you cannot tweet your ballot, we are just raising awareness about the previsions of the act and what’s actually in the act about people sharing their ballots and other people sharing other peoples ballots,” he said.

“We’re trying to really reinforce the secrecy, which is a fundamental part of the Elections act of Ontario.”

All this isn’t to say the @ElectionsON twitter account hasn’t been doling out help, as well: A large majority of the tweets sent through the account Thursday were giving people information on how or where to vote.

With files from Erica Vella