Karen Green is a Toronto mom blogger who has teamed up with a few others to start an election Twitter hashtag #momthevote.JENNIFER ROBERTS
Information travels in tidbits, 140 characters at a time and in split seconds. That's the reality of how we communicate and consume information in 2011. But on election night, Monday, May 2, between 7 p.m. ET (when Newfoundland and Labrador polls close) and 10 p.m. ET (when the last poll closes in British Columbia) Canadians will find that on media sites, there will be no discussion or 'dissemination' of the live results.
Section 329 of the Elections Act prohibits the transmission of the results of any poll to people who have not yet voted. For The Globe and Mail, which now manages globeandmail.com, mobile apps and sites, and Twitter and Facebook accounts, it means a whole lot of areas we have to pay attention to.
So during those three hours, we're abiding by the law in all those platforms. Unfortunately, that means also temporarily disabling our high-volume comments system. To allow our readers to continue to have their say, we'll be taking in your comments in our liveblog starting at 7 p.m., where our editors will vet and post the best comments.
At 10 p.m., the floodgates will reopen and we'll be providing you with the election coverage you expect at breakneck speed on all platforms.