Longest Ballot Committee
The Longest Ballot Committee is a Canadian activist movement known for flooding ballots with a large number of independent candidates in protest of the first-past-the-post voting system in the country. The movement argues there is a conflict of interest when politicians are in charge of election rules, and calls for election law to be decided by a permanent, independent, and non-partisan body, such as a citizens' assembly. It is affiliated with the satirical Rhinoceros Party.
History
The first attempt for a long ballot was in the 2019 Canadian federal election, when the Rhinoceros Party attempted to set a Guinness World Record for the longest ballot paper in history in Conservative leader Andrew Scheer's riding of Regina—Qu'Appelle. Ultimately, only two candidates affiliated with the party ended up on the ballot.The movement began garnering national attention after participating in the 2022 Mississauga—Lakeshore federal by-election, the 2023 Winnipeg South Centre federal by-election, and the 2024 Toronto—St. Paul's federal by-election. The committee's actions have prompted amendments to election laws to accommodate a greater number of names on the ballots, and generated significant controversy.
In the June 2024 Toronto—St. Paul's federal by-election, it took hours for Elections Canada workers to count all the ballots. While polls closed at 8:30 p.m. ET, the final results were not known until about 4:30 a.m. The agency said it was bogged down because there were dozens of candidates on the unwieldy, nearly metre-long ballot—some of whom were proportional representation activists running as a protest to the country's first-past-the-post voting system.
In the 2025 federal election, the Longest Ballot Committee targeted the Carleton riding in the Ottawa area, where Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was running. The committee's spokesperson Tomas Szuchewycz declared their efforts at highlighting electoral reform during the election a success, amid criticisms of their method.
A poll conducted in July 2025 with a sample size of 1,500 found that 43% of Canadians believed the method to be an inappropriate form of protest, while 30% felt it was appropriate. 47% support legislation to stop the Longest Ballot Committee, while 34% opposed. In both cases, Conservatives were more against the protest, while the Liberals and NDP were more supportive of it.
On July 28, 2025, on account of the registration of 214 candidates in the 2025 Battle River—Crowfoot federal by-election in which Poilievre was running, Elections Canada decided to use a special ballot similar to a mail-in ballot instead of the standard ballot, with a full list of candidates provided at polling stations.