Canada Elections Act

Marginal note:Who may be present at polling station

• 135 (1) The only persons who may be present at a polling station on polling day are

  • (a) the deputy returning officer and the poll clerk;

  • (b) the returning officer and his or her representatives;

  • (c) the candidates;

  • (d) two representatives of each candidate or, in their absence, two electors to represent each candidate;

  • (e) an elector and a friend or relative who is helping him or her by virtue of subsection 155(1), only for the period necessary to enable the elector to vote;

  • (f) any observer or member of the Chief Electoral Officer’s staff whom he or she authorizes to be present;

  • (g) any person appointed under section 32.1; and

  • (h) if the polling station is established for a polling division of an electoral district in which a leader of a registered party is a candidate, any media representative who, subject to any conditions that the Chief Electoral Officer considers necessary to protect the integrity of the vote and the privacy of any person present at the polling station, is authorized in writing by the Chief Electoral Officer to be present and take any photograph or make any video recording of the candidates as they cast their votes.

• Marginal note:Delivery of representative’s authorization

  (2) When a representative of a candidate is admitted to a polling station, the representative shall deliver his or her written authorization from the candidate or the candidate’s official agent in the prescribed form to the deputy returning officer.

• Marginal note:Representative authorized in writing

  (3) A representative bearing a written authorization referred to in subsection (2) is deemed to be a representative of the candidate within the meaning of this Act and is entitled to represent the candidate in preference to, and to the exclusion of, any elector who might otherwise claim the right to represent the candidate.

• Marginal note:Oath of secrecy

  (4) Each representative of a candidate or each elector described in paragraph (1)(d), on being admitted to the polling station, shall take an oath in the prescribed form.

• Marginal note:Oath

  (5) A candidate’s representative who is appointed to more than one polling station, whether those polling stations are placed together in a central polling place or not, shall, before being admitted to the first polling station, take an oath in the prescribed form before the central poll supervisor or before the deputy returning officer of that polling station. The representative is not required to take another oath on being admitted to any other polling station in the same electoral district if he or she presents a document, in the prescribed form, proving that he or she has already taken the oath.