National Register of Electors

The National Register of Electors is a continuously-updated permanent database of eligible electors for federal elections in Canada maintained by Elections Canada. It was established in December 1996 when Bill C-63 was granted royal assent by the Governor General of Canada, and the preliminary National Register of Electors was populated with data in April 1997 during the final Canada-wide enumeration. It replaced a system which required door-to-door enumeration of eligible electors for each electoral event. The database contains basic information about electors: name, address, sex, and date of birth. An elector may register or update their personal information between elections, or may request to be excluded from it per the Canada Elections Act.

Elections Canada has data sharing arrangements with federal, provincial, territorial, municipal, and other agencies throughout Canada to update the National Register of Electors and ensure its currency, and to enable other jurisdictions to update their respective databases with information from the National Register of Electors. Obtaining data from other parties, and sharing of data with those parties, must be consistent with the Canada Elections Act or the Elections Act of the respective province or territory. Elections Canada has two-way data sharing arrangements with the electoral agencies of each province and territory except Saskatchewan and Yukon, from which it may obtain but to which it cannot send information.

In conjunction with the National Geographic Database, the National Register of Electors is used to create preliminary voters lists for each electoral district in Canada for each election, byelection, and referendum. Each candidate from each electoral district is given a voters list for that district, which is a subset of the data in the National Register of Electors whose addresses are within the boundaries of the district as defined in the National Geographic Database. That data may only be used for election purposes; any other use of that data subjects the user to penalties including fines, imprisonment, or both. The voter lists are updated by returning officers based on information received during an election campaign, ultimately resulting in final voters lists being distributed by election day.

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