Longest ballot protest targets Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's riding

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will be facing more opponents than ever in his eighth federal campaign, thanks to dozens of protest candidates running in his riding.

Nearly 80 candidates registered to run in the Ottawa-area riding of Carleton, where Poilievre has been the MP since 2004.

Most of those candidates are linked to an electoral reform advocacy group called the Longest Ballot Committee. The group wants to put a citizens' assembly in charge of electoral reform and says political parties are too reluctant to make government more representative of the electorate.

"Our point is that having politicians in charge of the election laws is a very straightforward conflict of interest, and they should hand that responsibility over to an independent, non-partisan body," said Tomas Szuchewycz, an organizer with the committee who acts as the protest candidates' official agent.

CBC News asked the Conservative Party for comment on the number of candidates running in Poilievre's riding. The party didn't respond before publication.

Szuchewycz said the group had also intended to sign up dozens of candidates in Liberal Leader Mark Carney's neighbouring Nepean riding. But he said the group didn't have enough time to organize because Carney only announced where he'd be seeking a seat the weekend he triggered an election.

"We really wanted to do both leaders," he said. "Things just didn't add up in our favour for that … we're disappointed to have to drop it."

The group has done similar protests in the past. They most notably overloaded the ballots in two byelections last year.

In September, a total of 91 candidates ran in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun in Montreal, which broke the federal record with 91 candidates on the ballot. The previous record was last summer's byelection in Toronto-St. Paul's which had 84 contenders.

Those ballots were nearly a metre long and resulted in a slow vote count. Final results in both contests were announced well after midnight.

An Elections Canada spokesperson told CBC News that it anticipates another slow count on election night due to the number of candidates running in Carleton.

"We cannot provide specific estimates for when results will be completed but can confirm that results will be available on election night," the spokesperson said in an email.

They said Elections Canada has options — such as counting ballots from advance polls early or hiring more staff to help with the count — to avoid a lengthy delay.

The head of Elections Canada has raised concerns about the protests when speaking to MP committees in the past. Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault said that not only do the mammoth-sized ballots lead to delayed results, they can also create difficulties for voters with disabilities.

But Szuchewycz dismissed those concerns and argued that the current system is "confusing for voters" because it can create results where the number of seats aren't reflective of a party's overall support.

"It completely misrepresents what people actually want out of their government. So I don't think we're adding that much confusion," he said.

Szuchewycz said his group is attempting to register 86 candidates in Carleton. The Elections Canada deadline was Monday afternoon, but the ballots won't be finalized until Wednesday.

If successful, that would mean a total of 93 candidates would be running — setting a new record.

Perrault has proposed changes to nomination rules to curtail longest ballot protests. But the group has said those proposals wouldn't deter them.

"We take things one day at a time," Szuchewycz said of the group's intentions. He suggested after organizing three protests in the past year that the group may limit its activities going forward.