Blog registrations to be mandatory?

Apparently the good folks in the BC Elections office have decided that bloggers are actually advertising if they mention political parties, candidates, or advocate for or against issues. This requires the bloggers to register with the nice folks at Elections BC and conform to the rules of the Election Act. Kate at Small Dead Animals and Angry in the Great White North have more information.

Kate suggests that an inundation of blog registration requests from outside BC might help to stem this little bit of stupidity.

Angry points out that this measure, if applied on the Federal level (and you know damned well that Elections Canada would love to do so), would do a great job of stifling free speech. The specific provisions of the BC Elections act require that anyone advertising during the election must list a valid BC contact (either address or telephone number), the name of the sponsor and indicate that the sponsor is registered under the Election Act. So much for anonymity.

Update: Mucked up the link to Angry. Thanks to Jon for noticing and letting me know I'd screwed it up. Should be fixed now.