Bad photos slammed on Elections Montreal site
Elections Montreal is being criticized for having low-quality photos of Black candidates on its website.
From the top you can see that none of the photos – all black and white – on the site are great, but the features of people with darker skin are almost impossible to make out.
Blork 11:59 on 2025-10-14 Permalink
That is so lame, and it’s a problem that should have been easy to identify and fix or prevent. But get used to it, because this is the kind of lameness that is looming on the horizon as AI everywhere leads to cognitive atrophy in people. If we never have to think and learn (because the machine is doing it for us) then this is what we’ll get.
That’s not the root cause here (no, this is just plain ol’ incompetence), but it’s a preview of the new-fangled incompetence that is just around the corner.
Nicholas 03:22 on 2025-10-15 Permalink
This problem was even easier to fix: don’t put pictures on ballots! What problem is this trying to solve?
Nicholas 15:09 on 2025-10-17 Permalink
Sorry, I’m still mad about this. Ballots design can help voters find the candidate they want to vote for or persuade them on who to vote for. Usually we want to avoid the second. People often come in to vote and have a name in mind or a political party in mind, so it’s worth it to include both, even if that could persuade someone (people may look at a name and assume their ethnicity or linguistic background and vote for that reason). But how many people will come in with a face in mind and find that face in the 2 cm x 2 cm square on the ballot, but not have enough information otherwise to find them? My guess is not many. How many people will decide not to vote for someone because of their skin colour? We know that based on studies in Quebec (and elsewhere in the Western world) job applications with a photo that is of a Black or Arab person get called back for an interview less often than those with a white person. This is true even without a photo if the person’s name sounds “minority”, though is stronger with a photo. I mean it’s a trope how often Black men driving luxury cars get pulled over by cops here.
One of the things I like to do is imagine that a policy was being proposed in Alabama or Mississippi. “We are going to ensure that just before you mark your ballot you get to see a grainy photo that easily identifies the candidate’s skin colour.” Would you support that policy? Now I know the Premier has assured us there is no systemic racism in Quebec, but come on! I can’t wait to see ballots list the percentage of each candidate’s ancestors who are pur laine. For information.