Want to know what your neighbour had to eat for lunch today? Would you like to have a quick glance at every wacky thing Charlie Sheen has said? What about an up-to-the-minute reference to the Prime Minister's campaign trail?

If so, you'll go to Twitter, or Facebook, or any of the other social media sites that millions of Canadians use on a daily – or hourly – basis.

But on Election Day, a decades old law will prevent anyone and everyone from logging on and updating the world about the new shape of Canadian politics.

In 1938, Section 329 of the Elections Act was introduced. It states that "no person shall transmit the results" from one riding to another before the polls are closed. Breaking this law can wind you $25,000 in debt, and your equipment can be seized. However, only one person has been prosecuted firmly under this law. During the 2000 election, a man in Atlantic Canada published election results to his blog before all the polls had closed on the west coast. He was fined, and his computer was seized.

Elections Canada says the law is in place to prevent the results from any one part of the country from affecting the voters in another part of the country. Yet, emailing results is fine. So is sending a Facebook message. Just status updates and tweets are prohibited. But what about emailing 100 people? Where do social media users cross the "broadcasting" line?

In  1938, if you wanted to know what your neighbour had to eat for lunch that day, you would probably have to ask him face to face. The point being, the way Canadians communicate has changed in the 70-odd years since this law was passed. And some Twitter users want it updated.

Hence "Tweet the Results." This online protest will go live on Election Day. Twitter and Facebook users who support the "tweet-in" are encouraging Canadians to use social media to protest the act, which they say is outdated. If you tweet on May 2 before all the polls have officially closed, and you label your tweet or Facebook status update with #TweettheResults, your message will be automatically streamed into a live feed that will gather messages from across the country. The resulting tweets will be used as a form of online protest, a message to politicians that times have changed.

"I feel like my generation constantly has to remind our bosses, teachers, and institutions that the internet isn't a fad," said Twitter user Dan Speerin in an email to CTV. "Elections Canada wants to protect us from reality, which is why they're banning conversations and not politicians. But here's the funny thing. Elections Canada are the ones who control when the results are released, but they don't want to give them out all at once because that would make terrible TV. It would be like TSN showing you the final score and then the game. They're courting a TV generation, not the internet generation. So instead we get Elections Canada thinking it will be easier for the internet to adapt to them – which is cute and reminds me to call my grandma more often."

Participants in the protest say the law is unenforceable if enough people participate.

"Are they going to fine thousands of people and go to court against people named CaptainCanuck92? Of course not, nobody will be fined, they'll have the same success rate as the G-20. It's an empty threat so they don't have to go through the hassle of re-writing an out of date elections act," writes Speerin.

Even if the law is enforced, with social media such a huge part of everyday life, some Twitter users say the results will get out anyway.

User Robbo Mills tweeted "It's inevitable. People will do it. Concerted effort or just being chatty, doesn't matter. Gonna happen."

And with some high profile Canadians, like Jian Ghomeshi and Rick Mercer, talking about Tweet the Results, more Canadians have started to question the law. We'll have to wait until May 2 to see if the tweet-in is popular, or if Elections Canada actually drops the hammer on any posters. But it's now clear that Canadian politics – and the way we talk about them – has forever changed. Maybe it's time for Elections Canada to catch up.