The Tories are proposing that Canadians be equipped with photo id before being given their constitutional right to vote
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian voters may have to produce photo identification next time they go to the polls if changes to the electoral law proposed by the Conservative government on Tuesday are passed quickly.
The requirement is one of a series of amendments to the Canada Elections Act introduced in Parliament that aim to reduce voter fraud.
The legislation also calls for political candidates to be allowed to campaign in shopping malls and other areas that have traditionally been off limits.
But given the Conservative government’s minority standing, the changes would need the opposition’s swift approval if they are to be implemented for the next federal vote, widely expected next spring.
“Most Canadians are surprised to hear there is currently no legal requirement for them to have identification to vote,” said Rob Nicholson, minister of democratic reform. “After all, almost every other important activity in society requires
Most Canadians are surprised? Are these Canadians who have never voted?
This is nothing more than another Tory scheme to further disenfranchise those who already have a hard time exercising their legal rights. The poor, the elderly, the homeless, those people least likely vote tory in any case.
The Missouri Supreme Court agrees that this placing an unfair burden
With three weeks remaining until the general election, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down a law which would have required voters to have photo identification before being issued a ballot.
In a 6-1 vote, justices held that the new law “created a heavy burden on the fundamental right to vote”.
The court also said that the new law would have required some 240,000 Missourians, many of whom would have been poor and elderly, to have to spend money to obtain the documents needed to get photo identification, making the law unconstitutional.
The court’s decision upheld a recent ruling by a Cole County circuit judge.
Sen. Delbert Scott, the Lowery City Republican who sponsored the bill, is reported as saying that the decision was disappointing, but not unexpected. The law was aimed at combating election fraud that many Democrats said did not exist.
Even the lone dissenting judge said;
Even Justice Stephen Limbaugh Jr., the lone dissenter wrote that there was no proof of harm to voters yet.
Write your MP and let them know you disagree with this further attack on democracy.
Amazing when you conside that Justice Stephen Limbaugh Jr. is Rush’s cousin. Its amazing to me that voter fraud is a big enough issue in Canada to warrant this law. Of course here in the states a voter ID law is being sold as a way to keep illegal immigrants from Mexico from voting. Lou Dobbs thinks its a good idea. Enough said!
Demanding photo ID is over-the-top, but I do think something needs to be done.
Every year we hear stories of spouses receiving voter cards for their dead wives or husbands. Of people receiving voter cards for people who have long since moved to a new home. Since you don’t need to provide any proof at the poll that you are the person named on the voter card, once you get your hands on one of those cards, you get to vote as that person. Whether it’s yopu or not. No need to show anything besides one of those all-powerful cards. God help you if your voter card got lost in the mail, and the person who received it uses it to vote themselves before you get to the poll. A sincere “Sorry Sir/Ma’am, our records show you’ve already voted”, is about as close as you’ll get to excercising your right.
More than once, I could have voted multiple times in an election if I had chosen to do so. Once I get a card in the mail identifying me as a registered voter, I can vote. If I get two cards (one for someone who USED to live at my address, and whose name suggests my gender) I can vote twice. If I get a card for a dead relative, I can vote three times.
I don’t think voting fraud is necessarily rampant. I do worry that one can vote in a Canadian federal election based on a card sent out by basically the same type of system that ends up sending credit cards to dogs.
The reason there is voter fraud is because Elections Canada no longer has the funding to do proper enumeration. We don’t need voter ID or picture ID or anything. We need enumerators — real, live human beings — to develop the voters list!
Yo Berlynn:
Wadda sensible and achievable suggestion. 😀
“We need enumerators — real, live human beings — to develop the voters list!”
For the people I know best an ID card is not an option. Living on the street does not engender much care about ‘official’ cards, documents or papers.
No, they probably do not vote, but that is beside the point, the possibility should be there.