Canada’s Minister of State for Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre has proclaimed that the Fair Elections Act would make it easier to vote, but the new provisions contained in this bill could instead prevent hundreds of thousands of Canadians from voting in 2015. What's more, some say new reforms may punish certain groups of people who are less likely to vote Conservative in the next election.
Cracking down on "fraud”?
According to a Government of Canada press release, the Fair Elections Act would “crack down on voter fraud” by prohibiting the use of vouching, a process that allows a person to prove their residence in a riding in order to vote by having someone they know in the riding who is registered to vote sign a legal oath. It also prohibits the use of Voter Information Cards as identification. That means that to vote in 2015, you’ll need an approved government ID.
A government backgrounder on the bill says ominously: “Each time someone votes fraudulently, they cancel out the ballot of an honest voter…. That Fair Elections Act will protect the integrity of the vote by ending risky practices that are prone to errors and irregularities.” Poilievre goes so far as to call vouching “not safe”.
The impetus for the new rules are from a 2013 report commissioned by Elections Canada to review compliance of election day registration and voting process rules. The Neufeld report found “irregularities”, or administrative errors in 1.3 per cent of votes cast on election day -- meaning there were an average of 500 administrative errors per electoral district. The report made recommendations to Elections Canada for how to improve Canada’s voter services.
But the curious thing about the report’s findings is that they are completely at odds with the Fair Elections Act.
The Neufeld report makes no recommendations to axe or change vouching and Voter Information Cards. It does not attribute any administrative errors or “irregularities” made on Election Day to the vouching process itself either. In fact, in no place does the report advocate that vouching be scrapped.
To combat voting day errors, Neufeld and his coauthors recommend Canada adopt an entirely new voting services model to address the challenges on Voting Day. As it’s clear that an administrative fix won’t solve everything, it recommends Elections Canada ensure that the 200,000 election officers recruited and trained each election receive better recruitment, screening, training and support to better do their jobs on Election Day.
The Harper government is implying the research supports this bill, but that's just not true. So why exactly are the Harper Conservatives actually trying to pass the Fair Elections Act?
Voter fraud is a problem 0.0000068 per cent of the time
Canada's neighbours to the south are no stranger to voter ID laws. Thirty-seven state legislatures in the United States have enacted tough voter ID laws for similar reasons -- to supposedly combat fraud and those who try allegedly to steal elections, and make elections more democratic.
But a study of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases shows that actual ballot box fraud is infinitesimal -- it occurs just 0.0000068 per cent of the time, or almost never.
The report crunched data from across the United States -- where there are 146 million registered voters -- and found just 10 cases of voter fraud. That fraud represents one out of about every 15 million prospective voters.
The fact is that the vast majority of voter fraud cases are a result of human error, and voter ID laws will do nothing to change that.
According to Judith Browne Dianis, civil rights lawyer and co-director of the Advancement Project, a group fighting legislative initiatives around voter identification measures, these laws amount to voter suppression.
“These laws would only prevent voter impersonation which doesn't exist," she said. "The real motivation is to make it harder to vote for certain people.”
Disenfranchising the poor and marginalized
A study from American University in Washington, DC, says those who are most likely to not possess a photo ID or proof of citizenship are poor, black, and female. Acquiring an ID requires time and money, which many people do not have. Acceptable ID voters can use to cast their ballot includes vehicle registration, a mortgage or land transfer document, and statement of your RRSP or mutual fund -- things that many lower and even middle income individuals do not have access to.
"You’re basically making it difficult for people to participate in the most fundamental way they have to make their voice known at the ballot box," BC Civil Liberties Association counsel Raji Mangat says. "It will effectively disenfranchise whole communities of people who are just not going to be able to get those types of identifications."
NDP democratic reform critic Craig Scott estimates that 100,000 people were able to vote in the 2011 election after being vouched for. Elections Canada confirms that 120,000 voters used vouching in order to vote in the last election.
Fifteen per cent of voters, 1.8 million voters, reportedly relied on some type of “exception” -- including being vouched for -- to cast a ballot in the last election, the Neufeld report says. Without a viable plan to get people acceptable documentation in a way that actually works and is accessible, many people -- Aboriginal citizens, low-income people, new Canadians, students and people with disabilities -- may simply not show up at the polling booth in 2015.
One former NDP political staffer told the Vancouver Observer under the promise of anonymity that it is these people who are least likely to vote for the Conservatives.
“If you look at those polling divisions, you'll notice that they break sometimes as high as 8-2 for progressive parties. Taking that block of voters out could put some solid NDP or Liberal urban ridings back within reach [for the Conservatives] if they get the benefit of the split.”
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said the new changes were about "loading the dice" for Conservatives, and about "making life easier" for the Conservative Party during election time.
An inadequate solution
It appears that Harper's Conservatives are taking a page out of the same playbook. Promises to “crack down on voter fraud” conjure images of stolen ballots, impersonations, conspiracies to stuff ballot boxes and stolen elections -- all problems that largely don’t exist.
The real shame is that the Fair Elections Act doesn’t give more teeth to investigators to compel witness testimony and fight election fraud where it might actually be occurring.
Debate on the Fair Election Act is set to continue through Monday, and Harper’s Conservatives are gunning to rush the bill through Parliament ahead of Tuesday’s budget.
Original Article
Source: vancouverobserver.com/
Author: Emma Pullman
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