Voter ID laws = voter suppression

It was brought up in the Parliamentary committee meetings time and time again that the new ID laws violate the Charter and amount to voter suppression. I'd like to see the voter turnout in this election compared to those prior to the new law.

The easiest way to vote is w/ a driver's license, not with a mail letter and a pee sample, especially since polls are open only until 9:30 p.m. and most people I know are working two full-time jobs that counteract that schedule.

How many low-incomers have a driver's license? How many people who take public transportation in a city or who are students have a driver's license?
I'm a student; I got a driver's license *specifically* because I was angry enough about this law, and didn't want to deal with the hassle of collecting bills and photo ID just to prove I can exercse my section 3 right to vote. I do not drive, and having to take a non-related driver's written test just to vote is digusting; it functions as a barrier to voting.

IMO, this violates section 3 of the Charter of RIghts which is pretty much inviolable and I would have taken down any Elections Canada official's name who refused to allow me to vote. This article states one man who did so, in Nova Scotia:

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9008860.html

Some Nova Scotians have problems at polls

By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE Staff Reporter
Tue. Oct 14 - 11:49 PM


It was a lovely autumn day in most parts of the province, but not everyone had a sunny time of it at the polls in Nova Scotia during Tuesday’s federal election.

Some voters showed up at the wrong polling stations; electors without proper identification were delayed in voting or turned away; and some scrutineers in Cape Breton were denied access to polling stations until about two hours after the polls opened at 8:30 a.m.
...

One man even invoked his Charter rights — with eventual success.

Ron Meagher went to a polling station at Dalhousie University in Halifax without identification, he said in an e-mail message. He said he was at first denied the right to vote but eventually cast his ballot.

“Prior to going to vote, I printed off Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which says: ‘Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.’”

You're right, I think, in that it serves no purpose other than voter suppression.

(You in NS, BTW? I didn't think the Herald got around outside of the province.)

I don't have a driver's license, but I do have a passport, so I'm good.

or if people actually had their passports rejected as acceptable ID. I did also have my health card, and my work ID (federal gov't issued - I work for Health Canada) as backup, but I wasn't sure if they would be accepted.

worry about. Not.

This was the first election where I needed to show anything other than that.

The problem is that people didn't know there were new proof-of-residency requirements (I kinda think the card with your name and address on it sent to you by the federal government ought to count) until a couple of weeks before the vote this time. ID isn't the problem, it's ID that documents a current address, which a lot of people who recently moved (i.e., most of the student population) aren't going to be able to satisfactorily get on that kind of notice.

End result is we just had the lowest voter turnout in Canadian history, mainly because a lot of voters who turned out were turned away.

if I'd had more time I would have, just to see what the elections people
would do. this DOES desperately need a court challenge. its complete garbage. while I was at the poll (for maybe 10 minutes) I saw two people leave because they didn't have ID. this law was designed to discourage voting and is a disgrace.

It's a fucking joke, and you can't sign an oath, which is even more legally binding.

I spent yesterday morning in Vancouver's Downtown east side lowest voter turnout in a long time because of these rules.

I know I had issues with voting yesterday - and was so incensed that I immediately drove home to get a utility bill to show my name. Poll workers were very very reluctant to give me my ballot - but they did. I could not help wonder how many people were turned away - never to return.

Turns out - quite a few. I talked to someone just a few moments ago - and she stated that the lines to vote was very long, and many many people were turned away. That would make sense given the low voter turnout - this had more to do with the new regulations rather than the voter disaffection we are being led to believe. She told me of one couple who went up together with the husband having ID, but the wife not - and they would not let the wife vote - even though the husband would vouche for her.

I wonder how many were left leaning voters - the poor, etc.

The real reason is the new rules, not apathy

Turned me away the first time, and second time were reluctant to give me a ballot. They seemed dissappointed that I was insistant enough to go home and bring back the utility bill.

You know - a long long look at the utility bill, a rather less than enthusiastic assessment that I did indeed qualify under the new rules, and then a very heavy sigh when tearing off a ballot to give me - along with a rather resigned indication to put a stroke through my name on the voters list. The body language was quite clear.

This was at 8.00AM in the morning btw. Can't blame fatigue for the poll workers.

I will say this - next time, people WILL be prepared and I predict a far different voter turnout for the next election. Well - if we have a definitive reason to vote - this election was unnecessary.

Of the hundreds that came through with all sorts of ID's that weren't drivers licenses, we ended up turning away a handful of people, mostly because they were clearly at the WRONG polling station - one was in the wrong province, trying to vote on vacation.

The rules were clearly posted on the wall. One piece of picture ID or two pieces of something else - the list went on and on and on all the way to "note from a soup kitchen". We had several homeless people - I know them by sight.

Sounds like somebody screwed up.

Elections canda fucked up BIG TIME. I can't wait until the report.

We're not low income -- but the co-vivant has never had a driver's licence (growing up in Tronna will do that to you) and the bills are in my name. He has also never got a photo OHIP card. So I think he patched together a birth certificate and bank statement. Then he decided to make like he didn't know he'd have to show them, and snarl at the poll clerk, whose fault it wasn't. However, the poll clerk acted like he had no idea why anybody would object to producing ID, so I explained it. Un-Canadian and undemocratic were the main words.

However. I have known dead people to vote. Mac Harb and his minions in Ottawa Centre in a particular ethnic community were quite good at this. Also at collecting proxies from people too old or ill to know what was being voted for.

The Charter guarantees citizens the right to vote. Yes indeed. Non-citizens are not entitled to vote. The question is how one distinguishes the citizens from the non-citizens, is it not?

It doesn't actually make sense to say that citizens should not have to prove citizenship, since that would mean that non-citizens do not have to prove citizenship.

Interestingly, none of the documents listed as being acceptable ID actually prove citizenship (a passport is one of the documents accepted, btw). They are proof of *identity*, not citizenship. Identity is the issue when dead people are voting, or someone is voting in the name of someone else who hasn't made it to the polls yet. (Yes, I've seen that too -- someone trying to vote whose name is already crossed off.)

The assumption is that if you've got yourself on the voters' list, you're a citizen. (Sigh, yes, I've seen non-citizens on the list, too.) Then you need to prove you are who you say you are in order to actually vote.

There *are* real problems that this solution addresses. But like many solutions, it creates other problems. Those problems need solving. Relaxation of the rule about a voter only vouching for one other voter would be one way. As long as the voucher's details are recorded, not much fraud should be expected. And that would allow people who work with the homeless to vouch for several people, and family members to vouch for more than one family member, and so on.

As far as the rule being the cause of the low turnout, though, I'd have to say bollocks. I was looking at the results for Ottawa Centre because of earlier discussion here about the riding:

http://centretownnewsonline.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=408&Itemid=124

Centre is considerably higher than the Canadian average when it comes to low-income people, students, homeless people and immigrants. The national turnout was 57%, and the turnout in Centre was 71.5%.

A passport is proof of identity AND proof of citizenship. Having an address on your ID has nothing to do with if you are a citizen. Rural voters, students, homeless, eldery, those who arrived late were all fucked out of their votes. I went to numerous stations yesterday, saw many people get turned away.... how many came back? At UBC, for instance, hundreds of students were turned away, look at Dalhousie too. In Dal we know many didn't come back... UBC we don't yet. But saying that this didn't hugely effect voter turnout is not the case. Once the election report comes out I'm sure it will prove my point.

WHy can't they sign an oath?

The sad part about this is the Chief Electoral officer told the house voter fraud was not a big enough problem in Canada to cause these new rules. IN the last dozen years only two people have even been charged with it. I should also add, one guy at Carnegie Centre in Vancouver was turned down from using his birth certificate.... his other option was a community service centre card with his name SPELLED WRONG. Getting a fake ID with an address on it is way too easy. This whole thing is a joke.

-- fake ID with an address -- I've seen that too. I've seen a Mac Harb crony who decided he wanted the NDP nomination in an area riding advise dozens of people (in two particular ethnic communities he decided to target) to transfer their driver's licences and vehicle registrations into the riding in question so they could vote at the party nomination meeting.

There really are crooks trying to subvert the democratic process. And while only two people may have been charged with electoral fraud, that hardly speaks to how many times it has been committed. Who could have been charged with voting fraudulently in the name of the person whose name was crossed off and was thus denied his constitutional right to vote? Who would have a clue who did that?

I dunno. The illiterate, the socially marginalized, yeah, this could be tough for them. But university students??

Hell, I was denied my very first vote ever. Waterloo North, 1972. A concerted effort was being made by the Liberals to prevent students from voting in their university ridings. I wasn't present in the riding during enumeration, so had to go to court of revision, as it then was, to get on the revised list. I was told I had to vote in my parents' riding. Funny thing, I said; I was indeed living in the same city as my parents that past summer. In a different riding, though. Hadn't lived in their riding in three years. I stood there til they enumerated me. Went to vote, and wasn't on the list. Couldn't vote.

I went through that to vote, and this generation of university students can't read the instructions on a voter's card?

I agree that electoral fraud probably isn't a huge problem, but I have no doubt that the CEO doesn't actually know the extent of it. He doesn't know what went on during Mac Harb's day in Ottawa Centre, because no one ever had any usable evidence to present.

People were getting turned away last federal election in my riding because the elevator at the community centre broke down and older and disabled voters and people with baby carriages couldn't climb the stairs to the third floor. Nobody was doing anything about it until I dropped by doing my outside scrutineer thing and called my campaign office -- and then had to kick up a stink to get our campaign manager to call the DRO's office because my inside scrutineers had realized this was a real problem for us. Then I stood outside the doors watching people go in and catching anybody leaving without voting, to tell them they had the right to have their vote transferred to the poll that happened to be on the ground floor, because nobody in charge seemed about to do that. It wasn't long before an official from elections Canada showed up and took over from the completely ineffectual staff on site, with the forms for transferring polls, and things started working.

Please don't think I take interferences in the right to vote lightly. I didn't when it happened to me, and I haven't when it's happened to other people. But that includes people whose right to vote has been interfered in by electoral fraud.

Frankly, I never liked the present-your-voter-postcard business in recent elections, even. I *didn't* need ID, and that included the stupid postcard. I don't have a perfect solution. The present solution may indeed be worse than the problem. But I have seen instances of the problem, and I don't like that either.

What's the procedure? Are elections staff supposed to tackle them or something?

Do we have a small point of agreement there? ;)

In a municipal election I was scrutineering a few years ago, it came to our attention somehow -- the idiot woman may have said it herself -- that a woman was voting as a business/property owner in my ward, and had already voted as a resident of another ward. In Ontario municipal elections, the medieval anomaly is that a business/property owner may vote in the ward where that property is -- *or* in the ward where s/he resides. But not both. Everybody present knew that the woman was voting in both, but there was nothing anybody could do. There was no way of withholding a ballot from her, since there was no way of actually *proving* she had already voted. And once her ballot got into the box, there was no way of getting it back out.

If she'd had to identify herself to vote in the other ward, that would have been at least prima facie evidence that she had voted already, and there could have been some procedure for denying her another ballot.

Different situation, granted, but just my own anecdotal personal experience. ;)

It's a mess

David Orchard and his Liberal campaign team say something must be done to smooth the voting process for aboriginal and rural voters, many of whom were shut out at the polls Tuesday because they lacked proper identification, weren't enumerated or were told to vote at distant polling stations.
http://www.davidorchard.net/news_details.php?id=61

Desnethé - Missinippi - Churchill River

This vast riding covers the northern half of Saskatchewan. It is a sprawling wilderness of lakes and rivers and woods.

Significant centres include Meadow Lake, La Loche and Buffalo Narrows. Two-thirds of the population of this riding are aboriginal, the third-highest rate in the country. Twenty-three per cent of the riding's residents list Cree as their mother tongue.

Population: 67,937 (2006 census; an increase of 5.5% since 2001)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/riding/231/

You go to parts of Nova Scotia or Newfoundland and "near the rocks behind the green lighthouse" becomes as close to an official numbered address as exists.

...in that riding, like using police vehicles to deliver Tory signs, and the ID requirements make it look like there is a conscious effort to suppress the vote.

And there would be a long line of opposition to David Orchard.

.

And another problem with the new rules is the one where you can't vote at any polling place but have to go to the one you are registered at, and where you reside. For example, we were told that if university students said they were staying in the area after they finished school in april they could vote. If they said they were going back home they were not allowed to vote. Last time if you weren't close to home you could drop in to any polling place and vote. People came in late this time and didn't have time to get to where they were to vote so they missed out.

As for the id, most people produced their drivers licenses. If they didn't have one, they needed 2 id pieces and one had to have their address on it so I took that to mean the voter card too as often that's all they had with their address. I sure didn't want to turn anyone away. Probably wasn't technically correct but hey, I'm not a neocon.

The idea that the reg card doesn't count is ridiculous, and I'm not about to get upset at people breaking that particular rule by accepting it.

Never voted here, so was not registered. Got my health insurance card, which proves my residency (and is also the only photo ID I have), and a bill from the power company, which shows I live where I said I live. They didn't ask for my birth certificate, but I produced it anyway.

The registration card to the previous resident's name was full of clear, detailed instructions as to what to do if this isn't your card and you'd like to vote.

I went with my sister, who didn't have to vouch for me. I stood in line for an hour, and as far as I can tell nobody was turned away from registering. Once I got registered, voting took 2 minutes.

I didn't find out until the day before that voter ID laws are only 2 years old and (of course) Harper's fault.

I like the system - this debacle aside - but I'm also well aware that I'm biased and somewhat nationalistic about it.

but methinks the Canadian system is much better, if only because we don't elect our fargin' JUDGES, fer crissakes.

I'm a big fan of multiple parties and direct representation. Oh, and hand-counted paper ballots. And short short campaigns. And a thousand other things.

were like my partner and myself especially when it got late and busy we just looked blindly at the id. They could have shown me a hockey card and I wouldn't have noticed. I even forgot to ask for it sometimes.

That's what they get for 2 hours training and a tedious 16 hr day with no breaks. Trust me, they don't pay enough for it.