New ID rules cause confusion at [Canadian] polls

[Posteritatis]

Source: CBC News

Voters across the country had difficulties casting their ballots in the federal election Tuesday.

According to an Elections Canada official, many people were unaware of a new rule that requires voters to present either one piece of identification showing their name and address or two pieces of ID, each of which shows their name and at least one of which shows their address.

. . .

At Dalhousie University in Halifax, nearly two-thirds of the students showing up to cast ballots on campus were turned away because they didn't have the necessary signed form from their university residence stating their address or were off-campus students, said Mark Coffin, vice-president of education on the Dalhousie student council. The form is the only way for some students to prove they live in the area, as many of them have IDs with an address from another region.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/14/poll-problems.html

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This is, of course, precisely what Harper probably wanted these new rules to accomplish.

The short version on these new rules for the non-Canadians: In elections up here, we're basically automatically registered when an election is called. Voter registration is tied to tax records, so a few weeks into an election campaign everyone who's submitted their taxes at some point gets a card shipped to the address they placed on their tax forms. This card shows the time and place of the polling station, and is used as proof of voter registration there. In past elections - at least all the ones I've ever gone to in the last decade - this card was the only documentation necessary in order to vote; you hand it to the poll workers, head to the poll in question and do your thing. There's never been any reason for this to change up here - all the horror stories about thousands of people flooding the wrong districts, voting multiple times, blah blah blah simply haven't happened, and universal registration made it easier not to get caged.

This time, the election requires proof of address in the form of various other pieces of documentation. The silly part of this comes from the fact that the Elections Canada registration confirmation with your address on it, derived from your tax records, is not a valid proof of address!

It's possible to vote, at least in theory, if you lack these; you can jump through a few hoops with the pollworkers to confirm your registration and the ilke, or you can have another registered elector who knows you vouch for you (and only you - every voter who wasn't himself vouched for is allowed to do this once), after which you swear and oath and can go ahead and vote. I saw both done today, although either is more difficult to pull off for constantly shuffling-around students, especially when several thousand are simultaneously turned away for things like this.

Would I be surprised, in the least, to see that two-thirds figure repeated at every university campus in the country? I would not. Bang! There goes most of the already-damaged student vote, and I think most of you already get the fact that cutting voter turnout traditionally benefits the conservatives, whether they be Conservative or Republican.

Goddammit.

[Lautremont]

1. I noticed this when I voted.

I had the ID, but we were never told in advance about this - I didn't hear about it anyway, and I keep pretty well informed.

[Posteritatis]

2. The news in Halifax was all over it for a little bit

Mainly because there's a half-dozen universities in the city, so imposing extra hoops for voting is going to accomplish nothing more than screwing the students. I'm really having trouble seeing that as anything other than the intent.

[Puzzler]

3. I'm not going to defend Harper here...

... since I'm a solid NDP supporter. However, if you didn't have photo ID, then the rules required that you had to have at least one piece of non-photo ID (with your name on it, obviously), and proof of residence in the riding that you are voting in. So a rent receipt or an electricity bill would do. Barring these options, then you had to have a registered person vouch for you at the polls... then you had to swear an oath etc. The last scenario happened to my GF this afternoon, and it was very straightforward.

What's the alternative? Showing up at the polls with no ID, no proof of riding residence and no one to vouch for you?

[Posteritatis]

4. The alternative is voting the way we have for awhile

You know, where you show them the registration card which damn well should count as a proof of address. I've never ever had to show anything else and I've been voting for ten years now.

I think the alternative is better than, say, preventing most of the students sharing utilities in a townhouse or something from voting because one's got the lease and is only allowed to vouch for one of his roommates. Maybe you aren't in a city with large student ghettoes, but this is a real problem in places that have them, like Halifax or the last city I lived in (London, in that case). Students in residence - and there's a lot of those - aren't going to have utility bills or rent receipts, and the schools around here are very, very slow about providing the right forms for students who need them (especially if thousands do on short notice like this).

There's fifteen thousand students at Dal. I'm going to be really generous generous and assume that four or five thousand of them could be bothered to vote this time around. If several thousand voters are being turned away from the polls when they weren't in previous years, that's a little bit more of an issue than your one girlfriend running into trouble.

[Puzzler]

6. Hey... my "one girlfriend"...

... used to live on the street three years ago (she's a recovering addict). She had no ID. If I can get her voting without too much trouble, then I'm sure that the thousands of far more affluent Dalhousie students could manage to provide some sort of ID.

However, I concede your point about having to provide ID with the registration card. I did not receive mine in the mail this year, so both of us had to use the alternate registration procedures. They were quick and painless.

[Posteritatis]

7. The problem isn't ID, the problem's ID linked to an address

There's usually specific procedures for homeless people to get registered, actually. A lot of students are stuck in this catch-22 where they need proof of address to get proof of address. That screwed me over when I was in Ontario last year for awhile.

A student in residence, or the third renter in a six-student townhouse, etc., is approximately as homeless as an actual homeless person as far as the paperwork proving their address goes - or at least they are now, when the registration card no longer counts as the proof of address it has always been. There's no reason for it other than to make it harder to vote.

[sorrywrongemail]

8. I never even got a voter card

At 21, isn't that a little strange?
Even the Elections Canada people were saying, "did you just turn 19"? No actually, I haven't, this problem is all yours you lazy bums.

[Posteritatis]

9. Yeah, I've heard a bunch of that too

A few of my friends never got one but registered over the phone pretty quickly, and then got one shortly afterwards.

[Rainforestgoddess]

12. I got a postcard

that informed me of the need for ID. *shrug* Had to drive to the polling place anyway so it was no big deal. You'd think they mailed the postcards with the registration cards for everyone, but apparently not.

[PSPS]

5. I heard this on the CBC today. Harper's brought voter suppression to Canada.

As in the US, it's probably true in Canada too: When voter participation declines, conservatives do better.

[whistle]

10. So vote fraud and caging has crossed over the border

[Doctor Cynic]

11. Just get an absentee ballot.

It was easy for me, and there was no fuss.

[Lucy Goosey]

13. I saw voters being turned away, too.

My polling station is practically on a university campus, so some of them were students, and others just didn't have proof of address.

[Solly Mack]

14. K&R