Making it harder to vote....

Stephen Maher: It could get ugly at polling stations this fall thanks to Fair Elections Act

When Elections Canada mails out Voter Information Cards this fall, a new sentence in bold letters will appear at the bottom: Please note that this card is not a piece of ID.

This means that on election day, tens of thousands of people will likely turn up at their polling station, voter cards in hand, only to learn that they can’t vote.

In the last election, 400,000 Canadians used these cards to identify themselves. Another 120,171 had someone, usually a neighbour or relative, vouch for their identity.

This time there will be none of that, thanks to the Fair Elections Act passed by the Conservative government last year.

If you see lines of angry, confused people at your polling station on Oct. 19, you can thank Pierre Poilievre, minister of democratic reform.

Experts warned that Poilievre’s plans would make it harder to vote. Citizens rallied and opposition MPs filibustered, but Poilievre, a talking point in a tailored suit, would hear none of it. He insisted the changes were necessary because of the the threat of voter fraud.

To make his case, he repeatedly cited a report by Harry Neufeld, the expert Elections Canada hired to figure out what went wrong in the Toronto-area riding of Etobicoke Centre in 2011, when Conservative Ted Opitz beat Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj by just 26 votes.

Wrzesnewskyj, who is determined and rich, challenged the result, presenting evidence that at least 79 dodgy ballots were counted. He won at Ontario Superior Court, but the Supreme Court ruled against him, since there was no evidence of fraud.

Elections Canada asked Neufeld to look for similar problems across Canada. He found “serious administrative errors,” mostly forms filled out incorrectly by hastily trained workers handling election-day registrations for people with ID issues.

Neufeld recommended that Elections Canada simplify the paperwork and use the Voter Information Cards more widely.

Instead of taking that advice, Poilievre banned the use of the Voter Information Card as ID and made vouching harder.

Neufeld is not impressed.

READ MORE: http://www.canada.com/news/national/Stephen+Maher+could+ugly+polling+stations+this+fall+thanks+Fair/11059597/story.html?hootPostID=d257c18922ea81c3b80a50181e759414#__federated=1