Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, March 21, 2014

Neufeld says more than 100,000 to be disenfranchised under feds’ election bill, will testify at House Affairs Committee next week

PARLIAMENT HILL—The opposition parties have former B.C. elections chief Harry Neufeld at the top of their witness lists for testimony on proposed Conservative election law after he warned that “well over 100,000” electors will be denied their right to vote if the government goes ahead with plans to prohibit voter vouching for electors with no official ID.

Mr. Neufeld, who conducted an exhaustive review of electoral law and rule compliance in the 2011 election, has challenged the government’s position that widespread irregularities he found in the way vouching was administered on election day were indicative of potential fraud, as well as the government claim that an Elections Canada voter information card is too unreliable to be also used by voters who have insufficient ID to prove their residence.

Elimination of the two voter identification methods are among the most controversial aspects of Bill C-23, and are also on a list of measures in the legislation that the opposition says could benefit the Conservative party the most because electors who generally use either vouching or the information cards—which Elections Canada had planned to approve as official residence ID for the next election—have tended to support parties other than the Conservatives.

Mr. Neufeld, speaking in an interview on CBC Radio’s weekend political program The House, was the most specific in the debate so far to indicate how many electors could be disenfranchised should the vouching ban and a prohibition on voter information cards as proof of residence go ahead.

Mr. Neufeld, a pre-eminent electoral expert and international electoral consultant following an eight-year career as the chief electoral officer of British Columbia, challenged suggestions from Minister of State for Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton, Ont.) that significant irregularities he found in the way polling officials administered vouching suggested the possibility also of widespread voter fraud.

He pointed out that the only court challenge of an election win over voting polling station administrative irregularities in the 2011 election—in which the Supreme Court of Canada ultimately confirmed the voting-day election of Conservative MP Ted Opitz (Etobicoke-Centre, Ont.)—both the Supreme Court and an Ontario Superior Court judge who initially overturned the results based on a handful of mistakes acknowledged in their rulings that there were no allegations or findings of fraud in the case.

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand has testified, at House of Commons Procedure and House Affairs Committee hearings on the legislation, that out of an estimated 120,000 vouching cases in the 2011 election, there was no evidence and no allegations of voter fraud.

Under the vouching system, electors who have insufficient ID to prove they are Canadian citizens and eligible to vote in the polling division where they reside are allowed to swear an oath to their qualifications, and then vote as long as another voter in the same polling division vouches for them.

An audit supervised by Mr. Neufeld as part of his compliance inquiry into the 2011 election established the estimate of the number of voters who were vouched for in the 2011 election, and also found up to 42 per cent of the vouching cases involved serious errors or irregularities—such things as failure to record confirmation that the voucher or neighbour was qualified to vote in the polling division—and concluded the overall situation, including other irregularities in voting was “unacceptable.”

He recommended “modest” legal amendments to the Canada Elections Act to increase compliance by the 2015 general election, along with “substantial administrative modifications” to improve the integrity of vouching and address other problems faced by polling officials.

Mr. Neufeld noted, in his interview broadcast last weekend on The House, that both the Ontario Superior Court and the Supreme Court of Canada found no evidence of vouching.

“This is what is missing from the minister’s assessment of my report, which is, I, indeed did say there was evidence of a non-acceptably high number of irregularities with the vouching process, but he’s characterized that as being the equivalent of an unacceptably high level of fraud, and there was no evidence of fraud whatsoever,” Mr. Neufeld said.

Mr. Poilievre has also cited the high number of estimated irregularities, alone, without mentioning fraud, “as a reason for us to act.”

Mr. Neufeld responded: “In my 33 years in this business, I’ve only been privy to a handful of cases of actual voter fraud.”

“I think he’s equating the irregularities, which you know are errors that should be remedied and I know Elections Canada was working hard to remedy them, that that’s the equivalent of fraud, and it isn’t,” Mr. Neufeld told host Evan Solomon.

 When Mr. Solomon asked Mr. Neufeld for an estimate of the number of voters who could be disenfranchised in the 2015 federal election should vouching be eliminated, Mr. Neufeld said he supported Mr. Mayrand’s view that thousands of otherwise qualifying electors would not be able to cast ballots and added: “It’s not just several thousands, I think it’s well over 100,000, and if the provision that no one is allowed to use the voter information card that is sent to every individual voter who’s registered, I think it will disenfranchise more people,” he said.

The voter information card is mailed to all electors after writs for the election are issued and contain their names, addresses, and polling station locations.

A top aide to Mr. Poilievre did not respond directly to a Hill Times question in reaction to Mr. Neufeld’s weekend statement, and whether the government has anything planned to replace vouching as a way to allow voters without sufficient ID to cast ballots.

“ID requirements exist for a reason,” said Cheryl Stone, Mr. Poilievre’s director of policy.

Ms. Stone noted a list of nearly 40 forms of authorized identification for proof of identity and address, although Elections Canada has pointed out repeatedly that proof of residency is impossible for thousands of voters, likely more when students, transients, people who have recently moved residence and First Nation reserves are included.

Ms. Stone also noted studies have found an error rate of one-in-six for voter information cards.

“Error rates like this are unacceptable,” Ms. Stone said. She added that the new legislation will “reduce these risks, protect the integrity of the vote and ensure Canadians have the basic information they need to vote.”

The voter information card was accepted as authorized ID, along with another piece of identification, at 5,680 polling sites across the country in 2011, including aboriginal reserves, seniors’ residences and long-term care institutions. Roughly 73 per cent of the seniors and care home residences who voted used the information card as ID, along with another piece of identification.

NDP MP Craig Scott (Toronto-Danforth, Ont.) said he believes the government has no plan for anything that would make up for the need of vouching, and that he expects “tens of thousands” of electors will be disenfranchised in the next election if it is eliminated.

“It [the bill] just removes vouching and it keeps the list the way it is and also prohibits the chief electoral officer from designating, as he has the power to do at the moment, to designate the voter information card [as proof of residence],” Mr. Scott said in an interview.

Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Man.) said the government plan, in reaction to Mr. Neufeld’s findings, is “overkill.”

“What they’re doing is going overboard,” Mr. Lamoureux said.

“It is overkill, it’s just not necessary,” he told The Hill Times.

“What they don’t take into consideration is that you have many, for example, seniors in rural communities, everyone knows everyone, and they don’t necessarily have the cards to allow for simple vouching or to allow for the cards to be used as proof to be able to vote.”

Mr. Neufeld is scheduled to appear at the Procedure and House Committee on Thursday next week.

Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com/
Author: Tim Naumetz

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