Posted on 9/10/2007, 10:59:15 AM by Clive
The decision last week by Elections Canada to permit voting by "electors wearing face coverings for religious practices" is not as smart as it could be, but it is not as dumb as it sounds. Indeed, the bureaucrats who devised the new rules must have been surprised by how swiftly and negatively three of the four federal political parties reacted to the announcement (only the NDP approved of the rules). After all, the regulations for "veiled voting" are based on a June, 2006, report by the all-party Commons committee in charge of setting election laws.
Up to and including the last federal election, it was unnecessary for voters to prove their identity when going to vote. It was common to be asked for photo ID before making a $20 credit-card purchase, boarding a plane or buying cigarettes at a corner store, but not before performing the seminal act in a democracy.
Sure, a deputy returning officer who had doubts about any elector's identity could ask him to prove himself. But to do so was considered insensitive to immigrant and ethnic voters, so few such challenges were ever made.
The act by which we determine who will govern us was so open to fraud that it cast doubt on the outcome in some ridings.
Worse, yet, throughout their 12-year tenure, the Liberals did everything they could to make the voter identification rules laxer. For instance, they changed the residency requirements so homeless people with their names on shelter lists would be eligible to vote in the constituency where the shelter was located. And voters without proper ID were permitted to vouch for one another.
That changed three months ago with amendments to the Elections Act. From now on, all voters will be asked to show valid, government-issued voter ID before being given their ballots.
Anyone without a driver's license or similar photo document will be required to present two documents with his name and address, such as a health care card and a utility bill. Anyone lacking those may sign a declaration and have a voter from the same electoral district vouch for him. Vouched-for voters will no longer be permitted to vouch for anyone else, though.
Frankly, I think everyone should have to have valid photo ID before being permitted to vote, period. The federal government could issue a voter's card with a photo to anyone without a driver's license. Such voters would have to apply for their cards sufficiently in advance of election day that their identity could be firmly established. But that's not too much of a burden given the gravity of voting. Be that as it may, however, the new requirements certainly represent an improvement on the old ones.
But the new rules create a problem. They make it necessary for polling station workers to see voters' faces. So what to do with Muslim women who wear a niqab or burka?
It's clear Elections Canada studied the work of the Commons committee on election rules for clues, because the rules the bureaucrats finally hit on mirror very closely the rules the politicians themselves devised for overall voter identification.
A veiled voter begins with a higher standard of proof than an unveiled one, just as a general voter without photo ID must meet a higher standard than one who presents such ID. In lieu of uncovering her face, the veiled elector must initially show photo ID and another document from an approved list. If she does not have two such documents, she must be vouched for, and she and her voucher may be asked to sign statutory declarations.
Of course, such a system is open to abuse, but little more than the whole vouching system itself. The flaw is not solely in the veiled voting rules, but in the general rules that permit electors to present themselves at the polls without photo ID. If we are not demanding that election workers be given the chance to check someone's face against an official photo, then it is logically difficult to argue the necessity of seeing the face of a veiled woman.
Despite the recent changes, Ottawa is still not taking the integrity of voting seriously enough. Permitting veiled voting is merely a symptom of this larger problem.
When every voter must show photo ID, the problem of Muslim women's voting can be dealt with through finger printing or by setting up screens at polling stations behind which female polling officers may check their revealed faces against their documents. At it's core, however, this is not a problem with Muslim voting, but with unidentified voting of any sort.
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Insanity.
Look at the bright side. If the veil comes to America, there will be no future Ms. Clintons.
PC gone crazy...and whose fault is it?
PC gone crazy...and whose fault is it?
little by little by little . . .
This issue is rediculous on the face of it.
If they want to stick to the Islamic tradition, the woman should not even be voting!
If they compromise the Islamic tradition and allow the woman to vote, then showing the face for ID purposes is not the first violation of their "faith", so what is the point?
I think the whole purpose of this issue is making voting fraud easier since the woman voting (ie having a voice) is a violation of their "faith".
It’s not a violation of their faith at all. There is one ambiguous passage in the Koran that seems to be telling women to let their head coverings (which everyone wore as a matter of course in those days) cover their breasts, which many women left bare. Some imam with serious sexual hangups (probably describes most of them) took that as a command to always cover the head, then it snowballed to face.
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