Election anti-fraud measures are backwards

The two main criteria for voting in a Canadian election are citizenship and residency in the riding. Examples of allowable voter ID include a driver’s licence, a gun-ownership licence, a property-assessment documentation or utility bills.

Since a driver’s licence or a gun-ownership licence can be five years old, and a property-assessment document can be up to a year old and even your latest water or hydro bills can be two to three months old, none of these documents proves residency in the riding. The voter could have moved since these documents were issued. And none of these documents prove citizenship.

The one thing all these documents have in common is the richer you are, the easier they are to come by, and the poorer you are, the less likely you will have them handy. Clearly, the more stringent ID rules were not implemented to stop fraud, but to make it more difficult for poor people to vote.

Since it’s seldom that one vote makes a difference, why would anyone risk becoming a criminal to cast one fraudulent vote?

The election fraud we should be worried about are actions that could actually affect an electoral outcome. Robocall voter suppression, illegal campaign contributions or illegal campaign spending could alter an electoral outcome.The “Fair Elections Act” actually made the investigation and prosecution of such frauds more difficult.

Sadly, the Conservative government got the issue of election fraud backwards and Canadian voters are the losers. At a time when Canada needs to encourage voter participation, we are adding obstacles to voting.

S.I. Petersen Nanaimo