Hello, This morning I spoke with Lucy Chislett, a Student-at-Law working on the Council of Canadians and Canadian Federation of Students challenge to the Fair Elections Act. I shared an incident I witnessed as an outside scrutineer in the recent Trinity-Spadina by-election where an elector was denied a ballot because the only proof of address he had was his Voter Identification Card. They are looking for others who may have witnessed or experienced similar situations where electors encountered difficulties providing proof of residence, in any previous federal election or by-election. Im quoting some information Lucy has provided me. If you or someone you know can help with this important case, please get in touch with her! Just by way of background: The legal challenge we are bringing relates to the use of proof of address requirements particularly the Voter Identification Cards (VIC) in federal elections. As you know, this is a card that is sent out to people on the electors list and is usually a card in postcard format, printed on a card stock, with the postage and name of the recipient on one side and the election information (like polling location) on the other. The purpose of the card it to remind people about the election and about where they can vote. The recent changes to the Elections Act (under the Bill the “Fair Elections Act”) prohibit individuals from using their Voter Identification Card (VIC) as proof of address even though it is a document that demonstrates what address that person lives at. This is the change in the law that we are seeking to challenge because in our view it makes it even more difficult for certain groups of people to vote (especially students). With that in mind, we are looking for the following types of people who may be able to help us with our case: 1) people who have used their Voter Identification Card (VIC) in the past as proof of address to vote in an election 2) people who have tried to vote (by actually going to a polling station) and have been turned away because they don’t have proper proof of address (ie. No document such as a hydro bill, credit card statement with their current address on it) OR 3) people who worked as Elections Canada Polling clerks or as party (ex. CPC, Liberal, NDP, Green) scrutineers who may have observed people trying to use their VIC card as proof of address If you know of anyone who might meet one of these criteria it would be wonderful if you could put them in touch with me. We think that there are lots of students that would fall into the second category because they often don’t have bills in their name when living off-campus/in residence. It would also be very helpful if you can spread the word by sending this email to any of your contacts from school or the NDP/polling clerk process that might be able to help us identify people who had the experiences we are looking for. Thank you for your time and for your concern about this important issue. Like I said on the phone, if you have any questions or ideas about how we can get the message out, feel free to contact with me by email or phone. Lucy Chislett Student-at-Law T 613.482.2460 F 613.235.3041 E lchislett@sgmlaw
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 16:56:47 +0000
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