|
Freedom Party of
Ontario
240
Commissioners Road West
London, Ontario N6J 1Y1
Telephone: 519-681-3999
FAX:
519-681-2857
|
July 30, 2007
Elections Ontario
51 Rolark Drive
Toronto, Ontario
M1R 3B1
Attention: Loren Wells, Deputy Chief
Electoral Officer
Dear Ms. Wells:
Re: Identification document
requirements for electors
I confirm receipt of your letter to Ontario's
registered political parties dated July 16, 2007. In that letter you ask
each party to fill out an enclosed form, and to sign it. I am writing both
to explain why Freedom Party will not answer the questions put to it in the
form, and to provide a substantive answer concerning how the Chief
Electoral Officer can and must comply with the relatively new
obligation set out in subsection 4.2(1)
of the Election
Act.
A. Why Freedom Party will not answer the
questions asked
Paragraph 4.2(1)(a) of the Election Act
states:
"The Chief Electoral Officer shall,
(a) determine what document or class of
document constitutes, for the purposes of each of the provisions listed
in subsection (2),
(i) proof of a person's identity,
and
(ii) proof of a person's place of
residence" (emphasis
added)
The purposes set out in 4.2(2) include proving ones
identity in order to obtain a ballot at a polling station, and proving both ones
identity and ones place of residence in order to be added to the list of
voters.
The two questions set out in the form are worded as
follows:
"Q1. a) In your experience, what documents do members
of the community you represent or serve have that could prove their
identity?
b) What are the possible challenges for members of
the community you serve in being able to provide identification documents to
prove their identity?
Q2. a) In your experience, what documents do members
of the community you serve have that could prove their place of
residence?
b) What are the possible challenges for members of
the community you serve in being able to provide identification documents to
prove their place of residence?"
Freedom Party's objections
to answering the questionnaire are threefold:
1. The Election Act's new
requirement to prove ones identity/residence is not conditional upon
"challenges" a voter might have in obtaining or producing the
appropriate document. Accordingly, such challenges are not a proper
consideration and, I would submit, were the Chief Electoral Officer to base
his decision under subsection 4.2(1) on such challenges, he would have failed to
have properly executed his duty under that subsection. By answering
questions about challenges, Freedom Party would implicitly be sanctioning the
false notion that such challenges are a proper consideration under section
4.2. They are not, so we shall withhold such sanction.
In saying this, we are not indifferent to the
problem that the Legislature has created with its decision to require voters to
present identification in order to get a ballot. The Legislature has
imposed a requirement for documentation, but has failed miserably to
provide Ontarians over the last 4 years with a proper voter card.
Freedom Party proposed, in 2003, that Ontario issue to every person
who provides evidence of their eligibility to vote (including age,
residence, and citizenship) a voter card that would certify that the person
identified by the card has a right to a ballot. That step was
not taken, and now the Legislature has made the Chief Electoral Officer the
front man for any public outrage about the new voter
documentation requirements.
We remain of the opinion that photo voter ID should
be issued to all Ontarians who provide evidence of their age, residence and
citizenship. Surely Ontario voters are owed such protection of their
franchise, for the security of democracy in an age where democracy itself is
under attack by terroristic theocrats and others.
2. Subsection 4.2(1) requires the
Chief Electoral Officer to identify a "document" (singular) or "class"
(singular) of documents that satisfies not one, but two requirements: proof of
identity and of residence. It is simply not the case that the Chief
Electoral Officer is to identify one document for the purposes of proving
identity, and another for the purposes of proving residence. The Act
clearly requires the identification of one or more cards each of which
both identify the alleged voter, and prove his residence.
However, by splitting the questions about identity and residence, the
questionnaire suggests that the Chief Electoral Officer is considering
the approval of documents that prove only identity or residence (not
both). We are of the opinion that should the Chief Electoral Officer
approve any document that does not prove both a person's identity and his/her
place of residence, the Chief Electoral Officer will have failed to execute his
duty under subsection 4.2(1). Were Freedom Party to answer the questions
asked, it might be inferred that we agree with such an approach. We
do not, so we withhold our implied sanction of such an approach.
3. Freedom Party does not
serve a "community". We do not agree that people do or should be
treated by government as though they live communally or exist as a
collective. Freedom Party seeks to defend the life, liberty and
property of all individuals living in Ontario.
B. Freedom Party's Opinion About What
Documents Satisfy Section 4.2
We begin by noting that the legislation is
inadequate, in that it does not require proof of citizenship even though
Canadian citizenship is one of the eligibility requirements for voting.
Without proof of citizenship, any resident of Ontario who meets the remaining
requirements may vote without right to do so, yet remain undetected. We
acknowledge, however, that that omission is the fault not of Elections Ontario
but of the Legislature.
With respect to the Chief Electoral Officer's
compliance with section 4.2, we submit that mere possession of documents
bearing the name and/or address of a voter is not reasonable proof of identity
or residence. Credit card applications and numerous other junk mail items
are routinely thrown into the garbage by countless households. Similarly,
Elections Ontario knows that numerous voter notification cards issued by
Elections Ontario have been obtained by people to whom they were not issued, and
that same have been presented by fraudsters at polling stations (fraudsters who,
if caught, have simply dropped the card and walked out of the polling station
without consequence): mere possession of a voter notification card is not
proof of identity.
We submit that to comply with the letter and the
spirit of section 4.2, the Chief Electoral Officer must give due regard to
the fact that it is intended to effect an actual change of practice at polling
stations: it is not mere window dressing, but is intended to decrease the
possibility of voter fraud. In past elections, mere possession of
such things as a Bell Canada bill has been accepted as proof of residence.
If section 4.2 is to have its intended effect of reducing opportunities for
voter fraud, mere possession of a document bearing a voter's name and
address is simply not sufficient. We are of the opinion that section 4.2
requires a higher standard and that implies, as we see it, photo
identification such as: an Ontario Driver's licence, the photo version of the
Ontario Health Card, or any federal card bearing the photo,
name, and current address of
the person bearing the card.
I understand that Elections Ontario opposes photo
ID for at least two reasons:
- The Chief Electoral Officer does not want to
require voters to present photo ID because that requirement might upset some
voters at polling stations, with the effect that some polling staff may decide
to walk off the job rather than deal with the abuse.
- Freedom Party and I have repeatedly suggested to
Elections Ontario, since 2003, that Ontario should introduce a voter card to
people who satisfy all eligibility requirements for voting (including
citizenship). However, we have been met with a host
of responses from Elections Ontario, such as that such cards would be too
expensive, or that (in some entirely inexplicable way) they would
violate a person's alleged right to privacy in such
matters. At every turn, the stated position of Elections Ontario
has been that its goal is to "get out the vote" and that requiring people
to verify that they are eligible to vote would interfere with that
goal.
With respect, neither of these concerns trumps
the Chief Electoral Officer's new duty to identify a document or class of
documents that will actually identify a voter and his/her residence.
Voters might rightly be upset that the Legislature
imposed an ID requirement without issuing ID (of the sort advocated by Freedom
Party for years). However, although that problem could have been avoided
by the issuance of voter cards (over the last 4 years), the reality is that the
law now requires tighter identification standards. Any issues of conflict
at polling stations must now be dealt with by means of security, rather than by
violating the tighter standards imposed by section 4.2.
We remain of the opinion that Elections Ontario's
mandate does not even include the goal of "getting out the vote", and that its
role is mechanical in nature: it is to implement a voting system, not to concern
itself with voter disillusionment with government and its effect on voter
turn-out. And, most certainly, section 4.2 of the Election Act does not
permit the Chief Electoral Officer to compromise issues of identity and
residence verification for any reason, including "getting out the
vote".
We thank you for giving Freedom Party the
opportunity, once again, to express our opinion about this matter.
Regards,
Paul McKeever
Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario
on behalf of
Freedom Party of Ontario