This article (thanks Charles Adler for the link) is another reminder for me about how easily our own Canadian electoral system can be manipulated. I have brought this up several times with friends, family, political allies, MPs, Ministers, etc. Yet still our system is broken.
You see in Canada you are supposed to be a Canadian Citizen to vote. Yet our system has so many ways in it that let non Canadians in to vote illegally.
1) We have a vouching system. This is when one person has no identification but has a friend who IS on the voter’s list there to vouch for them. This helps create problem 2.
2) Once you have been vouched for, you are now on the voting list. This means the next election, you can then vouch for up to two people who may not be Canadian citizens. This means that technically one Canadian could vouch for two friends. One election later, those two non eligible voters could each vouch for two friends. (now we are at 4 ineligble voters). And then in the third election, we are at potentially 8 ineligible voters. This reminds me of the old shampoo commercial. And you’ll tell two friends. And they’ll tell two friends, and so on.
3) The glue that binds all these together is the fact that you do not need to show proof of citizenship to vote. This is simply ridiculous.
The law says you need to be a Canadian citizen yet it offers several ways for non Canadians to sneak in on the system. In m y opinion, you should be required to have your citizenship card or passport or a photo ID/Birth Certificate combination to vote.
That’s it. That’s all. Anything less to me is unacceptable.
The only way this can really be achieved is to either a) bring back enumeration or b) scrap the voter’s list completely and restart with the current list of provincial birth certificates and federal citizenship and passport lists. Then EVERYone voting should be required to show proof of citizenship to get a ballot.
