Achi news desk-
Proposed voter ID restrictions will not only prevent many Albertans from participating in local elections, but taken in the context of “dubious democratic moves in Measure 20 and Bill 18″ it signals growing threats to ” core democratic values” in the province. , said University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley.
Alberta election guidelines allow voters who do not have ID to be signed by someone in the same polling district who has approved ID and signs a statement stating that they know the other voter personally and can verify their eligibility and u address.
Changes to the Local Authority Elections Act (LAEA) introduced in Bill 20 would prohibit the use of a voucher in municipal elections except to verify an address, such as cases where a driver’s license lists a post office box instead of a home address.
Wesley said the move is concerning from a democratic inclusion standpoint, because people who don’t have voter ID are usually the most marginalized in our community.
“For generations, there has been a spirit in Alberta’s political culture that we want so many people and so many different types of people voting in elections. That changes with Bill 20 in the sense that the government has chosen to take a page out of MAGA’s Republican playbook to limit the types of people who can cast ballots in local elections,” Wesley said.
Although there have been a number of heated campaigns in recent elections where a few votes could influence the outcome, the elimination of a voucher “depends on the question not the number of people who vote in elections, but the type of people who vote .” we want to vote on elections,” he said.
“We know that these measures will put many indigenous communities at a disadvantage, and especially Black communities,” said Wesley.
People from these communities may not have access to or need a driver’s license, may not trust the state because of Canada’s colonial past and present, or otherwise be less likely to have a voter ID, he said.
“They may be looking at this as not necessarily a physical barrier for them to participate, but just another example of how they are not welcome in the system.”
When the process of removing a voucher as a form of voter ID was first launched as part of an Alberta Government online survey in November, political scientists and advocates also expressed concern that the homeless would be prevented from voting.
In 2014, the Harper government, through then Minister of State for Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre, proposed eliminating vouchers in federal elections. Canada’s chief electoral officer said the move would affect over 100,000 people, such as seniors, students, and mainly, aboriginal people living on reserves, and the constitutionality of the restriction was challenged.
Fears of voter fraud are unfounded
“The government of Alberta is removing the ability for people to guarantee voter identity and only allowing a voucher for a voter’s address. We are doing this to ensure Albertans have full confidence that only eligible voters are casting their ballots,” Heather Jenkins , press secretary to the Minister for Civic Affairs, said in an email.
Jenkins did not provide any examples of cases where someone who was ineligible to vote had fraudulently cast a vote in a municipal election using a voucher.
Bill 20 also prohibits the use of electronic vote counting machines. Likewise, Civic Affairs Minister Ric McIver said the integrity of the machines themselves has not been questioned, but there are many Albertans who do not have faith in the tables, and this belief could undermine trust in results an election.
“The most important point is the morning after the morning after an election, when hopefully all the smoke has cleared and all the votes have been counted. And the winners have been announced that members of the public believe that those who were called the winners, were the legitimate winners,” McIver said at an April 25 news event.
A public engagement survey was conducted by the Government of Alberta on LAEA changes in late 2023. The results show that 46 percent of respondents were not in favor of getting rid of vouchers or endorsements in Alberta local elections and eight percent said they participated in their own vouchers.
“Written responses indicated that it is important to allow all Albertans the ability to vote. All written submissions indicated support for maintaining the ability for an elector to certify for another elector,” the LAEA engagement summary states.
Thirty percent of respondents agreed that vouchers should be eliminated, and they felt it was necessary to prevent “election fraud.”
The politics of revenge
“There is no evidence that voter fraud is a problem in Alberta, and there is no evidence that mid-ballot voting machines are a problem either,” said Wesley.
“This is a case of a small group of people on the fringes of Alberta politics, getting the premier’s ear and coming up with solutions to problems that don’t exist based on conspiracies they’ve read about in far right corners. the internet,” said Wesley.
In a post on the social media platform Telegram on April 25, Take Back Alberta head David Parker celebrated the banning of vote counting machines through Bill 20: “Since Step One, Take Back Alberta has been calling for the end of electronic tables when counting our Votes Today, The UCP introduced legislation to get rid of dabblers.”
Alberta Municipalities President and Wetaskiwin Mayor Tyler Gandam said during a press conference that none of the 265 municipalities represented by ABmunis had reported problems with vote tabulators, and Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said there would be a change to hand count costing local taxpayers millions.
Wesley said voter ID restrictions, Bill 20 provisions allowing the provincial cabinet to fire elected councillors, or proposed legislation requiring provincial approval of any federal funding deal for municipalities or universities could be forgiven as bad policy decisions if they were isolated incidents.
“That’s not what this is. It’s a clear pattern. And it’s one that’s accelerating,” he said. “These are all part of the same pattern for this government, dating back to 2019 and even before that.
“They simply want their kind of people involved, people who like them, the people who support them to be involved in politics, and they don’t want anyone else to do that.
“It’s politics, frankly, driven by revenge. And one that really has no place in a liberal democracy like Alberta.”
