How the Fair Elections Act affects youth: an opinion piece

Are you a young person who votes or is hoping to vote one day? You might want to start sorting out your paperwork now. Even though our next federal election doesn’t take place until October 2015, the federal government’s new Fair Elections Act could affect how easy it is for youth to vote.

 

If you’re new to voting, here’s how it works: on election day, you line up at a community centre in your neighbourhood with a piece of ID that proves who you are and where you live. If you don’t have ID with your address on it, you can bring a few pieces of mail with your name on it. If worse comes to worse—say you just moved and your ID doesn’t match your address—someone can vouch for your identity, essentially confirming that you are who you say you are and you live where you say you live. Alternately, the government will mail you a voter information card, which is essentially a temporary piece of ID you can use to prove where you live in order to vote. You can read more about the current options on how to prove your identity and address here.

 

So what does this have to do with the Fair Elections Act and how does it affect youth voters? Well, the Fair Elections Act eliminates the process of vouching. It also eliminates the ability for voters to use a voter information card. It changes some other rules too, which you can read about in this handy Globe and Mail article. The Chief Electoral Officer has pointed out that in 2011, over 120,000 Canadians used vouching to vote, many of whom were likely young people and students who change addresses frequently. The goal in eliminating vouching is to reduce voter fraud, but by doing so, it could affect the youth vote more significantly than other voting groups in Canada.

 

Gladys Christiansen, the HR director for Saskatchewan’s Lac La Ronge Band, has also pointed out that the Fair Elections Act could make voting more difficult for young aboriginal people, who are less likely to have the correct ID than their non-aboriginal peers. Some First Nations people have status cards, but these don’t have addresses on them and can take years to renew. The Fair Elections Act would also eliminate programs designed to encourage both aboriginal and non-aboriginal youth to vote.

 

So say you’re a Yukoner that just moved to a new city to attend university. Say that you don’t have a passport, or that you left it at your parents’ house while you were living elsewhere to go to school. Say that you’re young and aboriginal, but don’t have a status card or any other government issued ID. Say that you’re a youth who wants to vote, but aren’t sure how, why, or where to do it. These hypotheticals are realities for many youth—particularly northern youth—and for them, voting suddenly just got much more difficult.

 

 

In 2013, I lived at four different addresses in two provinces and one territory. At one point, my health card, my driver’s license, and my passport all had different addresses on them. If we had a federal election last year with the Fair Elections Act in place, my ability to vote in my riding of residence would have been difficult if not impossible.

 

The youth vote has been making headlines since the recent Quebec election for its ability to split the separatist movement and redirect Quebec politics. We know the youth vote is important, and enfranchising youth is not a partisan issue. The way youth vote in the next federal election will differ between province to province; territory to territory. But we do believe all young people should be able to easily exercise their right to vote.

 

One way to do that would be to implement online voting. As Rick points out, all Canadians reside in a riding, but young Canadians live online.

 

 

Do you think your ability to vote might be called into question by the Fair Elections Act? Would you vote online if it was an option to you? Tell your MP. In the Yukon, contact Ryan Leef. He’s @ryanleefmp on Twitter.