Be Sure You Can Vote! The Rules Of The Game Have Changed.

By André Faust

The Effect of Voter Split

Stephen Harper and his government has launched the Fair Elections act that is design to stack the cards in his favour for re-election. Harper is counting on maintain voter split, in essence he can be re-elected with 39% of the vote. His strategy is straightforward; maintain the core vote of 39%t, and the rest of 61% will be divided up among the other parties which should give him his majority. If voters behave as they did in 2011 the same results can be expected

To ensure that he will maintain the advantage of voter split he introduced Fair Elections Act, which will make it more difficult for students, seniors and first time voters to vote come election time. The table below shows how much more complicated it is going to be at the polling station, at one time you only had to provide your voter card, in this election this is not going to be the case.

Show one piece of government-issued ID It must have your photo, name and current address. Examples: driver’s licence provincial or territorial ID card

Or

Show two pieces of ID Show one piece with your name, and one piece with your name and address. Examples: health card and phone bill debit card and bank statement

Or

Take an oath Show two pieces with your name, and have someone who knows you attest to your address. This person must: show proof of identity and address be registered in the same polling division only attest for one person

In a recent court challenge, Justice David Stinson of the Ontario Superior Court found that there was a risk that some people would be unable to vote because of strict new voter identification requirements.
This is what the Harper Government is counting upon.

To counter Harper s strategy of encouraging voter split, Leadnow has developed a block voting strategy, which works like this; pick the best local candidate who can defeat the Conservatives in their riding, if the strategy is successful Harper should lose the election.

To ensure that your vote will count you need register on line, or verify your registration online at this link Elections Canada Online, then make sure you have all of the required identification so that you don’t get disqualified from voting.

I verified my status on line it took 2 minutes to complete their form. Once completed the following screen was produced saying that I was registered, but I still will have to have id come Election Day because the voter card is not see as Id.

The following is a screen dump from Elections Canada saying that I am registered.

This Election may be the most important election that has ever been held in the history of Canada, so make your vote count.

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