Stephen Harper, Pauline Marois import GOP dirty tricks to reduce voting

This column courtesy of CanadianCrossing.com runs here with complete permission.

Stephen Harper and Pauline Marois rarely have something in common, but that something is a trend that has been sweeping throughout the United States.

Though using different methods, Harper and Marois are trying to deny the right to vote to people who are eligible. We’ve seen these “voter ID” laws in several U.S. states designed to prevent those likely to vote against Republicans a chance to cast their ballot, even though they are registered to vote.

While the target audience for Harper and Marois are different, the target audience for both is those who aren’t likely to vote for their party.

Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, is working its way through Parliament.

Canadians have voter identification cards, which help identify them, and Elections Canada has allowed their use with another form of ID as proof of being able to vote. Bill C-23 would take away voter identification cards as a proof of ID. The bill also disallows vouching, where someone in the precinct of the riding can vouch for that person.

Bill C-23 allows bans Elections Canada from encouraging turnout, especially among groups that aren’t as likely to vote: youths under 30, ethnic minorities, Aboriginals and the disabled.

The legislation also removes the Commissioner of Canada Elections (investigators) from Elections Canada to be a separate office. The Conservatives have been the target of numerous allegations from overspending their budget to robocalls telling voters their voting spot had changed when it hadn’t. The change reduces the impact they can make on parties that violate election laws.

Previous coverage:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper copies Bush tactic of ejecting people from campaign stops

Like their U.S. counterparts, conservatives in Canada don’t have actual examples of voter fraud. Unlike their U.S. counterparts, conservatives have the power to change the law nationwide.

In Quebec, university students who are otherwise eligible to vote are being told that they aren’t eligible. The requirements for voting in Quebec is to be a “Canadian citizen, at least 18 years old, be domiciled in Quebec for six months.”

The key word is domiciled. The stories are pretty consistent. Even if people have been living in Quebec for longer than 6 months, and can prove those facts, they are still denied registration.

The Civil Code of Quebec states that “change of domicile is affected by actual residence in another place, coupled with the intention of the person to make it the seat of his principal establishment.”

In other words, you can be a student in Quebec, but if you no intention of living in Quebec after university, you can’t vote. And since that can’t be proven, those who aren’t francophones are being targeted as not likely to stay in Quebec.

These students are primarily living in Montréal, where anglophones and allophones are much more likely to be found.

Previous coverage:

2014 Quebec election preview; election set for April 7

Marois was also vocal about those outside Quebec (i.e., Ontario) were trying to pull the election away from the Parti Quebecois. The premier said there was an influx of illegal anglophone voters in 5 ridings. However, Chief Electoral Officer Jacques Drouin said that there was no abnormal rise in registrations.

Vote fraud would be if these students or anyone else were voting in Quebec and in the province where their parents live. There is no proof or accusations of that happening. In fact, if a student from Quebec were going to school in Ontario or New Brunswick, by Quebec standards, they wouldn’t be eligible to vote where they go to school and would also be legally barred from voting in Quebec.

The students can’t vote in two places, but legally have to be able to vote in one place.

Reading the mind of the voter is literally an impossible task. As to whether graduates will stay in the province, this would depending on being able to find work. Quebec’s jobless rate is not good, yet the campaign has been more about sovereignty and language than the economy or infrastructure.

Residency is where you live. College students in the U.S. run into similar troubles, especially with the new anti-democracy “voter ID” laws since these states “magically” won’t take a college ID as proof of identity.

Voting is a civic duty that comes with being a citizen. The voting process is about opportunity and choice. Political parties — Republican, Conservative, and Parti Quebecois — that take away opportunity and choice from citizens are no better than the Third World dictatorships that the First World likes to admonish.

Canada has done a much better job in running elections than its southern neighbor in great part because a non-partisan group such as Elections Canada works to open up voting to citizens and fights back against rampant partisanship. The Harper Government wants to make elections more like the United States in the spirit of their cousins, the Republican Party.

Politics is supposed to be about ideas. When you run out of ideas, you try cheap, undemocratic stunts such as these. These tactics go against being a democracy. The best way to punish them is to respond at the ballot box.

Rahm Emanuel has to play by the rules, even if the TV news people don’t understand

UPDATE 1/27/11: Boy, that was quick. Rahm Emanuel got the Illinois Supreme Court to issue a quick stay. And before you could warm up from the Chicago cold, the high court ruled unanimously that Emanuel should be on the ballot.

Do you watch TV news and sometimes feel they are covering a different reality than the one you live in?

In national news, this happens all the time. But on a local level, there — theoretically — is supposed to be a closer level to reality.

In Chicago, watching the TV coverage of the mayoral race — the first real race in over 20 years — promised to be exciting. You actually have several major candidates, a chance to show off your coverage. Unfortunately, the TV coverage in Chicago has been tripping over themselves to crown King Emanuel, as in former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Though there are (and were) several major candidates in the race, Emanuel got the lion’s share, actually several lions’ share, worth of coverage. The modern mentality is that Emanuel has the most money (he does, by a long shot) and the most well-known name (true again) so he deserves the majority of the coverage.

That in itself is lazy, but not horrible; the problem is that the coverage itself has been fawning. Really fawning. Chicago has had a mayor who has bulldozed over anything he didn’t want, and Emanuel’s crowning looked like more of the same. If you think that last sentence is hyperbole, Richard M. Daley literally had bulldozers destroy Meigs Field, the lakefront airport.

Which made all the sweeter — the ruling that Rahm Emanuel doesn’t meet the requirements to run for mayor of Chicago.

The rule has been an issue all along, but has been pished and poshed by the TV coverage, treating it like a lone fly at a picnic. Never mind that the rules clearly state you have to live in the municipality for a year before running.

There were two major issues in Emanuel’s “residency” eligibility: living and voting. Emanuel rented out his house, and when he decided to run for mayor of Chicago, tried to break the agreement with the renters. The renters stood up and said no, and in fact, the renter briefly ran for the office.

This element has received a lot of coverage; the voting — well, not so much. Emanuel was removed from the voting rolls twice since he had been in DC, and twice he magically reappeared on the voting rolls once again. Ask yourself if the average Chicago resident would have been so lucky.

Rahm Emanuel has trotted out visions of boxes in his house, serving the United States by being President Obama’s Chief of Staff, and his intent to return to Chicago. And he is very powerful and has a lot of money.

But none of those things apply to the law. Serving your country in the military is an exception, but the only reason that is true is, as a solider, you don’t have a place of residence by default. And if Emanuel wants to equate Chief of Staff to risking your life in war, then he will lose that argument.

Critics have tried to compare this to the requirements for president or Congress. And some astute people have pointed to the story of Alan Keyes.

You probably don’t remember that Alan Keyes is the answer to the trivia question, “Who lost to Barack Obama for the Senate in 2004?” Keyes, who owned a home in Maryland, tried to claim that renting an apartment in Calumet City, IL qualified him as an Illinois resident. Only because Keyes wasn’t considered a viable candidate did the issue get swept underneath the rug. (For the record, Keyes would have trouble claiming IL residence, especially with paying taxes in Maryland.

But at least, Keyes had an apartment. Emanuel owned a house but had no way of living there. And Emanuel stayed in hotels when he came back to visit Chicago.

And some have tried to compare the scenario to Hillary Clinton. But again, Clinton had a home in New York. The fact that the state allows a short period of time in living in the Empire State to run for office is New York’s issue. And if the state hasn’t changed the law after Robert F. Kennedy and Hillary Clinton took advantage of the rules, well, then New Yorkers probably want to keep things the way they are.

But none of this has to do with Rahm Emanuel and his residency eligibility. He has to live in the city that he wants to run; a year is not too much to ask for in running the city of Chicago. And again, if those in Illinois (full disclosure: I am one of them) want to change the law, they can. But for Emanuel in 2011, it’s too late.

Emanuel can run in 2015, provided he has lived in Chicago for at least a year.

Richard M. Daley lost a 3-way mayoral primary in 1983 to Harold Washington, the only elected African-American Chicago mayor. Daley had to wait longer after Washington died in 1987, as the City Council hoisted Eugene Sawyer to replace Washington. But Daley finally got his chance to run in 1989, and has been the mayor ever since.

The TV people generally react as if it’s audacious that Emanuel has to play by the rules, that the electorate wants our politicians to play by the rules. But they aren’t living in the same world as we are. The rules are normally stacked in favor of people such as Emanuel and Daley. Chicago has a tradition of using arcane rules to knock candidates off the ballot, using hurting the little known candidate who likely won’t win. The powers that be love to knock them off, because, it shows off their power.

So seeing a scenario where the powerful have to live by the same rules as the rest of us, well, this is what the Founding Fathers envisioned. The power base in Chicago, well, they have lost those memos. And the TV people, who ran scared of confronting Mayor Daley, looked forward to kowtowing to Mayor Emanuel.

Unless the Illinois Supreme Court steps in, Emanuel won’t get that chance in 2011. And we can thank the laws and their broad application. All the arrogance in the world won’t change that, but Rahm Emanuel and the TV news people certainly will give it a try.