New voting rules blamed for historically low turnout

[myata]

All proportional reperesentation does is ensure an Islamic party of Canada and decorate our house of commons with 20 parties based down racial and religious lines.

No, it ensures that all voices in this country are heard before problems deteriorate into something more serious and ugly. Which was the original purpose of parliaments.

Specific arrangements can ensure that parties would have to pass certain credibility barriers to get in.

The proposal with "taxpayers" is of course nothing new. There's been all kinds of societies where this or that privileged class would have more rights than everybody else. BTW would police and army also qualify as civil servants in your model? Or there would be civil servants and civil servants (as citizens and citizens) also?

[pfezziwig]

Wait till e-voting is adopted federally. It's the way to go, I just voted in my municipal election from my computer while laying down on the sofa one night. A week later I had to go to a voting station after a long days work.

E-voting would raise the turnout another 10% and save people a lot of time and even save tax payer dollars.

[William Ashley]

I think most of the excuses were just to cover voter laziness. if they really wanted to voted, they could get documents relatively easily

http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?sectio...tonly=false#two

if they lived in residence, they could get a letter from there saying thats where they lived.

if they lived off-campus, they could have used their lease as ID

as for aboriginals

Takes a month to get new ID- election happened the second weekof october.. wasn't called until the second week of september = means that students for example who move into campus in the begining of september and dont' have a reason to change their permentant address.. but arn't at home on election day become disenfranchised. Most people don't think to do mail in ballots or waste hours of their tme to be able tovote, it is a hastle and unsupportive of democracy. Elections canada should have a simple and honest way of doing this .. or the government should stop wasting tax payer dollars and institute a national identity card already that can cut down on plastic waste and beaurcratic overlap and expenses on buying and replacing multiple cards. and don't forget the biometric data to remove identity theft as being possible - heck throw in a dna signature while your at it. - THIS AS AN OPTIONAL CHOICE- and the level of security your card can have - the combined, the biometric version or the super duper no one is going to steal my identity card.

Insure it is a two way system and there is a chip that can add new information to it.. so it is current.. and can be changed online or on the phone, then taken into a government service office that can load the changes onto your card. of coure some areas would be totally protected eg. the dna, date of birth portion.. while others would be updatable such as address, or hair colour, emergency health information, emergency contacts etc.. etc

Edited October 21, 2008 by William Ashley

[Brunopolis]

Canada does everything possible to make people not vote so what do you expect. I'm surprised the voter turnout is as high as it is with an average of 50-60% of all voters being completely discredited with the current system.

Not to mention the elections are often on weekdays. Seriously....weekdays. If that doesn't show you the system is messed up then I don't know what will. If you work from 9 to 5, get home, prepare supper, and eat it's already 7-8 o'clock. Then you have to wait 45 minutes in line with everyone else to vote. It's a hefty hassle and for many who already think their vote will be useless any ways(if they live in a Liberal or Conservative stronghold) the chance of them not voting is significantly higher.

At the very least every election should be on a Sunday and be considered a holiday so work does not get in the way for people.

[M.Dancer]

Canada does everything possible to make people not vote so what do you expect. I'm surprised the voter turnout is as high as it is with an average of 50-60% of all voters being completely discredited with the current system.

Not to mention the elections are often on weekdays. Seriously....weekdays. If that doesn't show you the system is messed up then I don't know what will. If you work from 9 to 5, get home, prepare supper, and eat it's already 7-8 o'clock. Then you have to wait 45 minutes in line with everyone else to vote. It's a hefty hassle and for many who already think their vote will be useless any ways(if they live in a Liberal or Conservative stronghold) the chance of them not voting is significantly higher.

At the very least every election should be on a Sunday and be considered a holiday so work does not get in the way for people.

I take it you didn't vote. I had to stand in line---actually i didn't, there was no line. I left work an hour early which by law I am allowed, and went straight to the polling site which was a ten minute walk from home.

Weekends are the busiest days for me and for most people who have young families. There are household chores that must be done, guitar lessons, homework....and for many people, church.

People who can't figure out how to schedule 1 hour to vote really shouldn't, or at least they should run for the Liberal Party as it is obvious, they find it isn't easy to make priorities.

[drewski]

Takes a month to get new ID- election happened the second weekof october.. wasn't called until the second week of september = means that students for example who move into campus in the begining of september and dont' have a reason to change their permentant address.. but arn't at home on election day become disenfranchised. Most people don't think to do mail in ballots or waste hours of their tme to be able tovote, it is a hastle and unsupportive of democracy.

sorry, but those are simply lame excuses

Attestation of Residence issued by the responsible authorities (shelters, soup kitchens, student/senior residences, long-term care facilities)

to go along with ID that doesn't have an address (ie SIN card, birth cert or even a student ID card) that you don't need to change when you move

Edited October 21, 2008 by drewski

[drewski]

I take it you didn't vote. I had to stand in line---actually i didn't, there was no line. I left work an hour early which by law I am allowed, and went straight to the polling site which was a ten minute walk from home.

Weekends are the busiest days for me and for most people who have young families. There are household chores that must be done, guitar lessons, homework....and for many people, church.

agreed totally

I had to wait in a line for maybe 10min because I had recently moved and wasn't on the list for my new riding. with a few people ahead of me having to fill out forms, it still didn't take very long

[madmax]

My wife and I didn't bother voting again this time around.

You have quite a track record for not voting.