Vote with Your Face: The Canadian Voter Identity Conundrum

When I was younger and experiencing seemingly insurmountable problems within institutions or organizations my mother always said to me: don’t whine, work, and when you get the chance, vote with your feet.

Sound advice, and advice often given to and taken by legions of people of color, women, and migrants of every type. Vote with your feet is a metaphor for addressing problems in a system wherein one has no voice, and where the only option for effecting change is to leave.

So what does it mean to vote with your face?

Canadian Prime Minister Harper would likely say that it means uncovering your face at polling places in order to vote. Harper believes that this is what is required under the changes made to the Canada Elections Act in summer 2007. Bill C-31 amended the Canada Elections Act to require proof of identity at the polls. It requires, among other things, that voters provide one original piece of identification issued by any level of Canadian government or an agency of that government that contains the voter's photograph, name and residential address. In the absence of photo identification, a voter must provide two original pieces of identification from a list authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. Both alternate forms of identification must contain the name of the voter and one must also contain the voter's residential address. In the absence of any of these forms of identification, a voter may be vouched for by another voter whose name appears on the roster of voters in the same polling place who possesses acceptable forms of identification. In the latter case, both voters must make a sworn statement. Does the principal reliance on photo identification mean showing one’s face at the polling place? Harper says yes, and decries a decision by the Chief Electoral Officer to allow women who are veiled, presumably for religious reasons, to vote without lifting their veils.

It is true that a requirement to provide a photo identification would seem to come with the implicit assumption that authorities will compare it with the face of the voter who proffers it. However, as many have noted, Canadian law both before and after the recent amendment allows for voting by mail, where there is no way of knowing if the person casting the vote is the same as the person who registered. Moreover, one of the principal concerns of legislators in drafting the new identity provisions of Bill C-31 was to address the complete absence of any preliminary requirement that a voter prove his or her identity. Under prior law, voters needed only to state their names and be found listed among the registered voters. Identity became an issue only if the voter was challenged by an election official, a candidate or a representative of a candidate. Even then, there was no clear statement of what constituted satisfactory proof of identity. For example, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs heard anecdotal evidence that in some polling stations, magazine subscription labels were accepted as satisfactory proof of identity and address. This was detailed in the Committee’s report Improving the Integrity of the Election Process, a document which was one of the bases of Parliament’s decision to amend the Election Act. It would thus appear that potential fraud by veiled women was not part of Parliament’s concern in its deliberations to enact Bill C-31 and that accordingly the bill is (I can’t resist) facially neutral in this regard. This is the interpretation adopted by Marc Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. Mayrand will allow veiled women to vote without showing their faces. Though veiled women will be requested to remove their veils at the polls, they will not be required to do so and may vote using the alternate non-photographic forms of identification permitted under the recent amendments.

It is indeed ironic that veiled women, most of whom are covered for religious reasons, would become the focus of a debate on voting, one of the liberties most crucial to maintaining a free, just, and inclusive society. A number of veiled women have already voted with their feet, seeking refuge in Canada away from places of political, social and economic upheaval. These women should now have the right to expect to vote in elections without their faces becoming an issue.

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