State Senator Dale Schultz was a rare Republican who voted against the bill, saying the party was “fiddling with mechanics rather than ideas.”
“Making it more difficult for people to vote is not a good sign for a party that wants to attract more people,” he said.
The New York Times today has a long read about how U.S. conservatives– the Republican Party — is changing election laws in several states.
Read it here: New G.O.P. Bid to Limit Voting in Swing States – NYTimes.com.
Democrats argue the whole point of the changes is to make it more difficult for the type of people who tend to voter Democrat — lower-income Americans and Black Americans — to actually vote.
Here in Canada, Canadian Conservatives are also trying to change the the laws that govern federal elections. The changes are part of Bill C-23: The Fair Elections Act.
Read a Legislative Summary of Bill C-23
There are many changes in the bill and the government argues that some of them will prevent or reduce voter fraud. The govenrment’s critics argue that Canada does not have a problem with widespread voter fraud and that the changes proposed by the Conservatives will make it more difficult for some groups of people who tend not to vote Conservative — aboriginal Canadians and young Canadians – to actually vote.
Interestingly, as the NYT article notes, Republicans seem to have given up arguing that the changes they are making or want to make to election laws in the U.S. is all about reducing voter fraud. The new conservative rationale for the tighter voting requirements is a about “uniformity”, reducing lineups, and “efficiency.”
This comparison would be a lot more honest if it pointed out a rather key difference between the changes the CPC is proposing and the American attempts to limit voting opportunities since the CPC is actually adding a day of voting in contrast with the American attempts to make it harder to vote early.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Call it what you will, but it’s voter suppression, plain and simple. And don’t think for a minute that the “Harper Government”, is not ashamed to copy that undemocratic practice to do the same in Canada.
Strange that the Cons would accuse anyone of voter fraud because it seems they might be caught in their own B.S.