Government won’t move forward with plans to ban veiled voting
The federal government has dropped plans to force voters to show their faces at polling stations because of a lack of support from opposition parties. The government proposed legislation creating the requirement in 2007 after elections Canada allowed veiled women to vote in Quebec bi-elections. Prime Minister Harper said this subverted the will of parliament, which had just passed new voter identification requirements. Under current regulations voters can identify themselves by presenting either a piece of government ID or two pieces of other approved ID (one of which must contain the voters’ address), or have another voter from the same district vouch for them. Photo ID is not required, which means forcing veiled women to show their faces would be essentially useless without further changes to voting regulations.