A new Aboriginal volunteer organization has come together to help Indigenous voters navigate new changes mandating stricter identification requirements to participate in the next federal election.
The legislative changes brought in by the Harper government have done away with the practice of vouching whereas a second person could vouch for a person’s address in order for them to vote.
Vouching was a common practice on First Nations reserves where a number of residents lack formal street addresses.
Indigenous Vote Saskatchewan 2015 has launched a social media campaign and organizing meetings to inform Aboriginal voters of the stricter identification requirements and encourage them to participate.
Melody Wood and Glenda Abbot are Indigenous Vote’s key organizers.
Wood says aside from informing Indigenous voters about the changes, they also want to encourage Aboriginal people to vote strategically for the candidate and party they feel best represents their interests.
“We just want to hopefully encourage people to vote in a block based on the best candidate that they feel, or we feel, will best represent our issues per electoral district,” she says.
Abbot says this is why they feel Indigenous Vote is an issues based rather than a partisan organization.
“A true non-partisan would be getting people informed on all of the parties whether it is Conservative, Green, Liberal or NDP,” she says. “We really want people to know – even right now you can say the Conservatives – but do people really know what their policies are?”
Although vouching has been done away with, voters living on reserve can use a letter from their First Nation confirming their location in order to vote.
Wood and Abbot are both from Saskatoon.
They were in Regina Tuesday night for an organizing meeting.