The Conservative government introduced legislation Friday to force all voters — including veiled Muslim women — to show their faces for identification before being allowed to vote in federal elections.

Conservative House leader Peter Van Loan introduced the proposed amendment to the Canada Elections Act, which was promised in the Tories' Oct. 16 throne speech.

The proposed amendment makes a limited exception for any voter whose face is swathed in bandages due to surgery or some other medical reason.

The Tories were furious over a decision by Elections Canada to allow Muslim women to vote with their faces covered by burkas or niqabs during three Quebec byelections in September.

"During the recent byelections in Quebec, the government made it clear that we disagreed with the decision by Elections Canada to allow people to vote while concealing their face," Van Loan said.  

"That is why … we committed to introducing legislation to confirm the visual identification of voters."

At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused Elections Canada of subverting the will of Parliament.

The new legislation also gives some flexibility to Elections Canada officials in administering the law so that it is respectful of religious beliefs.

Van Loan said Elections Canada may want to make it feasible for veiled Muslim women to uncover their faces behind a screen and in front of a female elections official.

The bill is expected to draw support from all parties, after MPs angrily ganged up last month on chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand for refusing to require visual identification of voters in the recent Quebec byelections.

Bill C-31, which was passed last spring, required voters to show one piece of government-issued photo ID — the most basic standard of voter identification — or two pieces without a photo before being allowed to vote.

But Mayrand insisted there was nothing in the Elections Act requiring the absolute visual recognition of each voter.

Veiled voters who only present one piece of government photo ID at polling stations are asked, but not required, to show their face, Mayrand told MPs in September.

If they decline to do so, he said, the voters must choose one of two other means of identifying themselves, neither of which requires photo identification, as currently stated in the Canada Elections Act.

In those cases, the act allowed voters either to present two pieces of approved ID, at least one of which must state their address (but neither of which must contain a photo), or to have another voter registered in the same district vouch for them.

With files from the Canadian Press

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