Well, I don't think it's an accurate claim, because we have two sets of identification rules. People in the country don't have to present a passport but people outside the country have to present a passport, so if the government is suggesting that they're going to make things the same, then they really should do that. In terms of the registration process, if people inside the country can register at any time between elections, how do we justify saying that people outside the country cannot do the same?
The question was asked earlier: is there any compelling reason why we should want to have this process that's been set out in this bill? Frankly, I can't come up with any reason.
There are reasons sometimes to put specific rules in place to protect the security of something, but you need some rationale. You need to be able to say that we anticipate this problem, so here's our anticipated solution. In this case, it just seems punitive that we can't allow people outside the country.... If the government argues that they have to register in between elections—and, again, that's different from everybody else, because everybody else doesn't have to keep registering—if they want to do that for various reasons, then why wouldn't someone have to re-register at any point before the electoral cycle begins again? It seems to me that if the government's concern is that they know those people are eligible to vote, then there's no reason to restrict that in the way that it appears in this bill.