Revised rules for running federal election during pandemic proposed in new bill

The federal Liberals are proposing to spread voting over three days if there's a federal election during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A bill tabled in the House of Commons today would also add nearly two weeks of advance polls in long-term care homes and make it easier to get and deliver mail-in ballots.

And it would give the country's chief electoral officer authority to make other adjustments to make balloting safer for both voters and poll workers.

Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Democratic Institutions, says the measures are meant to prevent potential crowding at polling places and to allow people vulnerable to COVID-19 to vote from home.

Chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault warned earlier in the fall that restrictions in the law governing federal elections could put voters at risk, especially with mobile polls that are supposed to make voting easier for nursing home residents.

The government says the new rules would be temporary and would expire when Perrault deems it safe to go back to the current voting system.