With all deference to Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and her colleagues on the Supreme Court of Canada, it’s hard to see how the public can have confidence in the May 2, 2011, federal election in Etobicoke Centre unless it is rerun, as a lower court ordered earlier this year.

The sheer closeness of the result — Conservative MP Ted Opitz won by 26 votes over Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj — plus the contorted legal wrangling over irregularities that may have skewed the outcome have cast a pall over the process, and shaken public confidence in the integrity of the system. We need some air-clearing that only a fresh election can provide.

In an historic hearing on Tuesday, the high court heard arguments to determine whether the various “technical irregularities” were grave enough to eject Opitz and send voters back to the ballot box.

As the Star’s Susan Delacourt reported, McLachlin took issue with the view that the results should be allowed to stand despite the irregularities. “Just because we take for granted, in Canada, that everything usually works honestly and so on, how far should the court go in saying this is all right?” she noted. Granted, there are clerical gaffes in any election. But if we “excuse too many errors,” McLachlin said, “what will that do to the overall Canadian electoral system?” She’s right. Errors need to be kept to a bare minimum.

In Etobicoke Centre people voted at the wrong polling station. Some voters’ identities were improperly vouched for. And registration certificates were improperly filled out or went missing. Mindful of the close vote, Superior Court Justice Thomas Lederer ordered a new election. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association agrees.

The legal fracas has highlighted that Canada’s electoral list needs updating to minimize the confusion about where people should vote and to reduce the need for vouching at the polls. And that polling stations need to keep better election-day records.

Beyond that, the Supreme Court can usefully provide some guidance on striking a better balance between the right to vote, which is fundamental, and the election safeguards that must be considered essential to ensure that the rules are respected and that only qualified voters get to vote. We want to encourage people to vote, but not to game the system. Verifying a voter’s citizenship and residence on the day votes are cast is basic. Anything less will erode public confidence in the system.

As an aside, it is ironic that the Conservatives, who were obsessed about a few veiled Muslim women voting without adequate identity checks, are arguing in this case that polling clerks’ mistakes are inevitable and should not negate the results.

Vexing as this case is, it offers the Supreme Court an opportunity to draw a “bright line” that affirms our constitutional right to vote – on the proviso that we really are who we purport to be.