THUNDER BAY – The first ballots in this year’s municipal election will be cast in less than a week.
Advance polls for the Thunder Bay municipal election will begin on Oct. 9, with two days scheduled at the West Thunder Community Centre followed by two days at the 55 Plus Centre on Oct. 11-12.
Online and telephone voting, new options introduced for this election, will open on the morning of Oct. 9 and be available continuously for 24 hours a day until polls close at 8 p.m. on Oct. 22.
City clerk John Hannam on Thursday provided candidates with a demonstration of the tabulator machines that will be counting ballots during the election.
The electronic counting enhances the accuracy of the results compared to hand counting, Hannam said.
“People make mistakes and machines don’t. We can run the ballots through 100 times and they’ll give us the same result every time. I could give three people three piles of ballots and I guarantee you they’ll come up with different counts,” Hannam said.
“Tabulated votes and online votes are far more accurate as well as quicker.”
There have been no reported vote discrepancies since the city switched to tabulators from manual counting, Hannam added.
After marking their ballot, voters will present their concealed ballot to an election worker, who will insert it into the tabulator. The tabulator will accept the ballot or notify the worker if the choices can’t be read, there are too many candidates selected in a race or if the ballot has been left blank.
During the previous election, voters who filled a ballot with fewer than five at-large candidates were told by election workers they did not pick a full slate. Some voters who did that intentionally were not appreciative of that message.
“We got lots of feedback from voters last time that they didn’t need to be reminded that they under-voted. They did so deliberately,” Hannam said.
“It’s a feature that is available to us with the devices but usually it’s turned off. We used it last (time) and people were upset by it so we’ve responded and we’re not advising if they under-voted. If they only vote for two candidates at-large or they don’t vote for a ward candidate or school board, we won’t be alerting them to that fact. It’s their choice.”
Hannam said showing the candidates the process of how ballots will be cast and answering any questions allows them to know what’s happening.
“It’s so they have a good understanding of what it is we’re doing with the polls and hopefully have confidence in the way the election is being managed,” Hannam said. “If needed they can answer questions of voters as to what they can expect when they come to the polls.”
