Last-minute voters, not machines caused delays

Delays by the city clerk’s office on Monday night releasing municipal election results were the result of a last-minute surge of voters, not computer glitches with electronic tabulators.

According to John Hannam, 14,000 of the 38,327 who voted tried to do so after 6 p.m. on Monday, the final two hours polls were open. This led to long lines as election officials processed voters, registering hundreds not on the voter’s list.

Official results, expected to start flowing shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m., did not begin to go public until well after 9 p.m.

But there was good reason, Hamman said.

"There were a handful of polls that had to stay open until nine o’clock. Technically they were closed, but it took them until nine o’clock to get all the voters who were in the voting location through and cast their ballots," Hannam said.

"That was the only reason for the delays in publishing results. Because we still had polls that were actually voting, we couldn’t push results up onto our website. We had to wait until we heard from those polls that they had gotten all their voters through."

For the most part, other than a few people who decided 20 minutes to half-an-hour or longer was too much time to stand in line, Hannam said most people caught in line were sympathetic.

"We certainly appreciated the patience of voters as we worked to get everybody through the voting process," Hannam said, promising to look at how things unfolded and determine if changes are needed when the 2014 election rolls around.

"It seemed to be concentrated around certain polls. There were other polls where it was not busy at all during that last hour-and-a-half or so. I’m not sure what we could do to manage that better. This is the first time this has ever happened, so it’s not something we’ve got experience with."

All told, about 20 per cent more voters participated in the 2010 Thunder Bay election, as compared to 2006, when a runaway mayor’s race left little reason for people to come out in droves.

But while Hannam is happy to see an increase, he was a little disappointed that the city didn’t at least return to its statistical average of a 51 per cent turnout.

"At the moment it looks to be about 46.5 per cent. Certainly I’m pleased to see the improvement over 2006, but it’s certainly not anything to be too happy with either. Voters in the community, more than half of them, still didn’t vote. And no matter how you cut it, that’s not good."

City officials upped the usual $300,000 election budget to market the election citywide and introduced a voter van that brought polls to the people.

Hannam stopped short of saying he was disappointed with the turnout.

"I thought given the mayor’s race and the interest around that and certainly the level of promotion we had done that we would get back to the level of over 50 per cent. But we’re certainly pleased with the impact that our promotion work seemed to have," he said.

Hannam is expected to officially certify the election results on Tuesday afternoon.