Duane Hicks
While election day is not until Oct. 27, Fort Frances electors can start voting in the municipal election as soon as this week.
Town clerk and returning officer Lisa Slomke said residents can expect their mail-in voting kits to arrive this week—and may already have received them.
The package voters will receive includes a ballot, a white privacy envelope, a voter declaration form, and a larger, yellow envelope which is postage paid if mailed in Canada.
Using the kits is easy (a set of instructions is included).
Just fill out your ballot and put it in the white envelope. Then fill out a voter declaration form stating you are the person who’s supposed to be voting with that ballot.
Then put both the white envelope and the voter declaration into the yellow one, seal it, and mail it.
Slomke noted there also is a step-by-step video of the process, with verbal instructions, on the town’s website at fort-frances.com
Voters can send their ballots in as soon as they get them.
The elector notification lists are based on data from the Municipal Property Assessment Corp. If by rare chance anyone receives more than one voting kit, it doesn’t mean they can vote twice.
In the 2010 election for the local school boards, for instance, some people who were both town residents and owned property in an unincorporated area (such as a cabin) received two voter kits—one from the town and one from their affiliated school board (public or separate).
But electors only are eligible to vote once for each candidate under the Municipal Elections Act.
“The important thing to remember is the onus is on the voter, not on the clerk, not on the candidates, to vote once in each municipality,” Slomke stressed.
Besides that restriction, they can vote however they want, she added.
For example, voters don’t have to vote for six candidates to fill all six seats on council and instead could opt only to vote for two, three, or five—it’s their choice.
“If they want to vote for none, that is also their choice,” Slomke said.
If eligible voters do not receive their kits prior to the week of Oct. 14, or some information in their mail-in ballot package is wrong, call Slomke at 274-5323 or drop by the Civic Centre.
Slomke said she will have a revision centre and ballot return station set up in Council Chambers from Oct. 14-24 during regular office hours (8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., with lunch from noon-1 p.m.) and then on Oct. 27 from 10 a.m.-8 p.m.
“I will have two election staff working down there so if people . . . maybe didn’t get their package, maybe because they weren’t on the list, they can do some investigation and make sure they’ll be able to vote,” she explained.
Canada Post has indicated its cut-off date to guarantee they’ll deliver all ballots in time for election day is Saturday, Oct. 18.
“If it’s not dropped in the mail by then, they will not guarantee it will be here [by Oct. 27],” noted Slomke.
As such, those who choose to vote after Oct. 18 instead are encouraged to fill out their voting packages and bring them in person to the ballot return station in Council Chambers.
Those who do vote this way, however, still must follow procedure and fill out the mail-in package as if they were sending it in the post.
Looking ahead to election day, the town once again will be using electronic voting tabulators.
Slomke said election staff will start working in the counting centre at 2 p.m. that day, opening the ballot sealed envelopes and putting them in piles of 50.
Then around 4 p.m., they will start feeding them through the tabulators.
The very last box will be brought to them from the ballot return centre when it closes at 8 p.m.
The results are stored on memory cards. When election staff is done feeding all the ballots through the two tabulators, the memory cards are taken from each machine.
Slomke then will tabulate the combined results and prepare a preliminary list of results, which will be posted in Council Chambers.
They also will be posted on the town’s website before she leaves that night.
The public is welcome to attend Council Chambers on election night.
Candidates and scrutineers will be permitted in the counting centre if they so choose, but only one scrutineer per candidate.
