The City of North Battleford is well into its preparations for staging the municipal election on Nov. 9 of this year.
Council members discussed the plans at their meeting Monday. There will be a number of changes to the election this year. Some are COVID-19 related, but other changes were in the works before the pandemic hit.
Highlights are as follows:
Under the Provincial Local Government Elections Act the election date has been changed from the fourth Wednesday in October to the second Wednesday in November.
Under the recent amendments to the Act, public disclosure statements must be included with nomination papers, and a candidate’s occupation is no longer a requirement on the nomination form.
The voter registration will take place when voters attend the polls on Election Day, as has been the case before.
There is a mail-in ballot system in place and that will be in place this election.
There is one significanf change for this election, as there will be only one polling place and that will be the North Battleford Civic Centre.
The reason, said Director of Legislative Services Debbie Wohlberg, is to make it as easy as possible to move voters through the polls as safely as possible, citing the COVID-19 restriction.
The Civic Centre was seen as a good location because it is a city-owned facility, has ample parking, and is designed so voters can progress through one entrance and go out the other. Wohlberg also said the facility should be able to handle the number of election workers.
There will be advance polls set up, which will be held following completion of the provincial election on Oct. 26. As well, there will be polls set up on hospitals and personal care facilities, with locations being River Heights Lodge, Harwood Manor, Villa Pascal, Caleb Village and Battlefords Union Hospital. Dates and times are still to be worked out. There is also the application for mobile polls.
This will also be the first election using automated vote counting machines, something council had previously agreed to. In this process, voters go to the polling place, complete their registration, fill out a ballot, place it in a sleeve to maintain secrecy, and then the ballot is to be taken to the vote counting machine and entered into the machine to be counted.
At Monday’s meeting, council approved the election recommendations from administration and also passed a bylaw to provide for the use of an automated vote counting system at the election.
