With uncertainty still surrounding COVID-19, the Town of Bridgewater is looking at alternative forms of voting for the upcoming municipal election.
Town council have moved forward with a plan to use only e-voting this Fall, which would see voting by phone or computer during the election.
Mayor David Mitchell said they decided to cut paper voting this election out of fears of a second spreading of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia.
“Our priority is the safety of our residents,” he said.
“How do we make sure everyone is keeping physically distanced and not lining up, and of course the answer is allowing them to do it from the comfort of their home.”
Concern for potential voter fraud was brought up by a council member during the meeting, however Mitchell said its been smooth sailing so far.
“This will be our third election in a row using telephone or electronic voting, and we haven’t seen any voter fraud yet,” he said.
“It’s something that isn’t really a concern as it is quite secure and there are safeguards in place.”
Those safeguards include the use of a specialized PIN when voting, which is mailed out to registered voters.
Mitchell said allowing people to vote from the comfort and safety of their home just seemed like the right move considering the circumstances.
E-voting not possible for some areas
However, while safety is still a concern, many other municipalities don’t have the ability to rely on electronic voting.
Unlike Bridgewater, the Region of Queens Municipality will be sticking with traditional paper ballots for this year’s municipal election.
Limited internet access in the municipality has made E-voting a non-starter for Queens, said Returning Officer Ted Bulle.
“A lot of areas in our region have very slow or inconsistent internet,” he said, “so if we did that it could cause a lot of potential problems.”
Special considerations will need to be taken in order to allow residents to vote safely, but Bulle said the safety measures implemented should be familiar at this point and will be very similar to what retail businesses have done to protect their customers and staff.
In the event a polling station has more than one poll, he said they will utilize things like Plexi-glass barriers in order to keep voters separate.
One challenge they are still working on is pens. In a normal election hundreds of people would often use the same pen but he says the Region of Queens is working on a plan to avoid that this year.
However, The window to make changes is still a ways off with, Bulle said, and changes could be made up until October 7th, the day before advance polling begins.
“We are going to have to put in safety measures depending on what the protocol is at that time,” he said.
But, barring another wave of COVID-19 he says that paper ballots will remain the number one option for the Region of Queens this fall.
With files from Cody McEachern and Evan Taylor. Follow them on Twitter at @CodyInHiFi and @evanrtaylor.
