School suggested as site for second polling station

A second voting place that will be added for the 2018 municipal election ought to be put in a local school, some Penticton city councillors argued Tuesday.

“Just so young people can see people vote,” said Coun. Helena Konanz.

“Even if they’re not eligible, they can see people going in and filing in and they’ll ask questions. I think it makes it more real.”

Coun. Andre Martin suggested sending voters to rub shoulders with students might also cut costs by having the Okanagan Skaha School District provide space at no cost.

“They do share in this election with us, in terms of having (trustees’) names on the ballots,” he said, “and I think we foot the bill for the whole thing — we being the taxpayer — so maybe they could help out with at least having some space available to run one of the polling stations.”

Council committed to adding a second polling station shortly after taking office in December 2014 due in part to public concerns about long lines at the single voting place set up for that election.

Elected officials on Tuesday approved the estimated $100,000 cost of doing so, plus hosting three advance polls.

Corporate officer Dana Schmidt said councils since 2002 have flip-flopped between one and two voting spaces, turning it into a “resourcing issue” over the years.

Her report came in response to a presentation earlier this month from the Penticton Citizens First group, which asked to provide its own independent scrutineers and suggested a switch back to manual vote counting. Council accepted Schmidt’s recommendation to deny both requests.

Adding extra scrutineers could lead to an unwieldy number of people watching votes being counted, she explained, while switching to a manual recount would add “considerable” time and expense to the process, which is currently performed by machines that “cannot be hacked.”

“In my opinion, I think there’s more chance for error in a manual count than there is with a machine. So I think it’s archaic to draw us backwards,” said Coun. Judy Sentes.

Going manual is also unlikely to satisfy critics of the machines and those who operate them, added Konanz.

“There will still be people who may not trust who actually does the count,” she said.