City plans to induce more people to vote on Nov. 5

The city says it wants to induce more people to vote in the municipal election in November, so it’s planning to make it easier for Montrealers to cast ballots.

The city executive committee passed a resolution on Wednesday to sign an agreement with the province to allow people who have difficulty getting to a polling station to vote at home.

The resolution also calls for an agreement on a second measure that would spread advance polling over several days to enable people with other plans for election day — Nov. 5 — to exercise their right to vote.

While the resolution refers to the two measures as pilot projects, the city experimented with both in the last general election in 2013.

The measures were popular, the city says.

Voting at home, designed for people whose health prevents them from going to a polling station, “responded to a real need for a small group of voters,” says a civil service report accompanying the resolution.

In 2013, 432 Montrealers — representing 0.04 per cent of eligible voters — cast ballots at home.

“The experience seems to show that the vast majority of these voters would not have been able to vote had it not been for voting at home,” the report says.

The city’s elections office would send a team to the eligible person’s home to carry out the vote, city spokesperson Jacques-Alain Lavallée said on Wednesday.

The city will post information about the voting process on its website and will mail information to residents later this year, he said.

Meanwhile, the city traditionally provides one day for advance polling.

But the city experimented with four additional days of advance voting in 2013.

It was so popular that long wait times were reported at some voting offices.

So this year, the city intends to hire more personnel, the report says.

The 2013 election saw 29,943 Montrealers, or 2.72 per cent of eligible voters, show up in advance polling, it adds.

That said, just 477,437 of 1.1 million eligible voters in Montreal cast ballots in 2013, the city’s election website shows. However, the 43.32 per cent turnout in that election was an improvement over 39.4 per cent in 2009 and 34.9 per cent in 2005.

The highest turnout in a Montreal election in the last 70 years was recorded in 1978, when it hit 53.8 per cent.