Change needed in next civic election

The act of voting to elect people to represent us in our government is one of the most important pieces of business we have. We take this right for granted while people in other countries are fighting civil wars or in jail for just wanting the same right. The peaceful appointment and termination of government by election is one of humankind’s best creations. Over the years an election-weary and apathetic set of voters has reduced its important role in electing government. Voter turnout rates have fallen at all three levels of government – federal, provincial and municipal. We have become so used to low turnouts that a recent turnout of 41 per cent for Moose Jaw city election was considered good. Ensuring voters keep voting and trying to get new voters out must be a priority for election officials. That didn’t seem to be a priority in the October civic elections in Moose Jaw. Hundreds of voters were turned off by one practice at the voting booth. Under our system, voters may vote for up to six council members but can vote for any number from one to six. A program on the voting machine caught and did not accept any ballots with less than six candidates marked on it. Before the election official in charge of the voting machine manually over rode the machine and had the ballot accepted, the voter was told he or she had under voted and was asked if that is what they wanted? That question alone is enough to turn off voters. It is nobody’s business how many candidates anyone votes for. The idea that an election clerk knows that much about your secret ballot is appalling. The fact that those same election officials broadcast your private information to anyone within hearing distance of the vote machine is worse. I’m told a few of the clerks were quite loud in their statements. In the city hall poll where two lines of voters and two lines of registering voters were crammed in like sardines, the broadcasting of this private information The Saskatoon Inn has 250 rooms and 28,000 square feet of meeting and banquet rooms. There is room for expansion on the nine-acre site. The $37 million purchase with a $27.7 million mortgage diversifies the trust away from dependence on the Fort McMurray oil sands operations. Until the Saskatoon Inn was added, eight Fort McMurray hotels accounted for almost half of the 1,708 rooms. That total does not include 225 Calgary hotel rooms being acquired in 2013. The Temple REIT’s first hotel was the spa. took on a new magnitude. The under-voting, I’m told, was handled differently at some polls. One poll clerk fingered over the voter marks on the ballot – certainly not what should have been done. Another poll clerk had a senior woman do over her ballot and vote for six councillors. And the list of unacceptable process goes on. We need to get to the bottom of this and make sure this incompetence never happens again. The voting machines in the last civic election did not have this rejection of under-voted ballots. Let’s turn off this part of the program for the next election. Voter participation is too important to discourage it with an unnecessary part of the voting machine program.

Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net