ABERFOYLE – Puslinch councillors recently reviewed Hamilton’s request for support in its push to better maintain voters’ lists.
Hamilton supports the re-establishment of the multi-stakeholder working group between the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Ministry of Finance, AMCTO, MPAC, Elections Canada and Elections Ontario in exploring and identifying ways to create and maintain the voters list for municipal elections.
The city noted that in 2012, the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario (AMCTO) published a voters list position paper and since that time has been advocating for changes to the way that Ontario creates and maintains the voters’ list for municipal elections.
The city also noted “MPAC has a limited ability to fix the currency and accuracy issues that impairs the current process and the voters list continues to be flawed with data inaccuracies and outdated information.”
Among the issues to be reviewed are matters encountered during the 2018 municipal election process:
– neighbours on the same Voter Notification Cards (VNC);
– polling locations not matching the address;
– incorrect mailing addresses;
– electors appearing at a specific address where they had never lived;
– addresses outside of the polling subdivision;
– incorrect names on the VNCs;
– entire buildings missed;
– completed the EL15 last election and still not on the voters list;
– no units listed in buildings; and
– electors who had lived at their residence for many years not receiving a VNC.
The responsibility of adding the applications to amend, correct and delete forms has now been downloaded from MPAC to the municipalities.
Hamilton reported that in the case of the city, it required the inputting of over 27,000 applications into the Datafix program; with the legislated deadline for inputting these applications being 30 days from election day, which became a very labour intensive and time-consuming task.
“Unless there is a proactive strategy in place for the preparation of a much more accurate voters list for all municipalities, the same issues will most likely occur in 2020,” says Stephanie Paparella, legislative coordinator for Hamilton.
Puslinch councillor John Sepulis said he’d talked with staff and they agreed on the approach.
In light of staff’s agreement, Sepulis put forward a resolution providing Puslinch council’s support.
Council quickly offered their agreement.
Mayor James Seeley added he was aware of voters list issues.
The resolution carried.
