BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a story titled 'Oro-Medonte reverting to paper ballots only for 2022 election' published on Dec. 13.
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In preparation for the October 2022 municipal elections, Ontario municipalities are establishing voting options to meet the Municipal Elections Act principles of access, fairness and process integrity.
In these years of pandemic, a new and overwhelming consideration is to provide safe and accessible methods for individuals to vote.
In 2018, the Township of Oro-Medonte council approved and implemented a hybrid model of online/telephone voting with paper ballot and tabulators. The hybrid model was used successfully by many Simcoe County municipalities and widely across Ontario.
This approach increased voter turnout significantly, to 42.75 per cent in Oro-Medonte, amongst the highest in Simcoe County in 2018. Actually 70 per cent of voters in Oro-Medonte chose to vote online (6,397 vs. 1,359). This trend was consistent with other municipalities who also offered internet/telephone voting options.
According to election officials, the 2018 election went smoothly, with no security or privacy issues and with general approval by township voters.
Despite this previous successful experience with online/telephone voting, and despite the new priority of protecting against serious COVID-19 threats to a generally older demographic, in December 2021, the council of the Township of Oro-Medonte voted to restrict voting options to in-person or mail-in paper ballots.
This decision went against a thorough inter-jurisdictional and local research and analysis review and recommendations by its own staff. Before making her recommendation for the 2018 internet/telephone voting options to be continued for the 2022 election, Clerk Auchibon consulted widely with Simcoe County and other Ontario municipal clerks and their organizations with expertise and experience running elections, finding overwhelming endorsement of continuing to provide internet/telephone voting options. And yet the majority of council opposed it.
According to the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), which produces the voters list, the Township of Oro-Medonte currently has 21,363 eligible electors, with 3,752 seasonal residents and 17,611 full-time residents.
Not only does council’s recent decision to restrict voter options for the October 2022 election present a significantly increased danger of sickness and death to its generally older population, it is disturbingly similar to the voter suppression activities underway in U.S. Republican states.
In other words, Oro-Medonte Township council appears to be trying to suppress the excellent voter turnout achieved in 2018, in particular the votes of those who are seniors, immune compromised, disabled, out of the country, away for school, and/or who only live here seasonally, and with no care for the lives of its own residents. Is this democracy?
Irena Lawrenson
Oro-Medonte
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