WHEREAS Section 11 (1) of the Municipal Elections Act, 1996 S.O. provides the duties of the clerk of a local municipality is responsible for conducting elections within that municipality; and
WHEREAS the City Clerk’s Department in consultation with the Communication Department designed and implemented a comprehensive Election Media Plan for the 2022 Municipal Election featuring newspaper ads, radio ads, social media ads, digital community screens, digital billboards, social media posts, Google ads, flyers, digital posters and bus shelter posters; and
WHEREAS the City of Brantford partnered with Wilfred Laurier and Conestoga College student unions in developing a communications plan aimed to promote awareness among the student body regarding the 2022 Municipal Elections; and
WHEREAS the voter’s list is compiled and maintained by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC); and
WHEREAS electors were able to submit changes to MPAC regarding information on the voter’s list through VoterLookup.ca year round; and
WHEREAS staff executed a two month communications campaign utilizing social media, the City’s website, election staff email signatures, etc., to promote VoterLookup.ca to allow City of Brantford Electors to update their elector information manually to the Preliminary List of Electors without having to complete an in person application; and
WHEREAS for the first time ever, the City of Brantford collaborated with the Brantford Public Library to educate and train 40+ library staff on how to assist members of the public who attended the library to update their elector information on VoterLookup.ca as well as educate members of the public re: voting dates and times including online voting; and
WHEREAS Election staff completed data management of over 1200 electors through Voterview (Voter’s list software) to remove duplicate electors and invalid mailing addresses; and
WHEREAS Elections staff worked with the City’s long-term care homes and retirement homes in aiding their residents to get added to the voter’s list; and
WHEREAS in 2019 City Council supported resolutions of the Town of Kearney, Municipality of Northern Bruce Penninsula and the City of Hamilton to re-establish the multi-stakeholder working group to explore and identify ways to create and maintain the Voters’ List for Municipal Elections; and
WHEREAS on September 17, 2020, the Provincial Government introduced a Bill which proposes to create a single register of voters for municipal and provincial elections which would take place in 2024, ahead of the 2026 municipal election; and
WHEREAS the City mailed out via Canada Post, over 74,000 Voter Information Letters to City Residents; and
WHEREAS Voter Information Letters contained elector ID and elector pin information for online voting; and
WHEREAS in order to vote online electors had to enter their date of birth as added verification; and
WHEREAS logic and accuracy testing was done in accordance with the City’s procedures on all vote tabulating machines, memory cards, ballots and online voting system software; and
WHEREAS reports containing multiple voters voting at the same IP address were captured three times a day to monitor online voting security;
WHEREAS online voting ran from October 3 at 10:00 a.m. – October 24th at 8:00 p.m. making this the longest online voting period the City has ran to date, to allow sufficient time and enhance accessibility for Brantford electors;
WHEREAS advance polls were open from Wednesday, October 12th to Saturday October 15th at two locations within the City (Brantford Civic Centre and the Wayne Gretzky Sport Centre) from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. to offer electors the option of voting in person prior to Election Day; and
WHEREAS the City operated 25 Polling Locations throughout the City of Brantford on Election Day, October 24, 2022 allowing residents the option to “vote anywhere in your ward” with an Accessible Super Poll at City Hall; and
WHEREAS municipal election staff attended 11 Roaming Locations throughout the City of Brantford on Election Day to ensure residents of Long-Term Care Homes, Institutions and Retirement homes that met the legislative requirement of s.45 (7) of the Municipal Elections Act had the opportunity to vote; and
WHEREAS a large amount of municipalities in southern Ontario experienced a decrease in voter turnout for the 2022 Municipal Elections;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City Clerk and Communications and Community Engagement staff BE DIRECTED:
- To conduct a public consultation meeting to hear from members of the public on how to improve election processes and increase voter turnout; and
- That all 2022 Candidate for the 2022 Municipal Election BE INVITED to attend the public consultation meeting.