City Clerk getting prepared for the 2022 municipal election - hopefully it will be cleaner than the 2018 event

News 100 blueBy Staff

April 1st, 2021

BURLINGTON, ON

 

City Hall is slowly slipping into election mode.

They have started the process by putting out a survey to get a sense as to what people want in the way of information and instructions when a municipal election takes place.

Ballot going in boxWith an average voter turnout of 37% over the past three years one could venture to say – not very much – they don’t seem to care all that much.

In preparation for the upcoming 2022 municipal election, the City of Burlington is asking residents for their input on a number of election-related topics. Share your input on things like voting methods, election signage, voter turnout and more.

Your feedback will be used to inform a report to Burlington City Council about preparation activities for the 2022 municipal election which will take place on Oct. 24, 2022.

Couple of interesting ideas are floated in the survey – make a point of running through it – nothing difficult.

They ask how you feel about establishing a Campaign Contribution Rebate Program.

Should the City post candidate information, including their photos and responses to a standard community questionnaire on the City’s website to support public engagement for the 2022 municipal election?

The survey asks residents for feedback on various election matters, including:

Ideas to increase voter turnout
Suggestions for topics and panelists at an upcoming election open house
Voting methods
Using corporate resources in an election year
Rebates for campaign contributions
The management of election signs

The survey will be open until 11:59 p.m. on April 23, 2021.

Link to the survey is HERE

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5 comments to City Clerk getting prepared for the 2022 municipal election – hopefully it will be cleaner than the 2018 event

  • perryb

    What happened to preferential (ranked) voting? Oh, yes — Ford killed that for municipalities. It makes it too easy for the best compromise of different views to emerge. Now just reserved for internal party elections.

  • Alan Harrington

    Allow voting by phones that are secure enough for mobile banking and safe for voting.

    Eliminate lawn signs – an eyesore that just ends up in the landfill.

    Have candidates debate on Zoom where the moderator controls the mic.

    This is easy stuff.

  • joe gaetan

    If the clerk is in pre election preparation mode, are the citizenry in sleep mode? What a difference 4 years can make. Perhaps some navel gazing and circumspection by, incumbents who are usually guaranteed re-election and by, voters who will ask themselves if they are better off four years later. Gone alas is ECOB and along with that the feet on the ground and the energy they brought to the election. If ECOB is in fact alive what now? Oh, one more thing, will this election bring back the nastier players from days of yore?

  • Lynn Crosby

    And once again the City says they want to hear from us, yet they limit answers on the questions to 255 characters so they don’t really want to hear all we have to say. From my experience with the 2018 election, I’d like a lot more characters than this when I answer.

    I sure hope the Clerk doesn’t have a bias for/against a preferred candidate and I hope that they don’t enact silly by-laws about what candidates can or can’t do related to things like car wraps and then decide to somehow impose the rules on non-candidates, i.e., citizens. It would also be good if when the Clerk receives complaints about breaches of municipal election rules, he acts on them for all candidates.

    Not a fan at first thought on the sudden suggestion of a campaign contribution rebate program. Candidates who receive contributions from the very developers building in the city (and their spouses, staff, kids, etc.), and contribute zero to their own campaigns really don’t sit well with me. These donors, and therefore any donors, should not be reimbursed by the taxpayer. I don’t want to pay for that.

  • Posting candidate information based on a candidate’s biography and photo was an election service provided by City Hall and the Region for years. No idea why it was stopped. Posting candidate bios with content dictated by City Hall is inappropriate in a democratic election. Rebates for campaign contributions is a provinciall/federally controlled matter and should remain that way. The Province determines how much can be spent and need to remain in charge of campaign contribution rebates. Again it is a democratic issue, there are those of us who do not accept any campaign contributions (not wishing to set ourselves up for accusations of making decisions in favour of those who give any donation, which is much easier in a municipal decision-making environment). 2018 Anne’s financial report for Halton Region Chair shows she pent under $1,000 and yet garnered over 41,000 votes (with no organized debates for the top Region position).

    A review of the still posted December 16, 2016 Audit Committee webcast identifies a presentation of a draft Nomination Paper Audit. The committee and council decided to bury it after agreeing it should go to the next Committee and Council in final form. It could have seen significant positive changes to the 2018 Burlington/Halton municipal election process (that would match Hamilton’s 2014 0% non-compliance audit results rather than Burlington/Halton’s significant non-compliance rate in terms of filed and certified nomination papers meeting the audit criteria if it had not been buried. Discussions with Minister Clark’s staff on Municipal Election Act changes that should occur based on the past two Burlington/Halton election audits Minister Clark expressed interest in personally receiving, began some months ago through Jane McKenna’s office.

    This comment will be forwarded to those who need to understand Burlington/Halton past election process history.
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