We received the following letter recently about the mail in ballot – and election fraud.
The letter stated, “I am very concerned about the election in Centre Wellington and don’t know where to express this concern. Someone may very well be elected due to fraud.
“I know for a fact that a great number of ballots have been mailed out to residences where some of that family no longer resides and haven’t for many years. Many of these ballots have been filled out and signed by one person at that address.
Meanwhile, these people are voting where they now live. I cannot write a letter to the editor as I know some of these people personally, and they are proud they got to vote multiple times. I feel this should be brought to the attention of someone that cares, if such an individual stills exists, and this method of voting stopped.”
Shortly after receiving that letter, we talked to a woman who received ballots for her children – who have moved out. They received ballots at their new place of residence. She, of course, had no plans to use them, but if she had the morals of the person the letter writer described, there would be more than one multi-vote cast in the township. We doubt those two cases are isolated incidences. Just how many extra ballots are out there, and how many of them are being used illegally?
How do you feel about someone getting ten extra votes, or five, or even one extra ballot? Me too. Not only is it not right, it is illegal.
And how do you feel that someone with so little respect for the democratic process might help put one candidate past another. Is that person’s thought processes good enough to pick the best candidate? We suspect not.
This is not the first time that ballots in the mail have caused some concern. In one of the first uses of alternative ballots soon after amalgamation, we had reports that a council candidate in another municipality had picked up dozens of ballots that had been discarded at a post office – because people thought they were junk mail. There were just enough ballots available, so it was said, to see that the multi-voter candidate get himself elected.
We agree with our colleague Mike Robinson that no voting system is perfect, but the voters’ lists are put together by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, a group so unreliable that Premier Dalton McGuinty actually shut it down for a time so it could get its act together.
The old fashioned go-to-the-polls ballots might inconvenience some people, but we see it as having fewer voter fraud capabilities than the mail in ballot. The system itself seems secure enough, as explained in Alma by Mapleton Clerk and Chief Administrative Officer Patty Sinnamon. That is, except for the number of ballots being sent out. MPAC seems to have more control than election staff in that one area – and that alone is reason enough to go back to the old way of casting ballots.
Integrity needed
Centre Wellington Township Clerk Marion Morris said in an interview that when it comes to multiple ballots being sent, the voting system requires some integrity.
She said her staff has no way of knowing if someone has moved from a residence, and dozens of people have returned extra ballots to the township, or destroyed them. She prefers people at least call and tell the township if someone has moved, so staff there can update the voter list.
Morris noted, “We trust people to have the honesty and integrity” so that they do not forge someone’s name on the ballot, which, she noted, is illegal.
Finally, as of Tuesday morning, the voter turnout had reached 28 per cent in the township, with just over two dozen spoiled ballots. Those included unsigned declarations, or improper use of the ballot.
Voter complaint
Morris was also asked about a complaint from a woman who was going to be travelling in China and who was refused a ballot. Her letter appeared in this Newspaper.
Morris was puzzled by he complaint because no one in her office can recall dealing with someone wanting an early vote because of travel to China.
Morris said the township received many requests from “snowbirds” for an early ballot and accommodated all of them. She said she would have been willing to even courier a ballot to China for the woman, leaving it to her to get it returned on time.
“I would have moved mountains to help her,” Morris said, adding that if the application for a ballot came prior to the Sept. 10 voting deadline, there was nothing anyone could have done because the ballot would not be printed yet.
She noted the woman had complained about there not being a proxy option under the current system, and said that will be considered for the next election. She and her staff will review the workings of this election, and try to make changes for better results the next time.
Some highlight, eh?
Someone approached our boss recently and was worried that because Centre Wellington Township cited the new Fergus water tower as a budget highlight, he would be stuck paying for it.
We’re not sure how many times we have to repeat that only users of sewer and water services are on the hook for paying sewer and water costs, and, in this case, the tower bill is not paid by the users. Developers will pay the cost through development charges, and those moving to town will pay those costs.
More sign problems
A young lady called the Advertiser from her rural home and complained to us that her large sign supporting Bob Foster for mayor had been stolen from her lawn over night – out in the countryside.
She added that her neighbour’s sign suffered a similar fate, although he had not noticed the sign was gone until she pointed it out to him.
Later that same day, we met a supporter of incumbent Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj, and asked if he knew anything about stolen signs. It turned out that he did.
“We’re losing an average of four a day,” he said of Ross-Zuj’s campaign.
Which leads us to wonder why election signs are suddenly so popular. It is against the law to tamper with them, they don’t provide much heat when they burn, and it is too cold for outdoor fires and cookouts, anyway. Years ago, signs were often found in people’s college dorms, but those were mainly stop signs and street signs.
We find it difficult to believe that signs from the Centre Wellington Township election are going to become collectors’ items worth a fortune 20 years from now – sort of like those old comics we had in our youth that are now selling for thousands.
By the way, anyone who wonders if candidates are truly civic minded will be able to see for themselves when they see which losing candidates actually pick them up after the election.
The winners, of course, will pick up their signs in order to recycle them for the election in 2014. After all, signs cost money – and councillors are all conscious of that – as we all know.
