More voting options for Guysborough
Phone and e-voting are coming to Guysborough.
Councillors with the Municipality of the District of Guysborough approved second and final reading of their alternative voting bylaw at July’s regular municipal council meeting Wednesday afternoon.
First reading passed in June.
After the meeting, Vernon Pitts, the warden of Guysborough, told The Hawk it means voters will have more options to cast their ballots in October’s municipal elections.
“They’ll get a letter- a voting card- in the mail,” he said. “There (will) be a number on it, and based upon that number, they can then call in, or they can do it online.”
Pitts said you can still cast a ballot in-person, but it will be on an iPad touch screen at the polling station- there are no more paper ballots.
He said these changes were inevitable, but COVID-19 brought them on quicker.
“We knew this was coming, so we’re going to have to do it eventually,” he said. “We might as well do it now, and see how it works out.”
Pitts said officials with the vast majority of municipalities- including MODG- are opposed to elections going ahead as scheduled in October.
He said they are a creation of the province, so they have to follow the directives of their provincial counterparts.
