It’s time to get off the “merry-go-round” of inaccessible elections and allow people to use assistive technology to independently mark their ballot, council heard Monday evening before unanimously voting to have staff investigate the idea.
“Don’t ask me to come back in four years. Don’t ask me to keep fighting this fight because I’m exhausted,” said Lorelei Root, a member of the city’s accessibility advisory committee (AAC) and chair of the election sub-committee which brought the idea forward
“Please just let me vote,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “I was already unable to vote independently in the last election due to the lack of accessible options, so asking me and other people like me to wait until 2026 for the right to vote just isn’t ok.”
During a special meeting in February, council voted down the idea of allowing online voting for the 2022 municipal election – something that was permitted during advanced voting in 2014 and denied in 2018 – opting for mail-in ballots as well as traditional in-person voting.
Council will also consider implementing a vote-from-home pilot project during its July 19 meeting.
However, council heard there are many Guelph residents for whom none of those options allow for their vote to be cast independently, as they require help from others to mark and/or deliver their ballot to a mailbox.
In a 2017 report, Statistics Canada notes Guelph had 30,200 residents aged 15 and older who identified as having a disability, though that figure isn’t broken down by the type of disability.
“The two measures proposed are modest and remove some barriers to voting for some people with disabilities,” said Debra Stienstra, professor of political science at the University of Guelph and a member of the AAC who identifies as a woman with disabilities, referring to the proposed vote-from-home pilot project and electronic ballot marking.
Though not perfect solutions, she urged council to implement them both for next year’s election.
“People with disabilities are a significant part of Guelph’s community,” Stienstra said, noting council has a legislated responsibility to provide accessible elections.
Electronic ballot marking is “nearly identical” to traditional mail-in voting, Root stated, explaining people could apply to receive a one-time electronic download code for their ballot, use their assistive technology to understand it and make their selection, before printing it out and mailing it in.
“It’s not online voting,” she stressed, noting the physical ballot can be verified during a manual recount, which was the main concern raised about online voting during council’s February discussions.
“Although we would be the first city in Canada to use this tech, which to me is exciting, it’s far from new,” Root said, adding it’s been used in thousands of elections all over the world, including in the United States. “It’s far from new … it’s tried and true.”
Several other delegates also encouraged council to adopt electronic ballot-marking.
“If Guelph respects human rights, it respects voter rights,” said Colin Perkins. “Free and fair elections seem like a need-to-have.”
“The fact that Guelph would be the first to implement this system in Canada is also something every Guelphite can be proud of,” said Aaron Smith. “We would be able to clearly demonstrate to the rest of the country that Guelph takes inclusion seriously.”
A staff report on electronic ballot marking is expected to be ready by the end of the year.
Clerk Stephen O’Brien has some initial concerns with the concept, including potential issues with the voters list provided by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation and differences in how voter eligibility is validated in other countries. Those differences, he said, could make it difficult to implement here.
