County sets sights on election preparations

BY KIRK STARRATT

kstarratt@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

Province-wide municipal elections are set for this fall and the County of Kings has set its sights on preparing for the big event.

Chief Administrative Officer Brian Smith, who presented a staff report on 2008 election planning at the January committee of the whole session, said the election would be held Saturday, Oct. 18.

In 2004, during the last election, the county had 29,000 eligible voters and a turnout of about 45 per cent. To operate the election, the county employed a returning officer, 53 enumerators, 74 deputy returning officers and 74 poll clerks. Municipal staff members, including the municipal clerk, were engaged at various points in the process.

Smith said the county’s Community Development staff have been in contact with the Provincial Elections Office and are reasonably confident that the provincial voters’ list can be adapted to municipal boundaries by combining that information with the county’s Geographic Information System database.

In 2004, an independent enumeration was conducted at an approximate cost of $35,000. Smith said it appears they could use the provincial list at a much lower overall cost and that’s the current plan. They expect to confirm this within a few weeks.

Lot of work involved

There’s a lot of work involved to organize 74 polling stations, receive nominations, advise candidates and conduct the election, so the county is planning to retain a term contract employee to be appointed as returning officer. Deputy returning officers, poll clerks and other temporary staff would be recruited.

“The municipality should promote the municipal elections as an opportunity for people to become involved in decision-making, as voters and as candidates for office,” Smith said.

In recent years, council and the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities have expressed interest in promoting council office and participation in elections to key elements of the community; for example, to attract more female members to municipal government.

Smith said the plan is to promote the election through tax bill newsletter articles in April and September; create a 2008 Election Information Section on the county website; organize candidate information sessions in the spring; and use print and radio ads and media releases.

Council has approved annual contributions over the past three years to an election reserve account in anticipation of the election. There will be another contribution made to the fund in 2008-2009. The election budget will be $100,000 and the reserve account currently has $96,000.

Deputy Warden Diana Brothers said the county has to inform potential candidates about all the committee and subcommittee work involved with being a councillor. There are countless meetings to attend and Brothers said she doesn’t think people understand that.

‘This is not the United States’: Atwater

Councillor Chris Parker asked about the possibility of having a plebiscite with the election, as this would increase voter participation. He said, because of the provincial Sunday shopping plebiscite held in conjunction with the 2004 election, participation increase by about 25 per cent. He said potential questions could involve policing or amalgamation and it would be a way to gauge public sentiment. Parker suggested using enumeration funding to fund the plebiscite.

“This is not the United States. We don’t need a book of plebiscite questions.” councillor Wayne Atwater said. “The last election was absolutely pathetic, a complete disaster.”

Atwater said he supports the municipal clerk, Ann Longley, doing the job of the returning officer because there were problems with contracting out last time and no one knows the Elections Act and Municipal Government Act better than Longley.

Smith said the clerk’s workload is too much to do all her regular work and handle an election for 29,000 people.

Parker said he’d like to see the clerk involved. There were 1,200 people not enumerated in his district in 2004. Some agents were treated as militants and weren’t allowed to observe the polling process in some locations.

Councillor Madonna Spinazola said she thinks candidate information sessions are crucial because it’s important to understand the responsibilities involved. She said they have to be careful having councillors involved in these meetings because it could be seen as utilizing their position to be re-elected. However, she said she would be happy to help with the information sessions and suggested using an upcoming council workshop to discuss possible plebiscite questions.

Councillor Jim Taylor said a plebiscite would be the closest the county could get to pure democracy.

“It would encourage me to go to the ballot box as a voter if I knew I was getting a say. It could help address apathy,” Taylor said.