In a report to council, city clerk Blanka Zeinabova recommended the city postpone potential implementation of mail-in voting until the 2022 general election, citing the resources required to set the city up to administer mail-in voting and low mail-in participation in Victoria’s recent byelection.
The city is expected to hold a byelection this spring to replace the late councillors Nick Volkow and Paul McDonell, who within weeks of one another died last summer, and the city is considering how best to administer that vote in the midst of a pandemic.
Mail-in voting was a popular alternative in the October 2020 provincial election, with 31% of B.C.’s registered voters using mail-in ballots, including 16% of Burnaby’s registered voters. But in her report Zeinabova noted low uptake by voters in Victoria’s byelection less than two months later – despite the province seeing significantly more cases of COVID-19 by then.
That byelection saw only 18% of voters turn out in total. About one-sixth of that overall turnout voted by mail, according to the report to council.
But with Victoria only seeing a couple thousand ballots returned in its byelection, Zeinabova suggested it may not be worth the trouble for Burnaby’s upcoming byelection.
In all, the clerk’s office estimated it will cost $124,000 to set the city up to administer voting by mail, assuming a total of 16,000 people request mail-in ballots. That includes $25,000 for election office staff, $68,000 for DataFix services and $31,000 in postage.
DataFix is a software developer the city has worked with “extensively” to manage its voter lists. To administer voting by mail, Zeinabova noted the city would be required to obtain a newer service from the developer, which was first piloted in Victoria’s byelection.
DataFix’s vote-by-mail services include assembling mail-in ballot packages, which the company said would take about two months to coordinate.
If council wants to implement voting by mail, it needs the consent of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, and council needs to implement a bylaw allowing the voting method. But such a bylaw needs to be passed 88 days before the election, meaning an election couldn’t be held until mid-May if the bylaw is passed by the middle of February.
Counting mail-in ballots would also add its own challenges, Zeinabova noted, since, unlike provincial elections, the city typically uses voting tabulators to count votes in local elections.
Those tabulators typically either accept or reject a ballot while the voter is still there to allow the voter to fix any errors. (For instance, a ballot would be rejected if too many spaces are filled in.) That would not be possible with voting by mail.
Weighing the pros and cons, Zeinabova recommended the city hold off on voting by mail at least until 2022, noting the city could instead increase the number of advance voting opportunities in this year’s byelection to allow more physical distancing.
In terms of special voting opportunities, Zeinabova noted there would be extra challenges. Because access to care homes is currently limited by the pandemic, the city would likely need to train care home staff, if they are willing and able, to administer voting.
However, by the time the election is held, care home residents and staff are expected to be fully vaccinated, meaning the pandemic should be less of a concern.
Coun. Pietro Calendino said he supported the recommendations, but he raised concerns about the new variants of COVID-19 that have begun surfacing and how they could affect long-term care in the coming months.
Council voted unanimously to direct staff to draft bylaw amendments to allow special voting opportunities during the byelection.
Follow Dustin on Twitter: @dustinrgodfrey
Send him an email: [email protected]
