WESTLOCK — Westlock County residents will be able to vote ahead of Election Day.
At a meeting June 7, councillors set Thursday, Oct. 7 from 2-7 p.m. and Friday, Oct. 15 from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. as advance polling dates, but a location has not yet been determined.
“If anybody works in the Town of Westlock or on their way home, they could stop and vote if they aren’t available Oct. 18 on election day. We are hopeful that we could maybe have it in the administration building if COVID restrictions are lifted. If not, we will have to look for a larger facility to host the advance polls, but we’ll wait on that and adjust accordingly,” said county executive assistant and returning officer Diane Johnston.
The town is holding advance polling days Oct. 7 and Oct. 12, and Johnston said the county will advertise to avoid confusion.
“There’s still some people that think the county’s in the town and the town’s in the county, and you don’t want to confuse people, you want to make sure the right messaging gets out there,” said Coun. Lou Hall.
Ballot counting
The counting of the early votes will start half an hour earlier on election day, at 7:30 p.m. instead of the usual 8 p.m., when polls officially close.
“We have a possible Senate vote and a referendum vote, two school boards that we’ll be doing ballot counting for, so we are hoping to count just the advanced ballots early to allow us a little extra time to get all the counting done,” Johnston said.
Additional scrutineers will also have to be accounted for when the returning officer recommends a venue as a polling station or for ballot counting.
“There’s a potential that you’ll have a larger number of people because there’s a multitude of candidates that can send scrutineers and whether you end up with a small place to do this could become a problem,” said Coun. Dennis Primeau.
“You have to remember that this is an unusual situation, the advance poll, you could have a larger number of scrutineers. I don’t know whether they’re going to have to social distance, I don’t know. We just have to plan for it.”
Doors to the ballot counting venue lock at 8 p.m. once the vote wraps up and scrutineers can’t re-enter the bulding.
“We will have to allow for extra scrutineers to be at the county building or wherever we’re doing the counting from the advance polls. Yes, we’ll allow a scrutineer at the polling station as well as an extra scrutineer in the county building when we start the advanced ballot counting,” Johnston said.
The provincial government has already announced their plan to ask Albertans whether or not the equalization payment principle, which is embedded in the Canadian Constitution, should be repealed.
The vote is not a guarantee that equalization payments will stop. Any amendments to the Constitution require at least seven provinces that represent at least 50 per cent of the Canadian population to vote in favour of a change. Ontario, B.C. and Quebec all have veto powers.
