The City of St. Albert has joined the Town of Okotoks in supporting a Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) resolution asking the province to permit the use of mail-in ballots to all voters in the municipal election next year.
Mayor Cathy Heron brought forward the motion during the Dec. 7 council meeting, and said she saw it as one more tool to fight COVID-19. The City of St. Albert will second the resolution at the next opportunity.
If the province is still dealing with a pandemic during next fall's municipal election, the change would give voters who feel unsafe voting in-person the option to mail in their vote instead, should the municipality allow it.
"If your municipality approves them, (mail-in ballots) would be offered not just to those who are not physically present on election day, but open to any elector on election day," Heron said. "It's a simple thing to ask the province to make that change."
The Town of Okotoks sent letters to mayors in mid-sized cities across Alberta to support the 2021 AUMA resolution. Under current legislation, voters must be outside of their local jurisdiction, have a physical disability, or work on election day to cast a mail-in ballot.
"COVID-19 is expected to continue to be a factor in 2021 and have an impact on the 2021 civic elections. Election processes should be in place that limit the spread of the virus and support the electoral process for our citizens," wrote Okotoks Mayor Bill Robertson in the letter.
Coun. Sheena Hughes said she wasn't going to support the motion after seeing "the mess that's happening in the United States" with mail-in ballots.
"If people can shop, they can vote," Hughes said. "I'm watching that mess unfold right now with unverified ballots, people voting more than once, people claiming someone else voted for them ... I realize it may be a different system, but it's also just a hornet's nest I don't think is necessary, even at the advocacy level."
During the 2020 U.S. general election, many states made it easier to request mail ballots amid the pandemic, resulting in higher uptakes of mail-in ballots than previous years. This resulted in reporting delays in some states, as mail ballots take longer to count. But in general, studies have found that although there have been isolated cases, voter fraud is rare, both in-person or by mail.
In October, a chief electoral officer for Elections Canada also told a House of Commons committee that he was confident in the security and integrity of Canada's mail-in ballot system.
According to the city's background report, administration recommended that if council agreed to support Okotok's resolution, an amendment be proposed to encourage the province to draft a special ballot regulation to allow municipalities enough time before election day to start counting mail-in votes, "thereby ensuring that overall unofficial election results can be known and publicly released as soon as possible."
Heron said she didn't see what was happening in the U.S. as a problem for St. Albert's municipal election.
"I've heard numerous times from the people running those elections that they have been the safest elections of all time – it's rhetoric that's being pushed out. We already offer (mail-in ballots) and we offer them safely," Heron said. "I think this is completely manageable."
The motion to support the resolution passed in a 6-1 vote, with Hughes against.
The 2021 municipal election is set for Oct. 18.
