Nov. 19 was the date for municipal elections all over the province. When I completed my ballot I was shocked to be asked to insert it into a machine rather than the usual box with a slot on top.
I had no idea the City of Surrey had made a switch to electronic ballot tallying and I find I am most uncomfortable with it. We know that vote-rigging software is out there – in the U.S., computer programmer Clifford Curtis testified before Congress to that effect.
To avoid any hint or suspicion of impropriety, I call upon Surrey council to return us to manual tallying of ballots for the next election. I hope never to see electronic ballot counting again in an election at any level of government in Canada.
C.A. Archibald
Surrey
Make Surrey better for everyone
Now that the election is over and the City of Surrey did the worst thing possible – elect an unopposed council – I must put a few words down. Twenty-five per cent voter turnout is very sad and should not count as a real election.
Surrey First, please find some guts and start cracking down on the illegal suite issue, never make Marvin Hunt the interim mayor, never bring George Bush back to town, and bring Surrey the rapid/light rapid transit it so sorely requires. And put that new gas tax to work for Surrey.
Don’t be a close-minded group since you now have the whole council to yourself. Make Surrey better for everyone and not just for the folks who filled your campaign pockets.
Oliver Hofer
Predictable results
Surrey’s election results are not a surprise.
Opposition if any is officially decimated. Mayor Dianne Watts’ grip on Surrey is unchallengeable. Now we are left with a one party rule, a democracy without opposition. We better have a benevolent dictator.
When I decided to participate in this Surrey election I soon realized that Watts would sweep the election without a doubt and at that point I decided to start working on bringing a wards-based election for 2014.
I don’t doubt the good intentions of the mayor and her team, but one-party democracy is no democracy. Now the local media’s role to be a watchdog has increased.
All of Canada except B.C. has wards to serve needs of residents. Surrey’s populated constituencies like Newton and Whalley – which make up 45 per cent of the city’s population – remain unrepresented on council.
The current at-large system is unconstitutional and city councils like Vancouver and Surrey have been getting away so far without being truly representative.
My journey to B.C. Supreme Court to get a ward system started six weeks ago.
Shan Rana
Surrey mayoralty candidate
Bad planning in Cloverdale/Clayton
I vote at every election and I have to say this time was the worst experience.
Just three voting locations in Cloverdale? My old location was at George Greenaway Elementary. The city moved it to the second floor of the new recreation centre, in a classroom, not one of the three gymnasiums.
Who was the rocket scientist who thought that up? The line up snaked through the whole second floor and it’s not very big. We were packed in like sardines.
I have a disability and have never experienced a worse time. I left after five minutes and went to Clayton Heights Secondary, where the line-up was 150 feet long and out the door. But at least that one was moving and in a big area. Other people probably did not get to go to another location.
You want people to get out and vote? The city elections planner or whoever thought of using a small classroom at a rec center and not a gym and only three locations in one of the biggest and fastest populating districts of Surrey. Give your head a shake. And don’t think online voting is ever going to work. You would be descriminating the elderly and the poor.
Voting should never be this hard. Don’t ever do this again.
Paul Fitzgerald
Cloverdale