SPERD votes to be tallied by own ballot counters in 2021 municipal election

St. Paul Regional Education Division No. 1 will be providing their own ballot counters for the municipal election scheduled to take place in Oct. 2021.

The school board trustees are elected at the same time as municipal councillors and have historically had their ballots cast from the same polling location.

According to Kim Heyman, CAO for the Town of St. Paul in the 2017 municipal election ballots for mayor were counted first, followed by councillors, and the school board trustee ballots were counted last.

“And of course everybody is anxious on election night. So we suggested to them that perhaps they could get their own counters and then they could count as soon as the polls closed and get their results sooner,” said Heyman.

She noted the town and the school board do have a cost-sharing agreement in place for the election which sees SPERD pay for the cost of printing the trustee ballots as well as a portion of any other shared costs.

According to Aline Brousseau, the town’s Director of Planning & Legislative Services, they’ve also asked SPERD to have someone on-site at the polling station to assist with any questions about the wards.

Coun. Norm Noel made a motion to approve the agreement as presented, which carried with unanimous support from council.

St. Paul Education approved the agreement at their Dec. 9 board meeting.