Last Updated on: 24th November 2013, 03:57 pm
It’s funny, as soon as I voted in the municipal election and got the idea that this should be available at provincial and federal elections, another voice in my head said, “You know it won’t be easy, don’t you?” and it was right.
I called Elections Ontario today, since we’re having an election in October. I asked who I should talk to about asking if it’s possible to have an audible voting machine at the polls on voting days like the municipality of Guelph did. If you listen very closely, right after that, you can hear my head slamming into a thick rock wall. The response was, “We’re only going to do paper ballots. It’s legislated. To change that, we’d have to pass a bill in the legislature.” I asked her why and she couldn’t explain it to me. She just told me to call my MPP, which I’m going to do. If others care about this like I do, I urge them to call and write their local MPP. You can find a list of their local offices here. If you don’t know who your MPP is, call elections Ontario at 1-800-677-8683 and ask them. Give them your postal code and they can provide you with their name and number.
If anyone has any luck getting their MPP’s attention, but the MPP says they wouldn’t have the foggiest idea about who they should contact about getting such a machine if they passed the bill, here is the contact info for the company from which Guelph leased its voting machines that worked so well:
DVS Corporation
20 Mowat Ave. Suite 100
Toronto, ON M6K 3E8
Tel: 416-762-8683 x225
Fax: 416-762-8663
www.dominionVoting.ca
I’m not holding out a lot of hope, but we can at least try, and if enough of us say something, maybe something will happen. Maybe? Possibly? I’m not so naive as I used to be years ago, but there is at least a glimmer of hope.