With some people sent more than one voter information letter from the city, mayoral candidate Eveyln Dutrisac said she is concerned people will use them to vote online more than once
“People want people to vote once, and it’s concerning,” she said of online voting, adding that a resident sent a letter to mayoral candidates outlining their concerns and that others have also raised the issue with her.
“What happens is, people can’t vote more than once – that’s the law, and if you do vote more than once you’re going to be charged $25,000, but people don’t know that,” she said. “I’m really concerned about this.”
At issue are the voter information letters the city has mailed out to residents, which some residents have noted to include mistakes. In some cases, too many letters were mailed to residents, which raises the possibility of people using them to vote online more than once.
Problems with the voters list has been a longstanding concern, but there hasn’t been much the city has been able to do about it other than encourage residents to check in advance to make sure their information is correct.
The Municipal Elections Act requires the voters’ list for all municipal elections in the province be provided by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. The municipal, provincial and federal elections do not share a voters’ list and all three are generated differently.
There has been a 17- to 29-per-cent change in the list between the last two election cycles, and city solicitor and clerk Eric Labelle said all municipalities voters’ lists are problematic. A legislative solution is underway, but isn’t expected until the 2026 election.
For now, a city spokesperson noted they have checks and balances in place to mitigate the problem.
“Both the online voting platform and the paper ballot voting system have a verifiable audit trail and mechanisms built in to flag if a voter has voted more than once or cast an improper ballot,” they said in a written statement to Sudbury.com.
“If we become aware that multiple or fraudulent votes are being cast, we will forward the information to the Greater Sudbury Police Service for investigation.”
The potential penalty, as outlined in the Municipal Elections Act, is a fine of up to $25,000 or imprisonment up to six months.
In the event someone receives more than one voter information letter, the city spokesperson said people are encouraged to do any one of the following:
- Print “Duplicate - Return to Sender” on it and drop it into any Canada Post mailbox.
- Bring it with them when they go to vote and give it to an election official, letting them know it’s a duplicate.
- Take it to any Voter Registration Centre during regular business hours up until the close of voting on election day to let them know it’s a duplicate.
Voter fraud is rare, though the city typically refers a couple of cases to the police each election cycle, regardless of what format is being used to vote.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
