Voter Eligibility

Seguin Township Office

I swung by the Seguin Township administrative building today to find out a thing or two about voter eligibility. As I will be surveying Ward 1 people for their direction on my council voting, I want to be sure that I'm talking to people qualified to vote.

Here's what the Municipal Elections 2010 Guide states:

A person is entitled to be an elector at an election held in a local municipality, if on voting day he or she is:

• a Canadian citizen;
• at least 18 years old;
• residing in the local municipality or an owner or tenant of land there, or the spouse of such owner or tenant; and
• not otherwise prohibited from voting.

The following cannot vote in a municipal election:

• a person serving a sentence of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution;
• a corporation; or
• a person convicted of a corrupt practice for an election held within four years of voting day.

If not on the voting list, you can fill out a form to get registered at the Seguin office in September. As it is a mail-in voting system, trying to do this on Oct 25th (voting day) could be problematic to say the least.

The form merely requires a potential voter to declare on the signed document that they occasionally 'reside' in Seguin. Their word is taken for granted.

So, for the purpose of my 'Perfectly Seguin' survey, an 18 year old who visits a family cottage for one weekend out of the year has the same right to vote in a Seguin Township election as a 60 year old who has lived in the township since birth.

Should I wonder who takes the trouble to vote?