Acclaimed Races

Voters in Ontario are in one of five Voter Groups and have the option of having their taxes go to the appropriate school board

or they own property in the jurisdiction but do not get to vote for the school board (cottage country for example), just mayor and council. They are:

English Public, English Separate French Public, French Separate and Non-Resident Property Owner (non-partisan)

Each is set up in the Voter Group Editor, tracking and separate ballots.

Works fine until there are acclamations and the jurisdiction expects voter turnout from each of the five categories.

More complications when two councillors are acclaimed.

Assuming the ridiculous to make the point - Wards 7 and 8 have the ward councillors acclaimed and the four school trustees in the two wards are also acclaimed. A possible of ten ballots has been reduced to one with only the mayor's race. The jurisdiction wants to know the turnout for the ten groups.

The work around is to create the race with the acclaimed candidate and move it to the back of the ballot. (In Canadian municipal elections, only Vancouver uses the back of the ballot.) Then have the ballots printed with the back blank.

This creates the ten ballots, the proper headers identifying the ballot are positioned and the acclaimed races/candidates appear in the Election reports. Someone may smudge the back of the ballot where the programmed voting position is and inadvertently create a vote. This could be changed with manual entry in the unlikely event it should happen.

Problem: The headers change when placed on the ballot. The non-partisan ballots 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, etc. are all headered Non-Resident Property Owner but switch to French Separate, an acclaimed race. English Public, English Separate and French Public headers work the way they should. I have the French Separate header tied to it's race ID (260) and the French Public to ID250.

Is the problem that there is only one candidate? or the header is on the front of the ballot and race has been moved to the back? I can not produce a set of ballots with the correct headers.

Frustrated,
Greg Forsythe
Global Election Systems, Inc
24 Hirondelle Place, Ontario M3A 1V8
Phone (416) 446-1383
Fax (416) 446-1425
gfglobal@earthlink.net www.gesn.com