Sarnia's city clerk is clarifying that there will be no paper ballots in the next municipal election set for Monday, October 22, 2018.
Dianne Gould-Brown says moving to telephone and internet voting, while still providing the option of marking a paper ballot, is not feasible.
"It would be running essentially two elections so we would have to have enough paper ballots for all the eligible electors in Sarnia, so we're just going to be using the internet and telephone voting method for the 2018 election," says Gould-Brown.
She says there will be public information sessions leading up to the election to demonstrate how the vote will work and provide instructions for casting a ballot.
"It's still early in our planning stages so I don't want to say but there's going to be some areas where we can have people come out and vote, different polling stations per say throughout the community, and we'll have election workers looking after that," says Gould-Brown. "Also city hall will, during that time frame, be a place for people to vote."
On March 20, city council selected Nova Scotia-based Intelivote System Inc., to provide telephone and internet voting in Sarnia, at a cost of $130,000.
