Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe, with wife Grace, watches as election results are posted at City Hall Saturday night. At least one voter in the city was left baffled by the large number of council candidates and frustrated by being unable to find election information online.
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Letter to Editor
ShareCandidate proliferation baffles Victoria voter
Published: November 20, 2008 1:00 PMUpdated: November 20, 2008 1:09 PM
As a first-time voter in the Victoria election I didn’t know how the process worked and I was unsure of who was running, so I thought well, if I am going to vote I had better do some research.
I set myself the task of looking up who was running and how the whole thing worked. As I am working a good portion of the time, I was unable to make it to an all-candidates meeting, so I turned to the internet to see what issues were being addressed and by whom.
I am a relatively good researcher, but it took me half an hour to find a website that told me who was actually running, then I started to look into them.
I found a shockingly large amount didn’t have websites (that I could find ) and after two hours of reading I wasn’t even half way through the list and was utterly confused.
I found much of what was written about the issues was long winded. Even after spending several days researching you might still not truly understand what each individual stood for.
I was very baffled by the large amount of candidates, and with all this I didn’t even come across anything about the election for school trustees. Many people I talked to said it was too confusing and that they weren’t going to bother voting. Frankly, I don’t blame them. I am a very politically active person and even I was confused and overwhelmed.
Perhaps in future there could be one website with a short overview of each candidate’s platform, thus making it easier for people to see what the candidates stand for.
Pia Lironi
Victoria
