Historically, byelections attract very few voters to the polls – but this year’s school trustee byelection was quite a doozy.
Held in June to fill the seat vacated by trustee MaryAnn Mortensen, who resigned in March without explanation, the two-horse trustee race drew 1,859 voters. This reflects all ballots cast on voting day plus two advance polling days, and amounts to a 4.05 per cent voter turnout. Yikes!
Poor voter turnout or not, taxpayers were still expected to fork over the $60,000 to $70,000 it cost to run the byelection – even if only a fraction of the 45,865 eligible voters showed up at the polls.
