Seniors who have recently moved into care homes won’t receive a referendum ballot if they haven’t let Elections BC know they’ve moved.
Referendum ballots on provincial voting system to a proportional representation have to be received by Elections BC by Nov. 30, but the seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, pointed out about 10,000 seniors in B.C. have moved into care homes since May 2017 when the last voters list was compiled.
“If Elections BC has not been notified of the address change and people are not having their mail forwarded, seniors who have moved into a care home are not likely to receive a ballot,” she stated in a press release.
MacKenzie has sent letters to all publicly funded seniors homes asking them to make sure their residents know how to get a ballot for the electoral reform referendum.
The deadline to ask for a voting package is Nov. 23 at midnight. This can be done by phone at 1-800-661-8683 or requested online at elections.bc.ca by clicking on “Voting Package Request.”
The referendum has two questions: it first asks B.C. residents whether they want to keep the current first-past-the-post system or change to a proportional representation (PR) system; the second question asks voters to rank three PR systems: dual-member proportional, mixed-member proportional and rural-urban proportional.
