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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Both school boards say they experienced low turnouts as a new batch of seven-member trustees were voted in Monday night.

There were 6,339 votes cast for eight public school board candidates and 3,498 votes cast for 10 Catholic school board trustee hopefuls.

Evidence is only anecdotal but candidates for both boards contacted by Yellowknifer complained of low voter turnout, which they blame on to the city's decision this year to not allow voters to cast their ballots for school boards and municipal council at the same polling station.

"If you went to vote three years ago, you would go to a booth, get a municipal voting ticket and a school board ticket and it was one-stop shopping," said top vote-getter for Yk Education District No. 1 Terry Brookes, who won his seventh term on the public board. "(This year) I had to go to one table and get my municipal ballot and do my thing. Then I had to go to another table and get my ballot and do my thing. If I am voting and in a rush, say at 6 o'clock and saw five or six people there, I would say forget it."

As the numbers came in Monday night, Brookes was one of the few trustees to be at the Yk1 district office. He said the low numbers were indicative of the change in policy. He won with 1,005 votes, a drop from more than 1,200 in the last election.

"I see maybe a reduction by about one-third," he said. "I am concerned because a lot of the issues at both boards has been the issue of communication with the public and transparency and getting people out there. So I have some issues in how the city set up this election."

Blake Lyons, who is entering his second term on the public school board and had comparably high numbers as Brookes last time, said he was glad at least some people showed up. But there was a lot of uncertainty about the process, he said.

"I think it was due to the new process this year and in years past people just went to the one polling booth," he said. "Here there were a lot of questions, like, 'Where do we go,' and 'Why isn't it the same as it was in the past.' That was a decision beyond our control."

Meanwhile, at the Catholic school board, chief returning officer Bill Gillday said he thinks there needs to be some serious discussion about the new voting process, although he didn't have this year's voter turnout percentage readily available or any stats from previous elections.

"I think probably the separation of the two elections instead of one lineup had an effect," he said. "I know for a fact that at NJ Macpherson School apparently there were long lineups and some people just gave up and walked away without voting."

Any factors that may have prevented voters from casting a ballot could have had a greater impact on the Catholic board, he said, because the race proved to be much tighter than the public board election.

"If you look at the separation between the seventh place and eighth place person, the eighth place candidate (Lee Stroman) was only eight votes behind," he said. "Considering the number of people who were unhappy with being unable to vote, that is an interesting situation. What if everybody who could vote had voted? It might have been different and if I was the eighth place candidate, I might be questioning that result."

Stroman, an incumbent candidate, said yesterday he hadn't considered asking for a recount and was still going over the numbers.

Amy Simpson-Hacala, who pulled ahead of Stroman by eight votes, said she was concerned with the process and would look to improve it over the next term.

She said the Catholic board should have additional concerns with a section in the Education Act which states that voters have to declare their intention to vote for the Catholic board ahead of time or are defaulted to vote for the public board.

"The way the municipal elections were run might have been slightly confusing for people," Simpson-Hacala said.

Fact file

Yellowknife catholic schools

Francis Chang 412

Simon Taylor 390*

Steven Voytilla 383

Miles Welsh 382

John Dalton 379

Erin Currie 349

Amy Simpson-Hacala 334

Lee Stroman 326* (not elected)

Gerda Hazenberg 274*(not elected)

Jeffrey Kincaid 269 (not elected)

Total votes: 3,498

Source: Yellowknife Catholic Schools

* designates incumbent

Source: Yellowknife Catholic Schools

Fact file

Yk Education district NO. 1

Terry Brookes 1,005*

Blake Lyons 97*

John Stephenson 873*

Mira Hall 865*

Allan Shortt 800*

Heather Clarke 748

Jay Butler 681

Mildred Wilke 396 (not elected)

Total votes: 6,339

Source: Yellowknife Education District 1

* designates incumbent

Source: Yk Education District No. 1

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