John Curran
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 17, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Last week's hamlet elections set a dubious mark with voter turnout falling nine per cent compared to the past two years.

This year just 1,114 voters cast ballots compared to the 3,132 who were eligible. That averages out to a mere 35 per cent.

Based on the statistics available from the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) website, voter turnout for hamlet and settlement elections averaged 43 per cent in both 2006 and 2005.

The department is not concerned at this point and David Kravitz, chief municipal electoral officer at MACA, said it was more of a statistical anomaly than anything else.

"In some cases there was no election for mayor," he said, "so there might not have been as much interest."

In Paulatuk for example, which actually had the second best turnout rate last week, 95 of 187 eligible voters came out to cast ballots.

"We pretty much hit the 50 per cent mark right on the button," said out-going Coun. Debbie Gordon-Ruben.

"That was lower than last year."

In 2006, the hamlet had a 66 per cent voter turnout rate. She blamed the poor turnout this time around on the fact residential school cheques have started arriving in the community.

"A lot of people had gone away shopping since they got their money," she said.

Further south in the Mackenzie valley, just 17 per cent of Tulita voters turned up at the polls. Mayor-elect Louise Reindeer agreed the residential school payments definitely played a role, but added there were also other factors.

"It would also be due in part to the cold weather," she said.

While there were advance polls and flyers up around the community publicizing Dec. 10 as voting day, she said there were also some people who still didn't get the message.

"I talked to a few people afterwards who said they weren't aware there was an election for mayor this year," she said.