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SAHTU
Eligible Gwich'in voters will elect the next Gwich'in Tribal Council president and vice president on June 22 and changes to the election process are hoped to improve voter turnout.

Four changes were made to election bylaws at last year's GTC annual general assembly based on recommendations made after the 2008 elections. Two major changes for this year's elections include the addition of polling stations in Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Edmonton and an extension of the election period from 60 to 90 days.

Polling stations had previously only been in the four Gwich'in communities - Inuvik, Aklavik, Fort McPherson, and Tsiigehtchic - but now they will be available in any location with at least 100 eligible voters.

An eligible voter is any Gwich'in beneficiary at least 19 years old.

Barb Crawford, chief returning officer for the Gwich'in Tribal Council, said it was clear changes were necessary after hundreds of mailed votes arrived at the Office of the Chief Returning Officer after the voting deadline and could not be counted. Crawford said part of the problem was making sure eligible voters received their ballots in time, or even at all.

"We found there were so many people getting missed because we didn't have the right addresses," she said. "By the time you got the returned mail there wasn't even enough time to send it back out again."

Crawford said she does hope the changes will make for improved numbers, though even after adding three new poling stations, there remain 770 ballots to mail out. The ballots went to print on May 22 and will be mailed out this week, said Crawford. Votes need to be returned by 5 p.m. on June 22.

Current council president, Richard Nerysoo, is running for another term as council president as well as Robert Alexie Jr. and Brenda McDonald.

Alexie said he'd like to rejuvenate some of the work the Gwich'in Tribal Council has done since he last served on council in the early 1990s.

"We have to get the people more involved in what they want instead of having it otherwise," he said.

"Basically it's rebuilding time. I mean, we once had a very dynamic Gwich'in development corporation with people working and people training. We had opportunities for business and employment out there and all that's slowly been neglected."

Current president, Richard Nerysoo, was unable to comment before press deadline and Brenda McDonald did not return calls requesting her comments.

Mary Ann Ross has decided not to run for another term as vice-president. The five vice-presidential candidates running this year include David Krutko, Grace Blake, Ernest Firth, Janet Koe, Norman Snowshoe and Margaret Spry.

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