As it stands, a council seat in Pitt Meadows could be decided by flipping a coin.
Changing that procedure, and a few other minor amendments are part of Pitt Meadows council’s proposed changes for its election bylaw for the 2022 local elections.
Chief election officer Tina Penney gave a report to council that lists a few proposed changes for the next municipal election.
Under the proposed new rules, the city will hold a byelection if two council or mayoral candidates are tied after the election, and still tied after a judicial recount.
Under existing rules, the tie would be broken on a coin flip.
“It would drive me crazy to lose on a coin flip for something so important as the governance of your city,” said Mayor Bill Dingwall.
He noted that ties are unlikely, but they have happened.
In Peachland, the 2018 mayor’s race was decided by a judge pulling a name randomly from a box, after two candidates were tied at 804 votes, in accordance with that city’s bylaws.
Another recommendation is to have Pitt Meadows staff prepare an amendment to the sign bylaw, so that election signs can be erected at the start of the campaign period (the 28 days before general voting day), which aligns with the rest of the province.
This year, candidates were two days behind the rest of the province in erecting signs and were putting them up on a Monday, rather than Saturday.
The city will also limit the number of scrutineers each candidate can have to one per polling station – to limit the number of people hanging around at the voting stations.
As it stands, they can have one scrutineer per ballot box, per voting location – with the potential for 32 people at each voting place during the last election.