2025 budget adjustments in Attachment-2, Table 4 of report 2026-223 2025 Year-end Capital Budget Monitoring Report…

2:54:08and it's good to have that information publicly available for anyone who needs it we are going

2:54:13to move on to item 14.2 which is election voting methods in the year 2030 and this is an item brought

2:54:21forward by councillor Caton so uh councillor Caton i am going to turn the floor over to you.

2:54:31Thank you if the clerks could um please bring up my motion so uh i am moving that for the

2:54:402030 municipal and school board election the city clerk be directed to consider and prioritize

2:54:45voting methods which would enable voters to independently mark a ballot at home and that

2:54:49the city clerk report back to city council on the outcomes of this direction as a part of the 2030

2:54:55municipal and school board election voting methods report scheduled to go before city council in

2:54:592028 and i don't have a a seconder lined up so the floor is open for anyone who'd like to second

2:55:09councillor richardson okay thank you for your comments yeah yeah so i'm gonna frame why i've

2:55:17got it out here yep uh so i really appreciated that council had moved forward with the online voting

2:55:24and it's very unfortunate we weren't able to find any vendors that met our security standards

2:55:30um i know that council really wanted to ensure that there was a next level of accessibility we

2:55:38heard all of the feedback from the aac on issues with the communities having independently verifiable

2:55:48voting methods from their homes in terms of different disabilities that were uh vision related

2:55:55and and i think that because we weren't able to find a vendor and now we don't have enough time

2:56:02to kind of implement a secondary method that i would just like to pull it out and just refer to it

2:56:09to fill that accessibility gap so that we're we're not in this place in the next election

2:56:15and i know staff do their very best to accommodate everyone and we've got a fantastic team that

2:56:22really does their best to meet all of the individual like individual accessibility needs but we still

2:56:27have this one gap so i'd like to make sure that we've got something in place for the next election

2:56:33and uh be less pres prescriptive about what that method is so that we can ensure that those

2:56:40needs are being met thanks thank you um any member of council have any questions for the mover

2:56:48councillor Allt thank you very much chair Caron it's only one question i i don't want to

2:56:55sound like i'm uh being nitpicking but i'm wondering what you mean by the term prioritize and the

2:57:01reason for that is it sounds like you are putting at home voting ahead of voting at a um a voting center

2:57:14voting center is already covered so i'm trying to fill a gap so right now this is the

2:57:21missing piece in the accessibility package that we have um as i think you'll remember that there

2:57:27was the remote accessible vote from home where folks could um who were blind could have a ballot

2:57:33filled out on their computer and that is this same kind of technology that using your home

2:57:41computer if you have a screen reader or those kinds of accessibility needs that fits that need

2:57:49and so there are different areas where certain folks they've got latex allergies they've got

2:57:55severe chemicals and cities they can't vote externally and they can't use the paper ballots

2:58:02and do the vote by mail because they are blind they can't independently vote so there's there's

2:58:08just different use cases that aren't completely covered by the uh the group of options that we

2:58:14have now and i just want to make sure that we've got that availability for for everyone to vote

2:58:21without assistance so they have their private vote thank you very much um i don't have any other

2:58:27concern my concern was that you were suggesting that home voting would be a higher priority and

2:58:33i hear very clearly that you're saying in addition to the the current system that we have if you

2:58:40don't mind uh chair Caron i'm wondering if we could hear from staff on this particular issue