With voting day now well and truly on the horizon, residents in the local Bonnyville – Cold Lake constituency will soon have the opportunity to decide whom they would like to represent the local PCs in the next provincial election.
So far, those residents have but two options - Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland and Glendon resident Dixie Dahlstedt. The pair has spent much of this month traveling across the Lakeland, campaigning for votes in what appears to be a tight race.
But while all the talk leading up to any election or nomination process usually surrounds those in the running, this one right here in Bonnyville – Cold Lake has been a little different. Actually, if we're being honest with ourselves, it's been very different.
As reported in our front page story ‘Local resident calls PC nomination process “grossly unfair”' there is scheduled to be only one voting station up and running on nomination day, with the local PC nominating committee claiming it did not have the resources to run multiple stations in the Feb. 21 vote.
That voting station will be set up at the Seniors Centre in Cold Lake North, a move that, at least in the public eye, appears to favour one of the nominees over the other.
There is no precedent in the local constituency for the nominating committee to fall back on regarding operating a singular polling station in a modern day nominating process, and certainly no precedent for that station to be set up in Cold Lake – a near 100 kilometre one-way trip for voters on the west side of the constituency.
Admittedly, the committee was not afforded very much time when the province handed them a Feb. 21 voting date. Chair of the committee Carol Reynolds-Wittman last week told the Nouvelle that the committee had exhausted all available measures prior to booking the polling station in Cold Lake.
“Our first choice was actually to hold it at the (Centennial Centre) in Bonnyville, but that was already booked,” Reynolds-Wittman said.
The committee's apparent lack of interest in operating additional stations in Bonnyville and Glendon has irked several local residents, with many taking to social media and submitting short notes to the Nouvelle to voice their displeasure.
“I'm not one to holler corruption, but this looks like an election right out of a third world country,” one resident wrote.
Despite claiming the deadline to bring in additional polling stations had passed, the provincial nominating committee has been forced to step in so as to ensure “equal access for voters across the entire region.”
It appears they have forced the local committee's hand, as news filtered over the weekend that local PC members will in fact have a second location in which to vote, with Bonnyville hosting an advanced poll on Feb. 19 at the ACFA Hall.
The provincial/local nominating committee took a roundabout way of getting there, but it appears local residents finally will have an opportunity to vote without being forced to commute out of their way to the eastern border of the constituency to do so.
