An error on voter application forms for the Canadian Wheat Board elections that created confusion among some potential voters has been corrected.
Officials with both election co-ordinator Meyers Norris Penny and the wheat board say the error was a mistake and it won’t prevent eligible voters from casting a ballot.
“It was an honest oversight,” said CWB spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry.
Producers who are eligible to vote but didn’t automatically receive a ballot in the mail must fill out an application to receive a ballot.
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The original form required those filling it out to swear that their land, as described on the form, does not appear in a CWB permit book for 2007-08 or 2008-09.
That created a potentially confusing situation for producers who have valid permit books, but did not produce an eligible grain in either year.
As a result, those producers would not automatically receive a ballot in the mail.
If they decided to fill out the form, they would not be able to swear the land was not listed on a permit book. That would theoretically disqualify them from receiving a ballot.
Once the board and MNP became aware of the problem, the form was changed to allow farmers to check a box indicating whether or not their land appears on a permit book.
National Farmers Union president Stewart Wells said such a flawed document should never have been approved.
Wells expressed concern that some farmers who have permit books but didn’t grow eligible grains in the past two years may not realize they have to apply for a ballot.
He said the election co-ordinator should get in touch with all producers in that situation and tell them what they need to do to get on the voters list.
“Nobody’s telling them what they have to do to get on the ballot,” Wells said.
Ian Craven of MNP, which designed the form, said the company has received only a few calls from farmers about the issue, and expects it will have no impact on the voters list.
“I can’t imagine anyone would have just abandoned the idea of voting” after coming across that section of the form, he said.
The issue came to MNP’s attention when it received applications in which farmers had crossed out the contentious section.
That’s what the co-ordinator initially told farmers to do when they called in with questions about the form.
Now that the on-line application form has been corrected, he feels the issue has been put to bed.
“This wouldn’t prevent anyone from voting,” he said. “It’s important to the individual but it’s not many in the grand scheme of things.”
Neither MNP nor the board will be following Well’s request that they contact all permit book holders who delivered in the past two years to ensure they know how to get a ballot.
Fitzhenry said the board decided it wouldn’t be right to send such information only to a select group of potential voters.
“It’s hard to justify sending letters only to permit book holders when all grain producers are entitled to vote,” she said.
She added an aggressive advertising campaign by MNP should get the message out.
