Prince Edward County is planning to continue the use of hybrid physical and digital voting options as seen in previous elections.
During Thursday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, the committee discussed a report from municipal staff about hybrid voting solutions, offering both physical polling stations and digital options.
The report from staff highlighted the success of internet voting used in the 2022 municipal and school board elections, and recommended their use again for the upcoming 2026 elections. The report showed that the number of votes cast by eligible voters increased since the digital option was made available.
Digital voting will involve voters being provided a voter information package, with instructions on how to access a voting website from any device once the voting period begins.
Councillor Phil St-Jean said that it is important to make voting as accessible as possible, especially for those in long-term care homes who have trouble going to polling stations.
“I’m happy to see that nothing is changing essentially from the last election cycle,” said Councillor St-Jean. “I, quite frankly, think that the way we ran the election last time, and the process that was approved by council at the time, it worked out very well.”
The committee voted to approve the hybrid solution, and the motion was sent to council for final approval.
