Elections Yukon has ‘contingencies’ for campaign amid postal strike

Plans include using courier special ballots, or shipping materials through government distribution system

Elections Yukon has announced its contingency plans for conducting this fall’s territorial election if the strike at Canada Post continues into the upcoming campaign.

Those plans include shipping materials to returning offices using the territorial government’s distribution channels, and sending special ballot kits via courier, said Max Harvey, the territory’s chief electoral officer.

Yukon’s next general election must be called this week, with voting day to happen no later than Nov. 3.

Elections Yukon’s contingency plans also include sending voter information cards to community post offices whose staff are not represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Members of that union went on strike across the country last week.

“We’ve been preparing for the election for about four and a half years, because it has been a minority government,” Harvey said.

“We had many periods of very high, high readiness for the postal strike…. We thought we’d gotten over the hump there. We thought we had some reliable service, but we were kind of surprised last week. But that being said, we do have contingencies.”

Around 36,000 voter information cards to go out

A postal strike affects Elections Yukon in several ways, Harvey said.

He said it changes how the agency ships material to returning offices in the eight electoral districts outside of Whitehorse. It also requires using alternate methods to deliver about 36,000 voter information cards and get information to householders across the territory about the election, and the plebiscite on changing the voting system. That plebiscite will be held on election day.

A postal strike also alters the process for sending and receiving special ballots from voters outside the territory.

Elections Yukon has already begun accepting applications for special ballots on its website, Harvey said.

Applications will close on the Tuesday before the advance polls, according to an Elections Yukon news release.

The agency will courier the ballot kits to those outside the territory who need them and will provide a prepaid return envelope. People can also drop them off at any returning office or satellite office.

About 3,200 people voted by special ballot in the territory’s 2021 election, but the majority were people who simply voted in returning offices prior to the election, Harvey said. About 17 per cent asked to have ballots mailed to their homes, up from seven per cent in 2016.

When it comes to delivering voter information cards, Elections Yukon will rely on smaller independent delivery services to bring them to community post offices, Harvey said.

It will send information on the plebiscite to returning offices, libraries, First Nations and other community resources to help spread the word.