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M.L. residents elect next city council

Oct 27, 2016 | 9:16 AM

While voter turnout numbers remained low, residents of Meadow Lake cast ballots last night and elected the next council to lead.

Every incumbent was re-elected with Kim Chiverton getting the majority of votes with 486. In order of most votes, Merlin Seymour received 462, Conrad Read received 438, Tom Harrison got 401, Curtis Paylor 398, and Glen Winkler received 390.

With 307 votes, Richard Levesque is the lone candidate not elected.

As the city doesn’t keep a voter registration list, the number of voters were estimated based on the 2011 census results. In 2011, Meadow Lake had roughly 3,800 people living in the city 14 years of age or older. Taking in time and people moving, the number of residents in Meadow Lake 18 or older is roughly 3,000.

Only 582 showed up to vote which returning officer Jessica Walters said seems to be a normal theme.

“This is pretty average for what I know of Meadow Lake voting history for council municipal elections,” she said.

In the 2012 municipal elections, 696 people voted, as opposed to 582 this year.

“Of note is the fact that the highest number of votes for any individual was 454, as compared to 486 this year. Based on that it looks like the lower number of candidates (seven as opposed to 11) was one contributing factor in the low voter turnout,” Walters added.

In the 2009 election 665 residents cast ballots.

In the provincial election, albeit covering a larger area, Meadow Lake had more than 6,000 people vote.

 

Colton Swiderski is meadowlakeNOW’s municipal affairs, crime and court, health and education reporter. He can be reached at cswiderski@jpbg.ca or tweet him @coltonswiderski.