Nearly two years after the final ballot was cast in the 2018 municipal election, the dispute rages on about the results in Wollaston Township.
In January the OPP concluding there was “no criminal wrongdoing” after allegations of voter fraud and no charges were filed after they closed their case.
“Based on all the information we’ve gone through, it looks like a pay-to-play scenario happened,” Reeve of Wollaston Barb Shaw says. She alleges that people were buying leases from family members for “garden sheds and bunkies” just weeks before the election which got them ballots. “That’s concerning,” she says.
Wollaston council is working on that will be sent to other municipalities in Ontario and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark that Shaw hopes will end pay-to-play balloting. “We’ll ask for a better way to report election fraud,” she adds. Shaw says reporting election fraud should not be difficult, noting how hard it was for her to do that in 2018 after the last municipal election. “We’re also going to be asking if the rules and penalties in the Elections Act are enforceable,” Shaw says. “What we’ve heard from the OPP is that we can’t proceed because there isn’t case law.”
When speaking with the MyBancroftNow.com newsroom in January the OPP’s Media Relations Coordinator Bill Dixon said he wasn’t able to get into specific allegations and details of the investigation.
The next municipal election will be in 2022 and Shaw says Wollaston council is already preparing. Council moved in July to hire an Election Consultant that will oversee the upcoming election and make sure everyone is following the rules.
“I think this is going to happen again,” Shaw says.
She says that while big cities may not care about the motion that will be tabled during a special council meeting on Monday, smaller municipalities will. “We have a feeling this may be happening in other municipalities,” she says.
While the motion still needs to be discussed by council, if passed, Shaw hopes that it goes a long way in “tightening up” legislation. She says the Municipal Elections Act in its current state is “vague.” She says that what happened to Wollaston Township in 2018 could happen anywhere.