Ken Christian at city hall on election night, Oct. 20, 2018.
(KAREN EDWARDS / iNFOnews.ca)
October 22, 2018 - 1:37 PM
KAMLOOPS - The newly re-elected mayor of Kamloops is wondering what can be done to increase voter turnout after only about 30 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the municipal election.
Kamloops city council is made up for four incumbents and four new faces following the election on Saturday, Oct. 20. The newly elected council members include Mike O'Reilly, Dale Bass, Bill Sarai and Sadie Hunter.
This year's voter turnout was roughly 30 per cent which is nearly a five per cent decrease from the 2014 Kamloops civic election. The last civic election saw a voter turnout of 34.9 per cent in Kamloops, according to Civic Info B.C.
"It’s disappointing, certainly more than 30 per cent of our voters should be able to come out," says mayor-elect Ken Christian who secured his seat with 17,328 votes. His only challenger William James Turnbull managed to garner only 2,666 votes.
Christian says the city might need to start looking into other alternatives to get more people to vote.
"Maybe we have to go to online voting, maybe we have to look at other mechanisms," Christian says.
According to the city's website, there were 68,785 eligible voters in this year's civic election and 20,643 people voted.
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