There is a black rotary phone sitting beside my kitchen table that has been doing its job faithfully since 1974.
It is heavy, indestructible and very much alive.
When it rings, it doesn’t politely chirp, vibrate or illuminate a screen. It rings with enough force to scare the living daylights out of anyone unfortunate enough to be sitting beside it.
Fifty-two years later, the thing still works.
I can make and receive a call on it, but I can’t vote with it.
Before I go any further, some disclosure is necessary.
My brother, Steve Weir, is running for mayor of Rideau Lakes, and I am his campaign manager. Because of that conflict, I stepped away from reporting on Rideau Lakes during the municipal election campaign.
This column isn’t a return to covering Rideau Lakes council or the mayoral race.
It started while I was doing some campaign research into voting options after a question came up about residents who will be away during the voting period.
More specifically, what happens if you go hunting?
And not just up the road for the afternoon.
What happens if you leave before advance voting opens and head far enough into the wilderness that there is no internet or cellphone service, and don’t return until after the election?
Apparently, there are more than a few people planning to do exactly that.
How far north are these nomads going?
I have no idea.
But if they live in a municipality where voting is conducted by internet and telephone, like in Rideau Lakes, they are trying to figure out how they’re voting before they disappear into the bush. One told me it could mean a 1½-hour trip just to find cellphone service. That’s hardly convenient.
Voting isn’t the same in every municipality. There are still paper ballots out there, just not in Rideau Lakes, where voting will be conducted by internet and telephone. Voting opens at 10 a.m. Oct. 19 and continues 24 hours a day until 8 p.m. Oct. 26.
Rideau Lakes returning officer Mary Ellen Truelove recently provided all candidates with information about what voters should do if they will be away during the voting period.
If voters leave before receiving their Voter Information Letter, they should contact the township office. Staff can walk them through the process of receiving a Voter Information Letter by email, and the PIN contained in the original mailed letter will be disabled.
But what if you’re already away and have no internet or cellphone service?
Find a landline.
There’s a catch.
It needs to be connected to a touch-tone phone because voters need a keypad to enter information and make their selections.
Which brings us back to my perfectly functional 1974 rotary phone.
Sorry, old girl.
You can still make a call 52 years after somebody screwed you to the wall beside my kitchen table, but you cannot press 1 for democracy.
The hunting-trip question got me thinking about something bigger, particularly after I heard from another voter.
She told me she had spoken with people who don’t intend to vote this year because there are no paper ballots in their municipality.
Some don’t trust online or telephone voting. Some find the technology complicated. Internet and cellphone service can also still be unreliable in rural areas.
Whatever their reasons, these are people who say they otherwise would vote.
That’s worth paying attention to. We need to make it easier for these folks – not more complicated.
It’s also worth understanding that voting methods vary considerably from one municipality to another.
Elizabethtown-Kitley, for example, is offering internet, telephone and paper-ballot voting.
Residents who want to vote by paper ballot can do so during advance voting at the township’s Main Administrative Office, 6544 New Dublin Rd., from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day from Oct. 19-23.
On election day, Oct. 26, the township plans to operate three in-person polling stations from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The proposed locations are the Main Library Branch at 4103 County Rd. 29, Fire Station No. 1 at 44 Main St. E. in Lyn and Fire Station No. 3 at 410 County Rd. 29.
Elizabethtown-Kitley also plans travelling polls at Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, Sherwood Park Manor and Chartwell Rosedale Retirement Residence, with specific operating times still to be determined.
Merrickville-Wolford is also giving electors a choice of paper ballots, internet or telephone voting.
And that’s where this stopped being a Rideau Lakes question for me.
It became a voter question.
Because the method available to you depends on where you live.
Don’t assume that because your friend in the municipality next door can walk into a polling station and mark a paper ballot, you can do the same thing.
Don’t assume you have to vote online.
Don’t assume that because you don’t have reliable internet, you can’t vote.
And please don’t wait until Oct. 26 to start figuring this out.
Check your municipality’s election information now.
Make sure you’re on the voters’ list and that your information is correct.
Find out when voting opens and closes.
Find out whether your municipality offers internet voting, telephone voting, paper ballots or some combination of the three.
If you want to vote on paper, find out whether that option is available and exactly where and when you can cast your ballot.
If you aren’t comfortable voting electronically on your own, contact your municipal election office and ask what assistance is available.
If you’re travelling, hunting, working away or otherwise planning to be somewhere without reliable service during the voting period, figure out how you’re going to vote before you leave.
And if you haven’t received the voting information you need, call your municipal office rather than assuming you’ve missed your opportunity.
I’m not going to tell anyone how they should feel about electronic voting.
But I will say this: don’t surrender your vote without first finding out what options you have.
According to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, voter turnout in the 2022 municipal elections was just 32.9 per cent, based on results reported by 417 municipalities.
Municipal councils make decisions about the roads we drive, the taxes we pay, development in our communities, recreation, fire protection, water and sewer systems, libraries and millions of dollars in public spending.
Choosing the people who make those decisions is worth a little homework.
But when fewer than one in three eligible voters are casting a ballot, maybe we should also be asking what we can do to make voting easier for those who are struggling to participate.
So check how voting works where you live. Ask questions. Make a plan before voting opens, especially if you’re going to be away.
And if you know someone who is already saying they won’t vote because they don’t understand the process or don’t think they have an option that works for them, help them find out what is available.
We spend a lot of time trying to convince people that their vote matters, but maybe we should spend a little more time making sure they can cast it.
Keep connected to your community and the decisions that shape it. Follow our 2026 municipal election coverage in the Hometown News Election Centre.
