Tom Rideout, LLB

For the benefit of the very concerned Tom Rideout, LLB (Ottawa, 1997), Attorney-General of the province, here is an important late-breaking excerpt from the Elections Act:

Voting in hospitals, etc.

121. (1) Where a polling station has been established in a home for the aged, a hospital or similar institution for the care and treatment of chronic illness, the deputy returning officer and the poll clerk shall, while the poll is still open on polling day and when considered necessary by the deputy returning officer,

(a) suspend temporarily the voting in the polling station; and

(b) with the approval of the person in charge of the institution, carry the ballot box, poll book, ballots and other necessary election documents from room to room in the institution to take the votes of those patients unable to come to the polling station who are ordinarily resident in the polling division in which the institution is situated and are otherwise qualified as electors.

(2) The procedure to be followed in taking the votes of patients unable to come to the polling station referred to in subsection (1) shall be the same as that prescribed for an ordinary polling station.

(3) The deputy returning officer shall give patients assistance in accordance with the provisions of section 118 when necessary.