Manitoba is voting today. Here’s what you need to know

Manitoba voters head to the polls today as municipal elections begin across the province.

That includes the people of Winnipeg, who will elect a new mayor for the first time since 2014.

Polling stations – 198 of them – open at 8 a.m. at sites in the provincial capital, senior election official and city clerk Marc Lemoine said on Tuesday. They will be open until 8 p.m. – and as long as you are online before then, you will be able to vote, he said.

While residents were allowed to go to any site to vote in the advance poll, voters will have to go to their assigned site on election day, Lemoine said.

You can find that address in the orange box on the voter notice you received in the mail, he said, holding up a sample notice the city composed for an imaginary voter named Willow Rosenberg – a name also borne by a witch from the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

« Anything we can do to get people to the polls, right? That’s what I want, » Lemoine said.

If you don’t have a Voter Notice, you can also find out where to vote by entering your address in this page on the city’s website or by calling 311, Lemoine said.

You can find more details here on how to vote and what to bring.

While a record number of people in Winnipeg have already voted in advance, many have not yet voted.

There has also been an increase in the number of people voting by mail, with around 800 this year compared to 200 in the last municipal elections, Lemoine said.

Election officials have also already tested all of the city’s voting machines with 50,000 pre-marked ballots — and the results were perfect, Lemoine said.

« So we’re very confident in the results of these machines, » he said.

Counting of ballots will begin after polls close at 8 p.m., Lemoine said, beginning with advance ballots and then moving to votes cast on Election Day. Once the results are received in each office, election workers forward the final results to City Hall — then they are posted online, he said.

The first results are expected between 8:15 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., while the bulk of the results are expected around 9:15 p.m., Lemoine said. The full results should be out around 9:45 p.m., he said.

CBC will host a live program on the election results in Winnipeg, which you can watch on our website, our facebook page and on CBC Gem from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

For Winnipeg voters still trying to decide who should be the city’s next mayor, you can check out this list of what the candidates promised and these one-on-one interviews with CBC.

Five of the candidates also took part in CBC’s mayoral candidates’ debate last week, which you can watch here.

New councilors arrive at Winnipeg City Hall

In addition to electing a new mayor, Winnipeg will also vote for city councilors in 13 of its 15 wards. The other two were elected by default after no one ran against them.

These races include Transcona, where an incumbent adviser faces his predecessorand Charleswood-Smoking-Westwood and St Jameswhere the competitions are wide open because their incumbents are running for mayor – meaning Winnipeg is guaranteed to have at least two new councillors.

Other wards that will elect councilors are Daniel McIntyre, Elmwood-East Kildonan, Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry, Mynarski, North Kildonan, Point Douglas, River Heights-Fort Garry, St. Boniface, St. Vital and Waverley West.

School trustees controversy

You can read the full list of school trustee candidates in Winnipeg on the city’s website.

These races were not without controversy. At least a dozen people running for school trustees in Winnipeg are believed to be strong critics of pandemic-era restrictions, some of whom have gained widespread notoriety for their dissent.

Concerns have also been raised about Manitoba’s election laws related to school trustee races, since current rules do not require disclosure of who funds a campaign.

Rural races heat up

Nearly half of Manitoba municipalities holding elections this year will see their council leader — mayor or reeve — elected by default because no one ran against them.

But the town of Brandon is among those to have a mayoral race – the first in Manitoba’s second-largest city since 2014. Residents of this town are guaranteed to elect a new mayor, as Rick Chrest is no longer running. not for re-election.

The same is true for many other communities across the province, from Portage la Prairie and Dauphin in southwestern Manitoba to Flin Flon, The Pas and Lynn Lake in the north.

Meanwhile, the mayoral race in the southern Manitoba town of Winkler will see a city councilor face off against a man who has failed to turn the community into a sanctuary city free from case restrictions. of pandemic.