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Motion to change candidate order on ballots delayed

Vancouver does away with alphabetical order on election ballots

A motion to change Vancouver civic election ballots to list candidates randomly, as opposed to alphabetically, was deferred by an NPA councillor Wednesday afternoon.

Coun. Andrea Reimer put forward the motion, which proposes that candidates be listed in random order on the official ballots for the 2018 Vancouver municipal election.

Candidates are currently listed alphabetically, which Reimer said can have a bias against candidates with last names that are Chinese, South Asian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese or Latino, among others.

She claims the bias can be more pronounced with long ballots (there were 49 candidates in the 2014 municipal election) and it's a concern she has heard from people who have thought about running for municipal office.

"It kinda breaks my heart when I'm talking to somebody who would be a fantastic elected representative, but for the fact that they feel that their name is too far down the ballot ... they don't even bother running," she said.

Motion delayed for staff to 'study' it

According to Reimer, the section of the Vancouver Charter dealing with how ballots are ordered is 'extraordinarily specific' about the process.

"It gives us two options," she said. "Alphabet, which is the one that I feel has too strong a bias, or random draw."

"Essentially what staff will be studying is what it takes to obtain a sheet of paper, write names on it, put those names into a hat, and draw them out and type them onto a ballot."

Currently, six out of 10 Vancouver city councillors have names that start with A, B, C and D.

"Unfortunately ... the only 'A' councillor put a motion forward to delay passing it, in favour of studying it," said Reimer.

"He did say that he'd like it to come back in 30 days, so that's something, because we are on a pretty short timeline towards the 2018 election."