The Town of Essex is sticking with in-person voting for the 2022 municipal election.
Administration did recommend council shift to internet voting for the advance polls and in-person voting on election day but council went against the recommendation and chose in-person for advance polls and election day.
Deputy mayor Steve Bjorkman says it was a healthy discussion but says himself and a couple of other councillors believed internet voting should be an option.
"I personally believe there is a population in our community that would gravitate to that and we would probably open up some extra voters just because they would be comfortable with the internet," Bjorkman said.
He says some councillors wanted to keep in-person voting.
"The balance of council felt that for this year, they're still not comfortable with that," he continued. "That there's a perception of there's ways to get around the personal pin number and then the extra securities that are there so for this year, our council has decided to go only with in-person paper ballots."
Bjorkman says in-person voting took place during the 2018 municipal election.
"We had mail-in voting in 2014 and we decided that we didn't want to go that route for sure. In-person only in 2018 and we will be doing the same this year."
Bjorkman says in 2014, the town did mail-in voting and in 2018, it was in-person voting.
The 2022 municipal election is set for Monday, October 24.