Cambridge ward 7 residents set to choose new councillor Monday

Residents in Cambridge's ward 7 are voting for a new councillor on Monday.

The byelectionwas calledfollowing thedeath of Frank Monteiro. Itwas to be held in March, but was delayed because of COVID-19.

There are nine people seeking the council seat: Cole Boland, Body Botelho, Connie Cody, Manuel da Silva, Scott Hamilton, R.J. Johnston, Sandra Lemieux, Vandan Patel and Simon Weresch.

Voting will take place Monday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at city hall. People can either go inside the building to vote or can use curbside voting in the parking lot.

People do not have to preregister for curbside voting, city clerk Danielle Manton says.

"We've done curbside voting in the past, but we are expanding it this year to have it in our civic lot. We've cleared out all of our fleet vehicles that would normally park in this lot overnight on Monday," she said.

There are 84 spots available at any time and Manton says they could process more than 3,000 votes through curbside voting if necessary.

"Basically what we have is four rows of spots available and poll clerks that will administer in person paper ballots for voters and then each of those ballot boxes that will have ballots in them will be processed ... at the end of the night."

For people hesitant to leave their homes, they can have someone vote for them by proxy. They need to fill out a form that can be found on the city's byelection webpage.

Public health guidelines for voting

Masks are required inside city hall, unless people cannot wear them for health reasons.

"Weunderstand what's happening right now and we really have taken this pandemic planning to the next level. We're very sensitive to how the community feels right now," Manton said.

There was an advance poll held Sept. 26 and Manton says people were very respectful of the public health guidelines they had to follow.

"We're really happy to see staff adopting todelivering a byelection under these conditions," she said. "We've got a physical distancing officer. We've got a community safety officer in place who's cleaning after every touchpoint is handled by an elector.So we're taking all the extra steps that we can to ensure that staff and the electors are safe."

It's expected unofficial results will be available shortly after polls close Monday evening. The results will be posted to the city's website.