Area municipality takes community engagement up a notch

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A new electronic feedback system will allow Ingersoll politicians and other decision-makers a quick shortcut to find out what the public thinks about community issues.

The town is implementing FlashVote, an electronic voting platform that enables residents to give their opinions on surveys provided through the system.

“This innovative platform enables residents to have a direct impact on local matters, from infrastructure projects to community events, by casting their votes securely and conveniently,” Ingersoll said in a release.

Michael Graves, Ingersoll’s chief administrator, said a missing variable of municipal government is community input, and FlashVote would be a useful tool for decision-makers.

“If municipalities could get better polling numbers, they would use that as a resource more frequently in making their policy decisions,” Graves said.

FlashVote touts itself as able to collect “statistically valid community input in 48 hours on any topic, so governments never have to be misled or bullied by the noisy few.”

At a special meeting on Nov. 20, Cassidy Svetek, a representative from FlashVote, told Ingersoll council members the electronic voting platform is being used in 30-plus U.S. states.

Saugeen Shores is the only other Ontario municipality known to be using the platform.

The town, 185 kilometres north of London, adopted the platform in November to hear from more voices in the community, specifically to rate performance on civic services, said Brent Lanthier, communications specialist for the town.

The town is not using the tool for policy issues.

“People who are very motivated by an issue tend to dominate a conversation online,” Lanthier said. “We’re trying to capture the opinions of more people, a wider range of people.”

But, who is most likely to be drawn to sign up to such a platform and respond to the surveys?

“It’s not going to be a representative sample of the population,” said Jacquetta Newman, a professor of politics and international relations at King’s University College.

Newman said, despite the anonymity of the tool, the respondents drawn to the platform likely would be the most passionate.

“There probably aren’t going to be a lot of people who are willing to expend the energy and the time to go on this platform, unless they have an axe to grind on either side of the issue, so I really doubt they’re going to get something that’s really statistically helpful,” Newman said.

FlashVote doesn’t offer randomized sample data used in traditional polling.

Lanthier said the system is a useful resource and easy to operate.

“It’s not a substitute for actual engagement, but it does help us,” he said.

Lanthier said the town of about 16,000 people has had more than 300 people sign up since the system was implemented in November.

Ingersoll hopes the platform will draw community engagement from varying age groups, citing the multiple ways – e-mail, text or phone calls – citizens can register and use the system when it’s up and running.

Local matters on which citizens can expect to be able to weigh in include “recreation, parks (and) trying to determine some of our programs that we run in our summer camps,” said Graves. “Council’s had some ambitious goals coming out of their strategic plan, and they’re starting to develop the policies to accomplish those goals,” he said.

FlashVote’s cost to Ingersoll is $12,000, which represents about $1 a resident, for the one-year trial.

A date hasn’t been set yet for when users can expect to use the platform.

bwilliams@postmedia.com

@BrianWatLFPress

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada

Editor’s note: This story has been updated from its original publication.