“We have more ways to vote than any place you can think of.”

Nunavut's third territorial election may be a long way off in the minds of most voters, but it's at the top of Sandy Kusugak's to-do list.

Nunavut's chief electoral officer, recently appointed to a second seven-year term by the Legislative Assembly, is already hard at work getting ready for the Oct. 27 vote.

She's in charge of readying offices in each of Nunavut's 19 ridings and 69 polling stations, as well as arrangements for mobile polling stations that will allow elders to vote from their homes and people living in outpost and mining camps to vote by radio and satellite phone.

"We have more ways to vote than any place you can think of," Kusugak said during a briefing for reporters held at the Legislature June 4.

Voters living in Nunavut may cast ballots at their local returning offices any day between Oct. 13 and Oct. 23, and advance polling stations will be open on Oct. 20.

Homebound voters who register ahead of time will also be visited by a mobile poll on Oct. 20.

Students and inmates in custody outside of Nunavut may register for a special ballot anytime after Sept. 22.

On election day, Oct. 27, polls will open and close simultaneously. That means polling stations are open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Mountain time zone, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern.

Once the polls close, Kusugak hopes results will come quickly.

"In theory, it will compress the time for returns," she said.

There are about 14,000 registered voters in Nunavut, and workers are already canvassing the territory to update the voters list.

People have until Sept. 26 at 2:00 p.m. local time to file their declarations of candidacy. The filing period for those declarations starts the week of Sept. 22.
Candidates must make a $200 deposit and supply information about their official agent and campaign manager.

Any eligible voter may run for office, except for candidates and agents who didn't file financial reports from the last territorial election on time.
Kusugak has a list of who's ineligible to run this time around, but she won't release it until those on the list are notified.

Nunavut's last territorial, held Feb. 16, 2004, was the first legislative assembly election to be managed by Elections Nunavut. In that vote, 82 people contested Nunavut's 19 seats.

Turnout was high in 2004 – elections officials reported a turnout of 98.1 per cent. But that figure may be inaccurate because the number of eligible voters, 10,316, was likely undercounted in the new voters' registry used that year.

This October, candidates will stand for election in the same electoral districts used in the last election.

That's because in 2007, a majority of MLAs rejected a report issued by the Nunavut Electoral Boundaries Commission in November of 2006.

The commission recommended re-drawing Nunavut's constituencies to create a 23-member assembly, but MLAs didn't want to choose from options laid out by the commission. The only MLAs to support the report were from the Kitikmeot region.

For information or to register for special ways to vote this fall, call Elections Nunavut at 1-800-267-4394 or visit www.elections.nu.ca.