Noah Papatsie, who is blind and has worked for years as an advocate for people with disabilities, hopes changes can be made in the elections process to make it easier for people like him to run for public office. (File photo)
Iqaluit man says faulty system prevented his council bid
Noah Papatsie calls for changes to help people with disabilities register as candidates
Update: This article was updated on Thursday, Nov. 2 at 3:20 p.m.
A former Iqaluit councillor who claims he was prevented from running in the Oct. 23 municipal election says more should be done to make elections more accessible for people with disabilities.
Noah Papatsie, who is blind, said an error by Iqaluit’s returning officer and the inaccessibility of the Elections Nunavut website prevented him from declaring his candidacy to run for council again.
A councillor from 2013 to 2015 and again from 2017 to 2019, Papatsie also ran for mayor in 2019 but lost to Kenny Bell.
Papatsie said he asked Iqaluit’s returning officer on Sept. 12 for deadlines so he could run for council in October’s election.
He said that two days later, on Sept. 14, he was erroneously told by returning officer Jason Roberts the period for declaring a candidacy was Sept. 18 to Nov. 22.
The actual declaration period dates were Sept. 18 to 22.
In an Oct. 3 email, Roberts apologized to Papatsie for the error and the lateness of his reply, saying he had been ill.
In an Oct. 30 email to Nunatsiaq News, Roberts explained: “As Elections Nunavut is the governing authority, they will address any complaints and issues that arose during the election in the upcoming election report.”
Roberts shared the same information when Nunatsiaq News when asked about Papatsie’s complaint.
Papatsie said the officials he did manage to contact told him to check the Elections Nunavut website, but that only compounded problems.
Documents on the website were inaccessible to his Job Access with Speech, or JAWS, screen reader that translates information from documents and websites so that he can hear their texts.
After the election, he was able to download and open the documents, he said.
He said he tried to contact Elections Nunavut chief electoral officer Dustin Fredlund and other officials. When he was able to speak to someone, Papatsie said he was told repeatedly that “everyone was in training.”
“Nobody was around,” he said.
Papatsie said in previous campaigns, he had no difficulty getting information from Elections Nunavut. He wondered if current problems might involve proper training on accessibility for new hires at Elections Nunavut.
Papatsie, a longtime accessibility advocate who has also worked with Elections Canada’s advisory group for disability issues, said “there’s also an opportunity to learn” about accessibility and inclusion.
What happened to him, he said, could be a chance to educate the public on creating information and documentation that is accessible for everyone.
Fredlund said in an email he couldn’t comment on specific complaints while an investigation is ongoing.
Any results or recommendations will be included in a report on the recent elections to Nunavut’s legislative assembly in the new year, Fredlund said.
Correction: This article has been updated from an earlier version to accurately reflect the information Noah Paptsie requested from Iqaluit’s local returning officer and to properly attribute a quote to an email the returning officer sent to Nunatsiaq News.
Candidates are usually aware of the date of the election, in this case October 23, 2023.
If someone was to tell me that the nomination period was from September 18, 2023 until November 22, 2023, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to question that information. In fact if I’m told that nominations closed on October 22, 2023, I would be questioning that as well.
It’s not like Noah is a novice at running for council or mayor, maybe accept a little more personal responsibility for not being able to figure out that you can’t file your nomination papers after the election has been held.
Noah has also ran in the last at least 8 elections, none of which had 2.5 month candidacy periods. He likely understands how to file better than almost anyone.
Unsuccessfully for mayor in the last three general city elections 2012, 2015, 2019.
For council in two city byelections. 2015 and 2017 (winning a seat with less then 400 votes, then less than 200)
Unsuccessfully for QIA in 2018.
Unsuccessfully for MLA in the last territorial election.
Come on…all forms of elections are usually in all forms of media, non-stop until you get tired of hearing it…come on…please sir; quit whining, its done, gone as history. Just like I have heard, seen you in all forms of media in the past week.
Those damn corrupt Democrats under sleepy Joe Biden are at it again! Rigging the election.
Mr Papatsie, maybe it has something to do with your horrible attendance record from your previous stints on council and the people also spoke very loudly when you ran for Mayor. Not in your favour.
The Nunavut School System has the “Social Promotion” of students so they do not get left behind (which I do not agree with).
The Council does not.