Whitefish Lake First Nation #459 hired the OneFeather company to conduct their Election on April 12, 2022. The company sent Electoral Officer Erik English by himself to handle 1927 potential Electors (voters). Erik English used a program on his computer to look up and mark off voters on the list. This program needed Wi-Fi to operate. His program in turn had technical difficulties throughout the voting process due to the slow Wi-Fi. Voters were told multiple times to get off the Wi-Fi because the Electoral Officer needed it.

I believe because Erik was sent by himself and because his computer program kept having problems it caused the long line up of voters to grow and grow. Many Voters could not stay and wait that long, as some of them lived hours away, some of them had their children with them, some of them had children they had to get back home to. Elders and those with disabilities could skip the line, however some of them caught a ride with another voter. And those voters would then have to leave and take them home since they couldn’t sit in the vehicle for hours; most not returning to cast their own vote. The list of reasons of why people couldn’t stay in line for 4-5 hours goes on.

Never in our Nation’s history have we had to wait for 4-5 hours to vote. In the past a computer program was never used, only the Electors List was used to look up and mark people off.

I believe the outcome of the Election on April 12, 2022 was greatly affected by voters who could not stay to vote. And it is not their fault, it is cruel to ask people to stay in line for that long. When there was no reason for it to take that long to process each Elector/Voter. Who is at blame is the company OneFeather for only sending 1 person to do a whole election. 792 people voted but how many more left who didn’t vote due to the ridiculous long line up. I know many personally who left that just couldn’t stay, and I also watched people leave the Hall in frustration. At one point the Electoral Officer’s program said someone had voted and they didn’t vote yet. This complication held the line up for over 30 minutes. Another incident, at 11:00pm the Electoral Officer’s computer program wouldn’t let any more people vote. We waited at a standstill in line once again so he could figure out the problems his laptop program kept giving him. 

And so, I think the members of Whitefish Lake First Nation #459 deserve a re-election. We deserve a re-election that is properly conducted and follows our code, that has more than one person handling and helping voters, and does not use a slow computer program to look up and mark off voters. We need to go back to just using the physical Electors list and marking names off from there. 

Lastly, we need a re-election that does not involve the OneFeather company. They have proven that they cannot handle our Election process. I have named this petition in my appeal as one of the materials I will be using as evidence that people want a fair chance to vote, that we want a fair election done right. This is our right as Band Members. 

Please sign the petition if you agree, and share with other members of Whitefish Lake First Nation #459. Thank you