You can cast a ballot from your car as drive-through voting begins in Thunder Bay

With the 2022 municipal election less than a week away, the City of Thunder Bay is giving voters another way to cast their ballots.

Drive-through voting will be available in the city on Tuesday, City Clerk Krista Power said.

"What we've done is essentially borrowed a model from comparators in southern Ontario who actually ran drive-through polling locations during the high points of the pandemic, where they had byelections happening in their communities," Power said. "What we're doing is very similar to a drive-through at a local restaurant."

Power said voters will pull in to the drive-through voting location, verify their information and ID, fill out their ballot in their car, and watch as it's fed into a tabulator.

"We're really committed to accessibility for voters, we want to make it easy," Power said. "We want to give you options."

Drive-through voting will be available at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium, from noon to 8 p.m. on Oct. 18.

Overall, Power said advance voting — which opened on Oct. 5 — in Thunder Bay has been a success so far.

"Our voting numbers are great," she said. "We're on par with where we were in 2018."

"What we are seeing is a bit of an uptick in the Internet voting versus the in-person voting," Power said. "Just under 10 per cent of Thunder Bay has shown up to the ballot box and and registered their vote."