Regional chair results delayed to Wednesday, some councillors elected

The Region of Waterloo announced it will not declare officialresults in the race for regional chair until Wednesdaydue to "technical difficulties."

The delay is due tovoting problems in Cambridge, Woolwich and Wellesley, which prompted the city and townships to extend their poll deadlines.

The city and townships reported problems with the online voting system. Cambridge extended hours at its physical polling stations to 9 p.m.

In Waterloo region, Wellesley andWoolwichhave extended the voting period until 8 p.m. Tuesday night.

System 'time outs'

Across Ontario, the online voting network set up by Dominion Voting Systems suffered problems, ultimately affecting 51 communities.

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Ina statement Monday night, Dominion said the slowdowns were due to its network provider"placing anunauthorized limit on incoming voting traffic that was roughly 1/10th of the system's designatedbandwidth.

Unfortunately, the 90-minute slowdown and resulting bandwidth issue caused a varying number ofvoters to experience slow response times and system time-outs."

Dominion regrets the challenges that our system load issue posed for both election officials and votersalike in today's elections.- Dominion Voting Systems press release

The online voting provider says it resolved the issue by 7:30 p.m., but by then municipalities had decided to extend the voting hours.

Regional chair delay

Current Chair KenSeilingopted not to run again in this municipal election. He has been the chair since 1985.

Four people were seeking the regional chair spot: KarenRedman, JayAissa, Jand'Aillyand RobDeutschmann.

In communities where there was little or no delay, clerks have moved to keep secret the votes cast for regional chair andnot release them until Tuesday's votes from Woolwich and Wellesley are counted.

Publication of the results may be delayed until Wednesday.

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Votes for regionalcouncillorsfrom unaffected voting locales have been counted and announced.

Cambridge

There are two regional council seats in Cambridge plus the mayor.

Incumbents KarlKiefertook13,209 votes, and Helen Green Jowett, received 12,801 votes.

Kitchener

There are four regional council seats in Kitchener plus the mayor.

Incumbents Tom Galloway, Elizabeth Clarke and Geoff Lorentz won their seats. Former Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Michael Harris won the fourth seat.

KarenRedmandid not seek re-election as she ran for regional chair.

Waterloo

There are two regional council seats in Waterloo plus the mayor.

Jim Erbwon a seat with 13,089 votes while incumbent Sean Strickland won the second seat with 10,776 votes.

The other incumbent, Jane Mitchell came in third with 9,472.