A judge has overturned the Northern Village of Buffalo Narrows' most recent election.
Justice Gary Meschishnick declared the election invalid in Battleford Court of Queen's Bench on Thursday, sending voters back to elect a new council months after they cast their first ballots in the fall.
The decision quashes a bylaw that kept residents from campaigning if they had criminal records, were in tax arrears with the village, or had overdue utility bills.
It also awarded the applicants $7,500 in costs.
Buffalo Narrows Mayor Robert Woods supported the decision, saying a new election will likely be held in March. Woods, who wasn't mayor when the bylaw passed, said the rules may have kept potential candidates from running.
He said the village received legal advice last year informing it that the bylaw "wasn't right," and he didn't think it was worthy of his support.
"How council decided to do that is beyond me."
The current council will serve until voters choose a new one. Woods, who has previously served as mayor, said he plans to run again and the circumstances demonstrate the importance of the roles of council members.
"I'm glad to see that justice is being served," he said. "Without the knowledge of that, I would have said, 'This is not right.' "
Sandra Ericson, who helped launch the legal action, shares those concerns. She said a significant number of other residents interested in serving on council faced similar difficulties to her, or didn't attempt running after seeing that the bylaw would have stopped them from campaigning.
"We (couldn't) get people elected in our community who have a 40-year-old impaired driving record," Ericson said.
A former mayoral hopeful, she couldn't fully participate in the election because she owed land taxes. Because her property isn't in her name and she is unable to transfer it to her name, attempts to pay the village failed and prevented her from running, she said.
Darlene Petit, the case's other applicant who hoped to run for councillor, said in an affidavit that the rules also reduced voter turnout, as many residents were "protesting, by not voting, the refusal to allow properly nominated candidates to run."
Ericson added that the bylaw ran counter to provincial election rules, making it a wider concern. Without the court challenge, she worried that the bylaw would set a poor example for other small governments managing their local elections.
"If the municipalities start making their own little bylaws on the election, how does that affect the province as a whole?"
