Significant changes were made to proxy voting provisions in 1997 when the Elections Act was amended in an effort to prevent some of the problems that occurred during the 1995 territorial election in the electoral district of Thebacha and some of the other districts.
Unfortunately, even with the additional restrictions put on proxy voting, this method of voting remains open to abuse. The Chief Electoral Officer identified problems in filing applications and with the issue of the proxy certificates themselves. For the most part, proxy voting was hardly used in the majority of electoral districts. However, major irregularities and questionable practices occurred in the electoral district of Tu Nedhe, which were of particular concern to Elections NWT.
The Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures notes that with the addition of voting in the office of the returning officer, voting by special mail-in ballot and the recommendation to introduce special mobile voting stations, the need for proxy voting no longer exists and should be discontinued.