A voter card for Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies showing incorrect polling station times. (Image Credit: Contributed)

By James Peters / Dylana Kneeshaw

CANADA VOTES 2025

Kamloops residents irate after voter card mixup prevents them from casting ballots

Apr 29, 2025 | 4:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — “It’s BS.”

Timothy Hook of Valleyview was one of several local residents who could not cast their ballots in Monday’s (April 28) federal election, thanks to what appears to be an error printed on Elections Canada voter cards.

Several registered voters in the Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies riding have shown CFJC Today voter cards that told them polling stations would be open on general voting day from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

In fact, all polling places in the Pacific time zone closed at 7:00 p.m. Monday.

Hook says he arrived at the polling station at Ralph Bell Elementary School at about 7:30 p.m., believing he still had plenty of time to vote. Instead, the station was closed.

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“I rush home to get cleaned up, out of my work clothes and get up there to vote when we’re told that we can and the guy won’t even open the door,” Hook told CFJC Today. “When he did finally, he was quite rude — and I was being a gentleman.”

Hook says there were about a half-dozen confused potential voters in the same situation outside Ralph Bell. One man even became physically confrontational with an unidentified Elections Canada worker. According to Hook, the worker told the members of the public they should have received new voter cards with corrected times in the mail. Hook says he did not receive a card.

Elsewhere in the Kamloops-Shuswap Central Rockies riding at the Marion Schilling Elementary School polling station, Alexis Jolie ran into the same situation. Jolie says her card stated general voting day hours as 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and she was surprised to see the closed doors after getting off work a bit later on Monday.

“I, along with a few other people in the parking lot, were unfortunately turned away to vote,” she says.

Jolie says she tried to vote during advance polls, but wasn’t able to stay for the 40-minute wait. She also says she had applied for a special ballot package, but it did not arrive until Monday.

“I did my due diligence to the best of my ability and I’ll take any responsibility where I can. I guess I should have followed up online to see the correct posted time but I’m just really disappointed about the lack of communication, in my opinion,” she notes.

“Since I turned legal voting age, I’ve never missed a provincial or a federal election. I vote municipally,” reiterates Jolie. “I’m a firm believer in making sure everyone uses our right to vote. I think it’s really important and that’s kind of why I’m so upset about this because I feel like that’s been taken away.”

Similarly, missing his opportunity to vote left Hook frustrated.

“For some reason, all the BS that’s happened in the U.S. and everything… it’s hard to trust anything anymore,” he said. “It seems like this was almost a setup.”

While the eastern portion of the Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies riding is in the Mountain time zone — where polling stations were open until 8:00 p.m. Monday — a much larger portion is in the Pacific time zone. No time zones are indicated next to polling station times on the voter cards shown to CFJC Today.

CFJC Today has reached out to Elections Canada for an explanation and will update this story if and when Elections Canada responds.

“I just thought I was going to do my duty and go put my ballot in,” said Hook. “I didn’t realize this was some kind of a complete catastrophe.”