Image Credit: Contributed

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: Elections Canada did not do enough to fix its voter card mistake

May 3, 2025 | 11:18 AM

ANYONE WHO WAS PREVENTED FROM VOTING on Monday because of a screwup at Elections Canada has a right to be more than a little perturbed.

Many residents of the Kamloops-Shuswap-Central Rockies riding received voter cards that told them polls would be open Monday between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.

That was actually only true in the portion of the riding on Mountain time, which is a pretty small segment. The rest of the riding, which is in Pacific time, had polling stations open between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

No time zone was specified on the voter cards.

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Who could blame folks for planning their days around voting between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on election day? As far as they knew from the voter cards sent to them by Elections Canada, that timing was just fine.

Instead, they encountered closed polling stations and no recourse.

It’s not about the actual impact this could have had on the final results. It doesn’t appear there would have been nearly enough voters affected to sway the results away from Conservative Mel Arnold being elected.

It’s about the principle.

If you’re an adult Canadian citizen, with few exceptions, you get to vote. It’s that simple.

Elections Canada clearly made a mistake on its voter cards. It took some steps to correct it, including mailing out a second set of voter cards and doing extra advertising with the correct times.

The organization could have taken one more step, though.

Knowing the extra advertising would not reach absolutely everyone and there would still be some folks trying to vote after 7:00 p.m., it could have kept a few polling stations in the riding open to accept voters until 8:00 p.m.

Then, anyone who came to a polling station after 7:00 p.m. could be directed to the one that was still open until 8:00 p.m.

Is it a perfect plan? Certainly not.

But at least the few people this problem affected would still have a chance to participate in democracy, rather than being left high and dry by an error that was not of their making.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.