A polling station too far

Voter information cards indicate long distances must be travelled to vote

The right to vote allows Canadians an important say how the country is governed, but some local residents are finding themselves hindered by geography.

Ed Vincent from Harcourt received his and his wife’s registration cards for the federal election and put them on their fridge as a reminder.

Days later, the 74-year-old Vincent was listening to the radio and heard someone discussing how they had to travel an unreasonably long distance to vote.

This prompted Vincent’s wife to look at their cards, which showed they would have to make a 60-km commute to the polling station. The drive is a near 70-minute round trip from their home.

“My wife said, ‘ Do you know where we’ve got to vote?’ We’ve got to vote in Deep Bight.’ I said ‘Oh, you’re nuts.’ But that’s where we’ve got to vote,” Vincent told The Packet.

Vincent contacted Random-Burin-St. George’s MP Judy Foote, who contacted a representative from Elections Canada.

“I’m hoping that lady (Elections Canada representative) is going to go and contact me and say we got that all wrong. I used to have go three minutes and I was at the voting station,” Vincent said.

He also received a card by accident addressed to someone in George’s Brook that showed they had to vote in Milton. She lives only eight kilometres from Vincent.

Vincent’s advance polling station showed he would have to go to Northwest Brook, which is another 80-km round trip. He said he shouldn’t have to travel this far, considering there is an advanced polling station in Shoal Harbour, considerably closer to his home.

Vincent said if there are others with a similar problem to his, there might be an uproar.

“It’s an uproar for me because I’m not travelling 70 kilometres to vote for Judy Foote, or Mr. Jones, or whoever it is,” Vincent said.

Foote told the Packet there are, indeed, others facing a similar problem and voter-information cards are a mess throughout the country.

“We have had representation to my campaign office from people throughout the riding of Bonavista-Burin-Trinity. People have to travel long distances and we’ve checked with our returning officer, Irene Hodder, who happens to be in Marystown. We’ve been told that when the boundaries were changed, apparently the polling areas were changed as well,” Foote said.

Foote said the change in polling areas was made in Ottawa without consultation and she is being told the decisions will stand unless they were a mistake.

“We had people in Lamaline who were told they had to vote in Port De Gaulle. That was a mistake and that was changed and they will get to vote in Lamaline. When we questioned about others who had to travel a lengthy distance, we’ve been told that can’t be changed because it was a decision made (out) of Ottawa when the boundaries were changed,” Foote said.

Foote is not happy with the changes and while she’s on the road campaigning, she intends to have a representative from her camp meet with the returning officer for the riding and plans to raise the issue to the national Liberal Party.

“This is ridiculous. Some people will be disenfranchised and they will not be able to vote because some people just can’t travel that length if you are talking about an hour. When you are talking about senior citizens, it’s just not fair,” Foote said.

“We’ve made a representation. We are filing complaints over this. This is not right; it is everyone’s right to vote. But by doing this out of Ottawa, there are people who won’t vote and won’t travel that distance.”

Irene Hodder, returning officer for the Bonavista-Burin-Trinity district, told The Packet that she is not able to comment on the boundaries, but if someone thinks their card contains an error, they can contact Elections Canada at 1866-201-2837.

Maxwell Harvey, field liaisons officer for Elections Canada in Newfoundland, said he has been advised of some errors in the cards. He works with the electoral districts in all of Newfoundland and isn’t specific to the Bonavista-Burin-Trinity riding.

“We don’t like errors, but they do happen. We have about in that riding about 60,000 electors and we have approximately 225 polling divisions and about 145 actual sites. So it’s quite a large polling division,” Harvey said.