Advance polls kept busy over holiday weekend
Montrealers continued to take advantage of advance polls on holiday Monday, a week ahead of the general federal election set for Oct. 19.
It took Sylvie Vézina less than two minutes to vote at a polling station in the Library Building at Concordia University.
“This is the first time I’ve voted at an advance poll,” said Vezina, who will be busy at work on the main election day of Oct. 19.
Concordia student Miles Nadler was voting for the first time and took advantage of the advance poll.
“It’s pretty efficient here,” Nadler said. “It took less than 20 minutes. ”
Elections Canada voting supervisor Elamine Ketari said between 600 to 800 people had voted in the previous few days at the Concordia voting station.
As of Monday afternoon, Ketari said a steady flow of several hundred voters had voted, without undo delays. He said it is a “good sign for democracy” to see people exercising their right to vote.
The lines were a bit longer at the polling station on Alexandre DeSève St., in eastern downtown.
An Elections Canada official said hundreds of people had already voted by Monday afternoon and voting times were averaging about 30 minutes.
It took Merci Danyod around 35 minutes to vote, but he was pleasantly surprised the lines were not even longer. “It wasn’t too bad,” he said.
Roger Thibeault also took advantage of the nice weather to vote at an advance poll. He had heard on the news that it had taken people 90 minutes to vote elsewhere in some cases, so he was happy to pass through in 20 minutes.
“You never know what the weather will be like on the 19th of October,” he added.
Frederic Marcil was another first-time advanced poll voter. “Maybe now the election on Oct. 19 will be quieter,” he said.
Roughly 1.6 million Canadians voted during the first two days of advance polls.
“There was some strategic voting done here,” Sylvia Heuckendorff said with a laugh as she walked out of an advance voting station on René-Lévesque Blvd. W. around 6 p.m. on Sunday. “I decided that I would come vote now when everybody’s at Thanksgiving dinner.”
Needing a walker to get around, she wanted to vote early because she wouldn’t have been able to wait in line for two hours on election day.
“It took me two seconds,” she said with a smile. “I went straight through.”
The hardest part was deciding who to vote for, not actually voting, she added.
“I had issues with each one, but I chose the one that hopefully will be the better option,” she said. “I think they’re all very good men. Any one of them would be a good prime minister, but they each have some issues.”
Nazmus Syed said he voted early because he figured the wait would be less long than on election day.
“It’s a Sunday afternoon on a holiday weekend, so it’s a lot quieter,” he said. “I walked in and walked right out. I didn’t even stop.”
As a 23-year-old, he wants a government that will prioritize job creation for young Canadians.
“It’s not the best economy for jobs right now, so I’m just hoping that whoever gets in gets to work on that right away, whether it’s a majority or a minority government.”
Toby Caulfield, 66, said he voted early because he plans on working for Elections Canada on election day.
He’s voted in every election he can remember, and based this year’s vote on who he feels has shown the best leadership so far.
He went around dinner time on Sunday night because he also figured there would be less people.
“There were all these horrendous reports on the news about lineups,” he said, before proudly adding his plan worked out.
“It took me one second, it was great,” he laughed. “It was more difficult to find the place than it was to vote.”
According to David Rutherford, a media relations officer with Elections Canada, 850,000 Canadians voted on Friday, the first day of advance polls.
Combined with another 780,000 on Saturday, it represented a 34 per cent increase from the first two days of advance polls in 2011.