ADVANCED VOTING KICKS OFF TODAY
Advanced polling for the federal election is open today from 9am to 9pm at the Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre, and will continue through to Monday September 13. After that, the next chance to vote in person will be election day, Monday September 20.
There’s also still time to register to vote by mail. To do so, electors need to fill out a form online at the Elections Canada website, before 6pm on Tuesday September 14.
To vote in person, you’ll need a piece of government-issued ID, or else two other documents identifying you and your address.
Mount Allison students can either vote in the Beauséjour riding, or cast a ballot for another riding that they consider their home riding. To vote in a riding other than Beauséjour, students need to take action before 6pm on September 14. They can either request a mail-in kit by that time, or they can go vote in person with a special ballot at the Elections Canada office.
In Sackville, Elections Canada is located at the Sackville Curling Club, on 22 Landsdowne.
Students voting in Sackville will need to show their current address along with other voters. Students who have just moved to residence from outside of the riding can get a letter from the university confirming their current address.
MASU TRIES TO GET OUT THE VOTE, DESPITE PROVINCIAL ELECTION FIASCO
Mount Allison Students’ Union (MASU) VP External Hannah Ehler says though she feels the rules around student voting in the federal election are very clear coming from Elections Canada and student organizations, she is still worried that events in the provincial election last September may have left some students discouraged.
New Brunswick provincial elections require that voters are “ordinarily resident” in their riding for the previous 40 days. Some polling workers in Sackville interpreted that to mean that students who spent summers outside of Sackville were not eligible in the riding, despite repeated instructions from Elections New Brunswick supervisors to the contrary. Throughout provincial election day in September, many Mount Allison students were turned away, or told they could be committing fraud if they proceeded to vote.
“I am concerned that the incidents that took place last year would affect how students feel about voting,” says Ehler. “If young voters have people surrounding them that haven’t had great experiences voting, or really don’t necessarily care about the voting process, they might not be as inclined to vote. And so it’s really important to have that first experience be a really good one.”
Ehler and MASU have started get out the vote initiatives to encourage Mount Allison students to participate in the federal election. They’ve hosted sessions in residences walking students through the process of voting by mail or registering to vote, and will be hosting group walks to the polls on election day. And MASU is joining other New Brunswick universities in a campaign to get student issues front and centre.
“We’re all working on developing a massive government to do list campaign,” says Ehler, “to engage students in the election and write down some government action items, to see what they would come up with if they could have a chat with government, and push for something on behalf of students.”
Ehler is hoping the unpleasantness of last fall’s provincial election won’t get in the way. “What happened last year was a unique situation,” says Ehler, “and I would hate for that to put a sour taste in folks’ mouths when we really just want to make our democracy as strong as we can.”