B.C. Election Day Live: Confusion over voting station registration adds to frustration

It’s election day across B.C.

Voters head to the polls today beginning at 8 a.m. to vote on whether the B.C. NDP keeps its majority hold on the province or if a new party will steer for the next four years.

Once polls close at 8 p.m., results will start to trickle in about who’s in and who’s out across B.C.’s 93 electoral districts.

Bookmark this live-blog and check back throughout the day for coverage of the day’s events, results as they come in, and dispatches from reporters covering ridings across Metro Vancouver.

At least one voting station in Vancouver saw voters becoming frustrated after learning they’d have to wait longer to verify their eligibility to vote.

Reporter Susan Lazaruk visited a voting station at Holy Trinity Anglican Church (1440 West 12th) in the riding of Vancouver-South Granville where voters had been waiting an hour to vote.

Voters were sorted into two lines: a shorter one for voters who were registered to vote at that station, and a longer one for those registered to vote elsewhere.

Two women at the front of the longer line, who declined to give their names, told Lazaruk they had been waiting an hour. One woman lived across the street and the other lived a block away. However, both were told they were supposed to have voted at another station elsewhere in the city.

Four other voters at the end of the longer line did not know they were permitted to use the shorter line as registered voters for that station, with confusion seemingly a result of poor marshalling on the part of the election workers.