From 'cumbersome' to 'easy breezy': Advance voting on referendum nets mixed reactions

A line of at least 50 people stretched down 114 Street in front of Grace Lutheran Church on Tuesday morning, as would-be voters arrived to have their say in the advance polls for the Alberta referendum.

Leaves crumpled under shifting feet, while the mercury hovered around 7 C. One would-be voter brought a bright pink yo-yo to swing around while he waited for his chance at the 10 questions.

Every few minutes, someone exiting the building told the crowd what they were in for.

“An hour and a half!” a man wearing a leather jacket said as he made his exit. The same man told Postmedia he thought the process was “long” and “cumbersome.”

The man with the yo-yo, Michael Evans, said he had no worries about the wait.

“Glad that there’s long lineups,” he said. “I’d be more concerned if there was no lineup.”

Tuesday marks the first day people can vote in person for the Alberta referendum. Polling stations are already seeing crowds as Elections Alberta predicts turnout to hit between 80 per cent and 85 per cent.

The agency had received more than 650,000 requests for mail-in ballots, accounting for 20 per cent of the province’s registered voters. Mail-ins are now closed, and the remaining voters will have until Saturday to place an advance ballot and get ahead of what are expected to be big crowds on referendum day next Monday.

Most spots are open from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. However, Elections Alberta said 17 voting locations, including two in Edmonton, that opened late on Tuesday would stay open longer to accommodate lost time.

Wait times also varied by location and time of day. While Grace Lutheran was busy in the morning, by 3 p.m., things had cooled down.

The Holiday Inn Express in St. Albert, at one point, swelled to a line of 100 people. Some seniors had to grab seats in the lobby when wait times approached the second hour.

Lineups were also long just after 10 a.m. at the Riverbend United Church, stretching outside the door. Many would-be voters bundled up in winter attire to stave off the fall chill. That picture was almost mirrored at the Terwillegar Community Church, except there the line snaked inside the building doors.

While busy, not everything was slow-moving. The polls at the Ridgewood Community League in southeast Edmonton spilled out into the streets, but inside the scene was bustling with volunteers and voters. Some were in and out in less than 10 minutes.

Over at the Beaufort Building in central Edmonton, the process was, as one successful voter said, “easy breezy.”

There, it took people around 10-20 minutes to get everything over and done with. At around 11 a.m., things were slow enough that poll-workers at Grace Lutheran began telling people about the shorter wait just a quick drive away.

Neighbours Doris Tollifson and Yolanda Crooy of Queen Mary Park said while things went quickly at Beaufort, they could see why lines might get long.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that there are 10 pieces of paper,” said Tollifson. “Put all the questions in simple English on one form, as they do for your average election.”

Tollifson said the election workers had to individually fold each of the 10 ballots, which ended up being a lengthy process.

She and Crooy agreed that the questions were quite wordy and difficult to understand. Both worried that new Canadians might have a difficult time with them and the process.

Also at Beaufort, Mladen Dundur, who finished in around five minutes, said it was easy. He also didn’t shy away from what he thought of the Alberta referendum as a whole.

“Stupid,” he said. “Wasting money, tax money.”

Dundur, who is originally from Croatia, recalled when the country split apart from Yugoslavia. He said it caused massive problems, and the subsequent conflict and fallout from the split are what ended up pushing him to move to Canada.

“You are persona non grata just because you are a different nationality. Nothing else,” he said.

While he’s now a Canadian citizen, he said he’s dealt with enough separatism for one lifetime.

— With files from Jackie Carmichael, Trevor Robb, and Nicole Bergot

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