Voting day | Failures in the changes of address denounced

” You can not vote. At the end of the line, Joëlle Dupuis and Jesse Courchesne could not believe it. An employee of the Director General of Elections of Quebec (DGEQ) had just told them that they could not exercise their right to vote because of delays related to their change of address, which had nevertheless been done in time.

Henri Ouellette-Vezina
The Press

The couple, who moved to Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in early September, said they quickly notified their change of address to be able to vote in their new riding. “We went through the Quebec Service for Change of Address (SQCA), instead of Elections Quebec, thinking it was going to be faster. That was the goal,” explains Joëlle Dupuis.

In principle, Elections Quebec gives until September 29 to change its address. “It was done long before. Everything was in order, ”says Jesse Courchesne.

But last Monday, the day of the vote, everything does not work as planned. On their way to what they think is their new polling station, Joëlle and Jesse come up against a first obstacle: they are not registered on the electoral list. An employee then tells them to go and vote at their respective old address.

The couple then telephoned the Chief Electoral Officer (DGEQ). It is then almost 7:00 p.m., and the voting will end soon. “The employee told us that he didn’t see us anywhere, on any list. And then we were bluntly told, “You can’t vote. The employee even told me that if I voted, it would be fraud, and that there would be fines. I couldn’t believe it,” says Joëlle.

A party employee to the rescue

A few minutes later, luck smiled on the two young voters: the volunteer of a political party, who made “out the vote”, called Jesse. “This volunteer just checked my information on the Elections Quebec platform, and there he found that I was still associated with my old address. I was able to vote without any problem,” he says, lamenting having been “so badly informed by Elections Quebec.”

The latter has also published his story on social networks. Under a post on Instagram, several other Internet users say they have experienced the same kind of situation.

“My mother had called a few weeks ago to confirm that she was on the list to vote. They told her that everything was fine, but when she arrived to vote, she was told that she was not on the list, and that she was only going to be able to vote the next time,” lamented one of them.

Joined by The Pressthe spokeswoman for Élections Québec, Julie St-Arnaud, explains that it is up to everyone to “check their place of registration, on the notice sent to all households in Quebec”.

“In general, the electoral list is well registered, but cases like that, we see them at each election,” she confides.

Elections Quebec “has not encountered any specific problem with regard to the extraction or revision of the electoral list”, she assures. “Cases like this are no more numerous than in the previous election. There is nothing to indicate to us that there is a problematic situation that would have resulted in electors mysteriously disappearing or not being able to vote. »

As every year, “post-mortem” evaluations will be carried out. “If we detect something, it is certain that we will inform the population”, concludes M^me St-Arnaud.