A busy first day of advance voting in Alberta’s referendum saw 174,532 people cast ballots, and some locations had to stay open hours after they were supposed to close. Long lineups and wait times plagued some voting locations across the province as Albertans have their say on the 10 questions about separation, immigration and constitutional proposals. Elections Alberta says the average advance voting day total in previous provincial elections is around 151,000. “We did have some voting locations—17 voting locations—that stayed open later, from just a few minutes to 43 minutes, to accommodate some technical challenges they had with the opening,” said Michelle Gurney with Elections Alberta. “But then we did have an additional 20 vote locations that did stay open longer due to the lines.” The long lines at the scheduled closing pushed some voting locations to stay open until as late as 11 p.m. Though advanced voting locations are supposed to close at 8 p.m., people who are in line to vote at the end of each day are still able to vote, as will be the case on Oct. 19. Gurney also says 418,000 of the 658,000 requested special ballots have been mailed in so far. Voters with those ballots are still able to return theirs by 5 p.m. on Friday. Acceptable wear for voters Elections Alberta sent out messages to voting locations to clarify rules around acceptable clothing and accessories people who are voting are allowed to wear. It comes after several voters reported to the agency and to CTV News that they had been ordered to remove their Canadian flag pins and hat in order to continue to cast their ballots. “For people who were coming into voting locations, the only thing that we’re mindful of is you cannot have clothing that would be considered referendum advertising, so you can’t have clothing, in the simplest terms, that tells people how to vote,” Gurney clarified. “A Canada pin or something like that. That’s perfectly acceptable. Or an Alberta pin. All of those things are acceptable in the polling location.” Advance voting continues each day until Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Referendum day is Oct. 19.
