Post-secondary students call for return of 'vote anywhere' advance voting to Calgary

Marley Gillies, Calgary Student Alliance chair, says student associations are willing to work with Elections Calgary to bring advance voting stations back to post-secondary institutions.

CALGARY — Student leaders from Calgary's major post-secondary institutions are calling on Elections Calgary to reverse its decision to cancel 'vote anywhere' advanced polling stations.

"We are more than ready as student associations to work with Elections Calgary and with our institutions to make sure that this happens," said Marley Gillies, Calgary Student Alliance chair. "Our campuses are huge places, they are meant to host a lot of people. If it's safe for students to return to campus then it should be safe to return to the advance voting 'vote anywhere' polls."

In the 2017 municipal election, Calgarians had the opportunity to vote at any advance poll location across Calgary. Nearly 75,000 voters cast their ballots at advanced polls and nearly 5,000 of those votes were cast at post-secondary institutions.

"For students who are studying on campus, who have part time and maybe full time jobs and have people to care for, (they) need the convenience and accessibility of that on-campus voting."

The students have the backing of Ward 8 Coun. Evan Woolley.

"This is not rocket science," said Woolley. "This is something that we have done before, this is printing costs.

"These are some pretty simple requests, right? We have the maps of where we put the stations last time. We need to hire some people. We need to print some more ballots. This isn’t turning around a ship this is making some additional steps so that a demographic of people. who we underserve and we provide really poor access to our democratic process. It’s delivering what they are asking for.”

The student association leaders from Calgary's largest institutions say they will continue to fight for the advanced polls in the lead up to the October municipal election and hope Elections Calgary will revisit its decision.