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Rural voters face long drive Stave Falls residents receive voter cards directing them to cast ballots in Hatzic Tyler OLSEN Abbotsford News
Voters in the Stave Falls area are upset about being instructed to vote on the opposite end of the district – a trip they say will take more than half an hour and see them pass several other polling stations along the way. When she received her voting card in the mail, Powell Street resident Darlene Schopman said she was surprised to see
her poll location listed at Hatzic Prairie Hall, on the very opposite end of the District of Mission. Schopman’s rural neighbourhood sits just east of the boundary between the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge electoral district and the newly created Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon riding. Last year, Schopman voted just down Dewdney Trunk Road at the Whonnock Scouts Hall, but with the creation of the new riding, poll locations left Stave Falls residents without a convenient place to
cast their ballots. “There are a lot of people fuming about it,” she said. Schopman called Elections Canada and, because she has a son with a disability, was able to get transferred to a polling station at the much-closer Silverdale elementary. But she worries the distant polling station will stop others from voting. “It’s making it more difficult for some people, who are borderline voters.” Adding to the aggravation is that en route
to their mandated voting location, residents could pass several other polling stations, many within a 20-minute drive. Schopman said she’s learned that residents on nearby Carr Street can vote at Silverdale. Elektra Jordan, Schopman’s neighbour, also received a voter card sending her to Hatzic Prairie Hall. Upon receiving her card, she called Elections Canada to inquire about the decision-making Continued on A3
Darlene Schopman holds her voter card, which instructed her to vote at a polling station at the Hatzic Prairie Hall, on the other side of the district. TYLER OLSEN PHOTO
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