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Long list, long lines

 

Voters in Vancouver are reporting long lines at polling stations.

The ballot there is almost 13 centimetres longer than usual because there are 158 candidates on the list, the city said in a tweet. That means it takes about 22 seconds to cast each ballot through an electronic reader and longer if the ballot is rejected.

"Seems like we're stuck in the 1990s for how slow it reads it," Paul Schellenberg said after voting at St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church in downtown Vancouver.

He said collecting and filling out the ballot was "very fast," but a long line formed as voters waited for their ballots to be electronically processed.

Brian Thorn said the randomized order of the candidates made it harder to find the ones he'd chosen to vote for, which also added to the delay.

The City of Burnaby added an extra voting tabulator to its Gilmore station Saturday afternoon to ease lines, while the City of Victoria thanked voters for their patience in a tweet.



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