Motorhome resident with P.O. box address denied ability to vote at poll station

By 660 NEWS Staff

ALBERTA (660 NEWS) — A 60-year-old man looking to cast a ballot in the provincial election has been told he can’t because he doesn’t have a physical address.

Larry Sawchuk lives in a mobile RV trailer and is on the move quite a bit, but has a P.O. box here in Calgary.

Normally he receives a voter card in the mail but he didn’t this year. He headed down to an advanced voting station with his ID prepared to cast his ballot.

“They [election officer] said they had to speak with the returning officer to see if this was allowed.

They came back and said: ‘unless you have some form of ID, a piece of mail that relates to a physical address, and an actual street location then we can’t let you vote’.

I said well ‘this is totally silly, how do you get a piece of mail to a street address when you are moving all the time?’

They said ‘well you can’t’.”

Sawchuk says he has been able to vote in previous years and has always received a voting card in the mail up until this year.

“I am a Canadian citizen. I have lived in Canada all my life — I was born here,” he said. “I am an Alberta resident as well, and I’ve lived in the province since 1990. It is a provincial election, I am entitled to vote and for some reason, I cannot vote.”

READ MORE: Alberta voters break advance poll record after just two days

When he followed up with Elections Alberta they informed him that the rules have changed since the last provincial election. In order to be eligible to vote a person must be an “ordinary resident of Alberta“, according to information posted on Elections Alberta’s website.

It vaguely defines what an ordinary resident is.

  • A person can have only one place of ordinary residence;
  • A person’s ordinary residence is the place where the person lives and sleeps and to which, when the person is absent from it, the person intends to return;
  • and when a person leaves Alberta with the intention of becoming ordinarily resident outside Alberta, the person’s ordinary residence in Alberta ceases.

Sawchuk figures there are other people in this situation. 660 NEWS has reached out to Elections Alberta but has yet to receive a response.

With files from Craig Lester.

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today