Vote.ca Launches – Find Your Polling Station
Tags: vote.ca
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Useful setup
I tried it out yesterday and noticed a couple of quirks however.
1) I live in Beckwith Township (part of Lanark Country, west of Ottawa). In order to get a response I needed to enter my 911 address, not my legal address (lot/concession). As well, specifying the community as “Beckwith Township” resulted in no hits, whereas simply “Beckwith” got a hit (although the reported postal code was incorrect; what was given was the general delivery one for the Rural Route).
2) Not all municipal elections are available. For instance, at my address there was no mention of the upcoming municipal election while at my mother’s place it was listed.
However, overall it seems to be a useful service… I plan to check back when the next next provincial or federal election comes along; the Government of Ontario polling station map sent me to the wrong place the last time.
And lastly, for all rural residents who sign for the permanent list of electors on your income tax form; a PO Box or RR# is quietly rejected by Elections Canada. And since they don’t send around enumerators any more…
vote.ca
Vote.ca now covers municipalities over ~7500 population; Beckwith’s a bit less than that:) Also the service runs on the Google engine, and rural addresses are difficult as often less precise, tough to map a point.
It works for all but the smallest municipalities right now, and provincial and federal elections should be even better as there’s nice clean data to begin with on these levels.