Some students in Quebec say they have been unable to register to vote in the upcoming provincial election April 7.
Matthew Satterthwaite, a McGill University student, said he tried to register to vote in Quebec on March 25.
Satterthwaite said he presented himself as a francophone in a phone call to the office of Quebec’s chief electoral officer, and was told the documentation he had was sufficient to register to vote. Upon arriving at the registration office and speaking in English, Satterthwaite said he was denied.
“I think I was denied because I presented myself as an Anglophone when I went to register,” Satterthwaite said via email. “I don’t find this acceptable at all because I am Quebecois and to be told that I can’t even vote in my own province is both hurtful and ridiculous.”
Satterthwaite said he was born in Quebec, but lived most of his life in Ontario until moving back to study at McGill. He said he is bilingual and has full intentions of staying in Quebec upon finishing his degree.
Other students in Quebec claim to have faced similar problems when trying to register for the upcoming election April 7, according to Janice Johnson, managing director of McGill residence life. She said she has received many emails from students who claimed they had tried to register, but were denied at the registration office.
Johnson said she has responded by asking students whether they took the right documents to register.
“If you really want to vote, go back and try again,” she said. “You have to fight for your right.”
Rand Dyck, a Carleton University political science professor who teaches provincial politics, said students have to arrive with as much identification and Quebec documentation as they possibly can when trying to register.
He said student voting is often a problem in Quebec, even when students have lived in the province their whole life, because there is always debate over which constituency they should vote in.
According to the Civil Code of Quebec, “Change of domicile is affected by actual residence in another place, coupled with the intention of the person to make it the seat of his principal establishment.”
This provides the registration officers with the right to use their own discretion when registering voters. Dyck said the six-month domicile rule is fairly standard across all the provinces.
But students in Quebec seem to be having more trouble than usual in trying to establish that they have been there for six months.
Dyck said this could be because “the out-of-town students are almost certainly going to vote against the Parti Québécois (PQ).”
The PQ has accused out-of-province students of trying to steal the election, according to Dyck.
“The PQ are trying to disenfranchise people that they think will be voting against them,” he said. “Students shouldn’t be hassled just because the party in power thinks they’re going to be voting against them.”
