On Sept. 20, Queen’s students headed to the polls to vote in the 44th federal election. The Journal interviewed student voters about their experiences on election day.
On Monday, students casting their ballots at the MacGillivray-Brown Hall polling station faced long lines and alleged wait times sometimes exceeding two hours.
“I went to the Kingston Curling Club to vote in the Federal Election, and the said I could not vote there because I lived on Queen’s campus. I had to vote at the polling station nearest Queen’s, and the line was hours long,” Maggie Doidge, ArtSci ’22, said in an interview.
One student felt there was inadequate preparation to make polling stations accessible before election day.
“I found it really inaccessible that so many people have to be banished to this little area [MacGillivray-Brown Hall]. I feel like there should be more polling places for the amount of people that are here,” Kate Hartman, Sci ’23, told The Journal.
According to Hartman, lines began to form at 12 p.m.
“People said it has been like this since noon, and it feels quite unfair,” she said.
“The registration line is what is making the line so long. The majority of people had difficulty ing, and this is a university town, so it should have been ed for.”
For many students, this election marked the first time they could vote—some experienced barriers in the process of ing to do so.
“I think with COVID and school, it’s already hard to vote, and there should be more resources […] If there were more resources, more people would vote,” Emma Morden, ArtSci ’25, explained.
Marissa Khury, ArtSci ’25, believes Queen’s didn’t provide students with enough information on how to vote.
“There wasn’t much encouragement to vote, and I think it would be helpful if the school actually helped us with that,” Khury said.
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