Voters encounter belligerent election workers in Winnipeg, Selkirk; River Heights polling station runs out of ballots By: Malak Abas Posted: 4:31 PM CDT Tuesday, Apr. 29, 2025

When Randy Clinch went to cast his ballot Monday evening, he didn’t expect the experience to escalate into threats of fines and jail time.

After waiting in line at his polling station at Orioles Community Centre in Winnipeg Centre, he was accused by a polling official of having already cast a ballot during the advance polling period, pointing to his name crossed off the list of registered voters.

Clinch denied that he had, and pointed to possible human error; his son’s name was directly below his on the voter list, and he suggested a staff member may have crossed out his name in error when his son voted.

He told the Free Press the interaction quickly became unpleasant.

“It started getting a little bit heated; he was saying, ‘Well, are you sure? Maybe you’ve forgotten?’ I said, ‘No, I did not forget,’ And it went back and forth like that several times, finally culminating in him telling me that I’d be subject to a jail term or a fine of up to $50,000 if an investigation showed that I was lying,” he said.

“I said, ‘Look, I’m not lying.’ I don’t care if the penalty was a million dollars or the possibility of capital punishment, it’s not changing the fact that I did not vote.”

Clinch said the official eventually conceded that a mistake may have been made, filled out an incident report form and he was able to cast his vote. Still, he said, he found himself rattled by the incident and worried the ballot would be disqualified.

“I was really, really getting ticked off. I’m 68 years old, and I was thinking, this really stinks of ageism,” he said. “Would he have asked somebody of 32 and contested their memory as much as he was contesting mine?”

Clinch said he didn’t file a complaint, thinking it wouldn’t go anywhere.

An Elections Canada spokesperson said they hadn’t been made aware of the incident before being contacted by the Free Press.

Clinch is not the only Manitoban who ran into trouble at the ballot box on Election Day.

“I was really, really getting ticked off. I’m 68 years old, and I was thinking, this really stinks of ageism.”–Randy Clinch

A Winnipeg South Centre polling station on Grosvenor Avenue briefly ran out of ballots Monday afternoon. For about 40 minutes, voters who walked in were advised to wait or return later, Elections Canada confirmed.

One voter who walked in during that period returned later, but called the incident “concerning.”

“Let’s say someone who… went at that time, and that was the only time they were able to get transportation there, and then they’re not able to vote for that reason,” said the man, who didn’t want to be identified, adding he was likely going to make an official complaint.

In Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman, Patrick Barrios-Blair and his partner, Sabrina Langevin showed up to vote at Christ Church in Selkirk. An Elections Canada worker attempted to turn away Barrios-Blair because he had misplaced his voter registration card.

He did, however, have an up-to-date driver’s licence, and Elections Canada allows voters to cast a ballot without a voter registration card as long as they have ID issued by a Canadian government with a photo, name and current address.

The poll worker told Barrios-Blair he would need two pieces of identification, even after they showed him the government website advising otherwise.

“I served eight years in the Navy, and then I get told that I’m not allowed to vote because I didn’t have more pieces of ID,” he said. “It didn’t feel good.”

Langevin called Elections Canada to confirm Barrios-Blair was eligible to vote. And they were able to find his registration card in their car.

“I served eight years in the Navy, and then I get told that I’m not allowed to vote because I didn’t have more pieces of ID.”–Patrick Barrios-Blair

Langevin said they are still upset and concerned that others may have been turned away because they weren’t aware of their rights.

“I said to (the polling official), ‘You are violating people’s fundamental rights and freedoms in Canada, you are going against the Canadian Constitution — the Canadian (Charter) of Rights and Freedoms. This is against the law, what you tried to do,’ and he basically just asked me to leave,” she said.

Elections Canada media adviser Marie-France Kenny said no voters had been turned away in the Christ Church polling station. She recommended anyone who had an issue at the ballot box over the voting period file a complaint, which is what Barrios-Blair and Langevin did online Monday night.

“Electors can file a complaint at the polls or online. As well, whenever an incident occurs at a polling station, (the) central poll supervisor will also file a report,” she said in an email. “Each incident is taken seriously and fully investigated separately.”

Data on incidents or complaints Election Canada received will come “much later,” Kenny said.

More than 68 per cent of eligible voters in Canada — over 19.5 million people — cast a ballot in the federal election according to data from Elections Canada Tuesday.

Mistakes — human or systemic — are inevitable at that level, said Malcolm Bird, an associate professor in political science at the University of Winnipeg who researches public administration.

“You have to kind of gear up this enormous machine, and then gear it back down again, and then back up again,” he said.

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“I’m astonished that they’re able to do that at such a large scale in a sort of an episodic or infrequent manner.”

Brandon University political science associate professor Kelly Saunders cautioned against jumping to associate inevitable human error with malicious voter fraud, pointing to tensions in the U.S. stemming from similar accusations.

“We’ve got sitting presidents that are calling out stolen elections and voter fraud and not believing in electoral results, in the form of Donald Trump, and really feeding into that conspiratorial messaging,” she said.

“Has that creeped over into Canada? Absolutely. I think this is where the danger is, and we need to keep mindful of the fact that our system is strong and robust and democratic and accountable, and not fall into the trap of looking for conspiracies where none exist.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.