Confusion reigns in Kuujjuaq over how and where to vote in the Quebec election

Although advance voting officially got underway this past Monday in Quebec's Ungava riding, hundreds of Kuujjuaq residents still have not received their voter cards due to missing postal information.

Some see this as a big hurdle to Inuit participating in the Oct. 3 provincial election.

Many of the voter cards sent by mail to Kuujjuaq lacked a post office box number.

That meant post office workers had to make a search in order to put each card into the correct post office box.

That's a tedious job, on top of the usual tasks performed by the two employees in Kuujjuaq's post office.

"It's situation beyond the control of Élections Québec, resulting from postal issues in Kuujjuaq," said Julie St-Arnaud Drolet, a spokesperson for Élections Québec. "The post office team there usually can go into their system and see which voter has which post office box. But their system is not working at the moment, and that's behind this state of affairs."

Canada Post has not yet responded to questions.

This hitch comes as Élections Québec has taken several steps intended to make voting easier in Ungava's Inuit and Cree communities.

For example, several documents were translated into Inuktitut and Cree.

The advance voting period has also been extended, from last Sunday to Thursday.

However, without their electoral cards in hand, a large number of voters won't have access to key information on how to vote.

Luc Bédard, the returning officer for the Ungava, acknowledged that it would be difficult to distribute all the cards before the end of the advance poll.

Bédard said that he had taken steps to print more than 1,800 explanatory brochures and more posters to be distributed to voters as soon as possible.

As well, the polling station had to be moved on Monday, without notice, which didn't help matters.