Power outage closes Vancouver polling station on Election Day, leads to 1-hour voting extension

John Oliver Secondary School is seen in this undated image from Google Maps.

A Vancouver polling station was temporarily closed the morning of Election Day over a power outage.

According to tweets from the City of Vancouver, John Oliver Secondary School was impacted by a power outage, making it unavailable to voters. The voting station opened at 8 a.m. and BC Hydro confirmed with CTV News Vancouver power was turned off in the area about 30 minutes later.

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During the closure, voters were redirected to Sir William Van Horne Elementary School and Sir Richard McBride Annex.

A notice from the city said John Oliver Secondary reopened at 11:05 a.m.

As a result of the temporary closure, the city announced that polling station, which like all others in the city was scheduled to close at 8 p.m., would remain open until 9:05 p.m.

BC Hydro said the outage was work that was rescheduled from Oct. 8 to replace a power pole in the area. The Crown corporation also said it tries to give customers – including municipalities – as much notice about outages as possible.

In this instance, BC Hydro said, a notification was sent to the city and school district about the outage on Sept. 27, but the company never received notice about Election Day. 

"When it was recognized that a voting location was impacted by this work, we abandoned the job as quickly and as safely as possible," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement, adding the power pole replacement work will be rescheduled again.

"We apologize for the inconvenience this work caused anyone who was attempting to vote today." 

To follow election results, tune in to CTV News Vancouver beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday for live, commercial-free and up-to-the-minute coverage. Results will also be posted regularly online at CTVNewsVancouver.ca.