VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The deadline to get your ballot in for the upcoming referendum on electoral reform in British Columbia is quickly approaching.

The deadline is set for 4:30 p.m. Friday, so if you haven’t mailed yours in by the end of the day on Friday, you’re cutting it pretty close.

With uncertainty around delivery times because of Canada Post’s rotating strikes, which ended earlier this week, Elections BC is recommending just returning your voting package in person.

“The 4:30 p.m. on December 7th deadline is the deadline for us to receive the completed voting package, not the deadline to mail it, of course. So that’s an important consideration,” Andrew Watson with Elections BC explains.

“The in-person drop-off opportunities just take any doubt out of the equation.”

Watson adds there will be election officials at the Canada Post sorting facility in Richmond at the deadline.

“So that we can take receipt of any completed voting packages that are at that facility. So that will be one thing, we’ll be able to receive those voting packages by the deadline.”

However, he points out there is a lot of mail to sort through as a result of the five weeks of rotating walkouts, so timing is somewhat uncertain.

If you are still planning on mailing your ballot back, Watson says there is some variation on delivery times, of course, based on where you are in the province.

Meantime, some are echoing Elections BC’s recommendation to get your vote in early.

David, who says he sent in his ballots last week, says he did plenty of research beforehand.

Generally, he doesn’t mind the process.

“I’m glad that we’re dealing with it this way,” he says. “And I think it’s better to start municipally, provincially, then eventually federally. I think a bottom-up conversion is better than a top-down conversion.”

British Columbians are voting on whether they want to keep the current first-past-the-post voting system in place, or switch to a type of proportional representation.

As of Thursday morning, Watson says Elections BC received an estimated 1,135,000 completed packages. That represents about 34 per cent of registered voters across B.C., he adds.

-With files from Simon Druker