An Elections Canada spokesman called them “very isolated.” An acceptable level of systemic error. A glitch.

This glitch is growing. Complaints of voters being de-registered, of not receiving their voter information cards or of having the wrong information on those cards have been reported across the country.

After writing about a few of those examples in Vancouver, I asked readers to write me if they had trouble with their voter registration.

I got dozens of emails in reply — some as far away as Toronto. Their emails are still coming in.

A few examples:

Sheila French, from the Langley-Aldergrove riding, writes:

“My husband’s voting card came; mine did not. I was unable to check my voting registration either online or by phone with Elections Canada because ‘you cannot be confirmed at that address.’ I went to my local EC office, where it was confirmed that someone with my full name and birthdate was registered in Whitby, Ontario. I have never lived there! I have lived at my current Langley address since 1989 and have voted federally and provincially from there. Curious?”

Val MacDonald, who votes in the New-Westminster-Burnaby riding, also lost her place on the voting lists to a phantom doppelgänger:

“I was told by our local NDP campaign headquarters that I was not registered and immediately looked into it. Sure enough I was not on the list. I waited and checked back on the Elections Canada website a week later and my name still did not come up. Finally I went to the electoral district and they could not find my name either ... I have lived at the same address for nearly 40 years and I have never missed voting in any election. Anyway, it turned out that there is another Val MacDonald in another province with very similar information and the electoral officers thought I was dropped off the list as looking like a duplicate.”

A couple of tax consultants wrote in to suggest that people who had not checked the box on their tax returns that forwards their personal information to Elections Canada might have not been registered to vote. But Lyell Plamondon, from the Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding, checked off the box on his tax return and still found himself unregistered.

“Although our daughter received her voter registration card, my wife and I did not. We are all at the same address. Wondering why we hadn’t received our cards, I called Elections Canada yesterday and was told that my wife and I were not registered. We reside in Nanaimo and have been at our current address since we moved from Saskatoon over four years ago. After explaining to them that we voted from Nanaimo in the last federal election and have not changed addresses, plus the fact

that we give CRA at income tax time the OK to give our names, addresses, date of births and citizenship to Elections Canada to update the National Register of Electors, I asked them to investigate further what was going on.