Today I voted for my candidate of choice in the 41st British Columbia general election… at the mall!

The election takes place on May 9 but a lot of people choose to cast their ballot in advance polls for various reasons.

What many people don’t realize, however, is that you can also vote at any district electoral office from now until 4 p.m. on General Voting Day.

At the start of every writ period Elections BC opens a district electoral office in each electoral district to administer the election in the riding. It’s a temporary setup so the locations can be somewhat creative…

In my neighbourhood the electoral agencies tend to set up shop at Brentwood Town Centre which is a b-list mall.

Loyal readers of my blog may recall that I voted in Burnaby’s 2014 municipal election at Brentwood Town Centre and that I updated my voter information at that same mall in the 2015 federal election.

I’m a decided voter so I didn’t feel any need to wait it out until election day and I was at the mall anyways so I figured, “what the heck!”

The electoral office is in the space that was formerly occupied by American Eagle, a clothing store where I used to buy underwear and summer shirts. These days I do the bulk of my clothes shopping at Sears.

Anyways, I went in there presented my voter card, identification and they handed me a ballot which I took behind a voting screen.  The ballot was not pre-printed with candidate names or party affiliations. I simply had to write that in the blank space on the ballot.

Thankfully, they posted a list of candidates as well as their political affiliation. The candidate I voted for has one of those names that’s hard to spell so I made sure to write slowly.

I then cast my ballot and took a selfie at their selfie wall. My initial selfies looked like crap so one of the voting clerks, who I know from a previous job, offered to do the honours and I’m pleased to say that it looks much better.

Oh, they also offered me a job on election day! Sweet.

Anyways, if you’re eligible to vote I strongly encourage you to exercise your democratic right and vote for whoever you like.