One set of challenges we have is time periods. Our military vote period is from day 14 before the election to day nine. We have to get the material out in time. On deployed operations we have operations going on all around the world, and it's a challenge to ensure that Elections Canada and we can get the elections material to the members in time, and to get the materials back. That's a time period challenge.
On exercises, members are not always near the military polling stations. We have to make sure that we can get the polling station near our members during the time period. Sometimes we have to ask for variances from the time period to allow the vote to happen a little bit before, or a little bit after, the military period. Or on the hours of the polling stations, people work on shifts and different routines, so we have to make sure that the polling stations are open long enough for people to vote.
Other challenges we might have include ships at sea. We almost had this time a submarine under water during the election period. It's hard to get the information to a submarine when it's under water. So to try to plan that, that the exercises or the deployments happen around that election period, is another challenge we have to deal with.
Also, in our SOR process, statement of ordinary residence process, it changes. People might only realize that they wish to change their statement of ordinary residence once the writ is dropped, but of course it can't be effective until 14 days after the election is completed.
Those are very briefly some of the challenges we face.