It's election day in the U.S. and Americans living in southeastern Manitoba are watching closely.
Chris Summerville grew up in Alabama and moved to Canada in 1985, eventually making his way to Steinbach in 1993.
He notes it is a big day, but he is feeling good.
“It is an exciting day in America. It's also kind of worrisome on a number of points, but we're going to see what's going to happen. It may take us a week or so to know the final outcome. Who knows, we might know by midnight tonight.”
Summerville says he and his wife Caroline feel honoured to also be Canadian citizens by now, but they haven’t given up their American citizenship, nor their right to vote. He has cast his absentee ballot, and notes he will watch the results roll in this evening.
“I will be watching the news. I won't watch just one news station or one channel, I'll visit a number of them and go back and forth so I get a perspective from the different political angles of what's happening across the country. It's going to be a close race, that's what most pollsters are saying, unless there's a great surprise, and there might be a surprise.”
Rod Parmer was born and raised in Pennsylvania but moved to southeastern Manitoba in 1992 to purchase a business as his wife is from here. He notes voting in an American election from Canada is a little more complicated than just showing up at a polling booth.
Parmer says he is still a registered voter in his home county and gets emails asking if he is interested in voting every time there is any election, from civic to federal.
“I have to send back a reply saying ‘yes, I desire to vote in in this election’, and then they send me, via mail, a voting form that I fill that out, I put it in a sealed envelope, then I mail that sealed envelope back to my county. Then, I get a reply back that they received it and it goes into the vote count for today.”
Parmer says he tries not to get too wrapped up in the election news cycle but does still keep a close eye on what is happening.
“I have relatives, my extended family still lives in the states, so I follow it quite closely.” He adds “It's a unique election. It's a very polarized election, where you have two quite differing sides. It seems to loom larger than other elections where there's not too much difference in opinion or stance between the candidates.”
Henry Redekopp, who grew up in west Texas, moved to Steinbach in 2006 with his family so he could attend Steinbach Bible College. They then spent nine years as missionaries in Belize, before moving back to Canada five and a half years ago.
When asked if he was voting in this American election, Redekopp noted “If we had any intentions of moving back over there, I would probably pay a little bit more attention to it and I would be registered to vote and I would vote absentee. But at this point, I don't foresee us moving back to west Texas, so I figure since we're Canadians, we're going to do our voting in Canada, and I have been voting in every election since we've been here.”
However, Redekopp says he still feels a close connection to the US as he still has plenty of family, friends and connections in Texas. He notes it has been a tough election cycle to watch.
"It’s very unfortunate that it’s so polarized. I think that no matter who wins, it's going to be a drawn-out conclusion, the election results will likely be called into question unless it's a landslide one way or the other, and we will likely hear of lawsuits and stuff like that. It’s unfortunate, but I that's what I see happening.”
Polls close throughout the evening across the USA, and whatever the outcome, this election will be talked about for years to come.