Quebec judge orders Élections Québec to prepare bilingual voter reminder cards A Quebec Superior Court judge has ordered Élections Québec to prepare voter reminder cards in French and English, granting a 10-day provisional injunction. The decision comes after the agency sent voter documents in French only to comply with provincial language laws. A Quebec Superior Court judge has ordered Élections Québec to prepare voter reminder cards in both French and English. The civil court judgment was issued Wednesday morning by Justice Sylvain Lussier. He partially accepted a provisional interlocutory injunction, granting it for a period of 10 days. The order also exempts the provincial agency from a section of Quebec's Charter of the French Language. That section makes French the only language of communication for public institutions. This was the first year the elections authority sent out voter guides in French only.The move was made to comply with new provincial language legislation. Groups representing anglophones in the province heavily criticized the decision. They said it infringes on the right to vote. Élections Québec announced earlier this month that it would only send voter information documents in French this year.Geoffrey Chambers is the plaintiff in the case. He is the former president of the Quebec Community Groups Network, known today as the TALQ. In his 23-page decision, Lussier wrote there is serious concern that a large number of English-speaking seniors could be unable to exercise their right to vote. He said this would be due to a lack of understandable information.The judge said it was obvious that a great number of anglophone seniors would not be able to exercise their right to vote in the absence of comprehensible information. He wrote: Is it in the public interest to urgently deprive the English-speaking community of Quebec of the right it has always enjoyed to receive election information in English? To ask the question is to answer it. Élections Québec mails out three different documents to voters ahead of provincial elections.They are an election guide, a notice of entry and a reminder card. The court said ordering Élections Québec to produce and mail an English version of the first two documents at this stage was unrealistic and extremely costly. For now, the judge said he can only order the agency to prepare the reminder cards. The reminder cards will include a list of candidates in the voter's riding.They will also include details on where and when to vote. Since the mail rollout for those documents falls outside the 10-day injunction period, another judicial process will be needed. That process would be required to order the actual mailing of the documents. Earlier this month, a spokesperson for Élections Québec, Julie St-Arnaud Drolet, said the agency had pleaded to no avail with Quebec.The agency wanted to be able to send basic voting information in both French and English. Quebec voters go to the polls on Oct. 5. The decision comes after a lawsuit argued that Quebec should provide election voter info in English on an urgent basis. The provincial election is scheduled for Oct. 5.The judge's ruling is a partial victory for anglophone groups. They have argued that French-only documents violate voting rights. The 10-day injunction period means the actual mailing of reminder cards remains uncertain. Another court process will be needed to determine if the cards can be mailed in English.