Technical difficulties in online voting created some temporary problems for a Parks Canada contest and frustrations for some junior high school students hoping to win a trip to Banff.

Emily Sibbick is worried people will get tired of having to revote. (CBC)

The My Parks Pass contest asked schools to create historical videos. The first elimination round for the 69 schools participating happens with an online vote, with the top 10 videos passing on to a judged round. The winning class goes to Banff.

But Parks Canada has struggled through problems since the voting opened Feb. 1.

"People are going to think it's just going to keep breaking, and they're not going to want to vote anymore," said grade eight student Emily Sibbick, who worked on the video submitted by Montague Intermediate in eastern P.E.I.

The problems started immediately, said Megan Morrison, the teacher who co-ordinated the Montague Intermediate video. "Their site crashed," she said.

The experience has been frustrating for Megan Morrison's students. (CBC)

"For a period of about three to four days we couldn't vote, or very sporadically."

Parks Canada solved that problem, but then another one emerged.

"A few days later we were informed by a teacher that the system was hackable," said Andrew Campbell, director general of external relations for Parks Canada.

"We weren't sure whether others had figured out a way of, in fact, breaking into the voting system and adding votes."

Restrictions were created, but that made it impossible for many schools across the country to vote for several days.

This past weekend the website was taken down entirely, and then put back up with all the voting reset to zero. Campbell said the reset was needed. "Just to be fair to everybody we informed the schools and the teachers that we would start the votes over again, bring the system down and redevelop a fairer voting process."

Voters now have to register, and it's only one vote per email address.

Morrison said it has been difficult for the students.

"I just feel so discouraged for the kids because they put everything they had into it," she said.

Voting this week has proceeded without any problems.