Election day from behind the desk

Remember that thing we* all did last Monday? That time we followed the yellow arrows into an elementary school or shriners temple or seniors home, showed our two pieces of identification, stood behind a cardboard screen, scribbled an X on a piece of paper, and popped it into a box, and then walked away feeling like an important part of the democratic process?

Remember voting?

Well, I had the distinct privilege of working for the election. I always assumed those bored-looking people who possessed the magical ability to know what cardboard box your ballot belonged in were volunteers. Nope! Turns out pretty much anyone can work for Elections Canada.

In fact, the task of sitting behind a desk and watching people stand in line is given out on a first come, first served bases. When I applied for the job, I went to the EC office dressed in my finest, hair done, makeup on, shirt ironed, resume freshly printed. They didn’t care. All they wanted was my name and birthdate. I was added to a list and told someone would call me. No, they didn’t want to see my resume. Next!

As a (self proclaimed) highly employable person, not being able to demonstrate all of my hard earned skills was hard to swallow. If only they’d look at my impressive work history, surely they’d bump me to the top of the list. But no. Apparently Elections Canada feels the need to be fair or something. Whatever.

A few weeks later I finally got a call, informing me I would be a polling clerk and my training was in a few days. I had to look up the position online. The polling clerk (and I quote):

• Locates the elector’s name on the list of electors and strikes it through

Yes, my job was to cross names off a list. And this required three hours of training.

Did I mention I feel like I’m highly employable?

Sigh.

ELECTION DAY

I arrived at 7:30am. My polling station was in a room with 14 others. So we were one of the busier voting centres. My friend worked at one in a church basement and by 6pm she’d only had 18 people vote. But enough about her. Back to me!

Every polling clerk is pared with a Deputy Returning Officer. The DRO is the one in charge of everything to do with the ballots. They check ID, prepare the ballots, accept them back from voters, and count them at the end of the night. The polling clerk just watches. Both are needed for someone to be able to vote. So for 12 hours me and my partner sat, only allowed to leave our little table to run to the bathroom.

Voters need proof of ID and address to vote. But Elections Canada wants everyone to vote. And wants to make it easy for everyone to vote. And its policies seem to be based in the belief that people are fundamentally honest and good. So we had a whole shwack of oaths we could get people to swear if they couldn’t produce the required documents. It was the honour system. Do you promise you live here and haven’t already voted? Yes? Okay, here’s your ballot and thank you for voting. How often do we encounter that kind of trust in our daily lives? It was refreshing.

Have you ever driven all day? I’ve done a few road trips in my time, sometimes driving for 16 hours at a time. Driving and driving and driving and driving. Those days take on a surreal, dream-like quality. Your not doing much, so you’re bored and become aware of every passing minute, making the day feel incredibly long. But at the same time, you’re concentrating on one repetitive task, which somehow makes the day feel like it’s going by steadily. And at the end of the long haul you can’t believe it’s over so soon.

Working the election was like that. Time both stood still and flew by. I was bored but had no free time.

All of a sudden it was 8:30pm. Me and my DRO had watched 250 people vote. Now we needed to count those ballots. I found it amazing that two people such as ourselves, neither with any election experience, were in charge of counting and reporting real votes. Again, that whole people are competent and honest belief.

There were many things to count and sign and pack. I was home around 10:30pm, and watched the election results come in on CBC. It was amazing to watch how quickly the results were formulated, after having done such a small part of it myself. Votes from thousands of polling stations just like mine were pooled together and out of that the results of 308 seats were determined, and all in the matter of hours.

You may not like the result of the election, but I have to say, the electoral process is pretty damn cool.

*You are only included in this “We” if you’re Canadian. And you voted.

Image Credits

Canada Votes © www.mainroad.ca

Election Canada Sign © www.windsorite.ca