A Few Quick Notes 234

-Today was pretty beautiful. The sun was out in full force and the temperature quite nice for walking.

While I feel as though I keep indicating that it is superb weather we actually have had a little sub-par weather recently. Notably, on Thanksgiving we had some rain, and we might get some later in the week (meaning as early as tomorrow), not that I am looking for this to end or meaning to complain.

-On Monday evening we had three people over for Thanksgiving dinner. While I was somewhat apprehensive about this decision, mainly because I had a paper due on Tuesday, it turned out quite well. Actually, that I had something to take a break from may have made the evening more enjoyable.

We had what I consider a pretty standard Thanksgiving meal, meaning turkey, vegetables, potatoes, gravy, and stuffing. For my first turkey I was quite pleased with the results, especially considering that I did it without the ideal roasting equipment.

-As some of you may know, there was an election in Canada yesterday. After about four hours of library work and a notification that the building would soon be closing I decided to call it a night and head over to the Grad House and watch the election coverage with Neil and a few of his friends. By the time I arrived, which was at about midnight, most people had cleared out and the results of the election were largely known, though CBC held off on officially calling it a minority government win for the Conservatives for some time.

Unfortunately, the CBC coverage was pretty bad. Not only did they not provide us with the information we wanted (like how people were doing outside of Atlantic Canada) the broadcast was simply not well put together. At one point we watched in disbelief as one of the presenters stood in front of a screen and gave a very hastily prepared presentation on election related Twitter activity. This stood out because they didn't even use the normal technology that would have allowed them to directly broadcast the images, or green-screen technology that would have allowed the woman to stand in front of the image. Instead she stood in front of a TV screen and manually flipped through the pages of a presentation, all the while the guts of the program were available to views. I won't continue any further complaints as I don't think my complaints about the coverage will be particularly useful to anyone, nor will they be pleasant to read.

-Yesterday my American ballot finally arrived. While I was quite pleased to see that it had finally arrived, I was quite disappointed to learn that like in the Canadian case I have to provide my own stamp to return my completed ballot (though to be fair I didn't expect that this would work from Canada). I guess what I found particularly shocking about the return envelope is that there appear to be several spelling mistakes, though it is possible that I am just not reading things correctly. Anyway, if you can figure out why the spelling in the adjacent picture is I would be quite interested in hearing about it.


Anyway, I guess I will have to figure out how I am going to vote and then find an appropriate stamp and send it back before it is to late.

Does Elections Canada really want me to not vote?

Over the past several elections I have had the pleasure of occasionally temporarily residing away from my permanent address. These absences have allowed me to have the pleasure of applying for and using absentee ballots in federal and provincial elections. While not all of the conditions are the same at the federal and provincial level, it seems that the more problematic elements transcend levels of government to give some indication of a truly 'Canadian' approach to elections and voting.

The following are a few of my issues with the present conditions:

-One of the most striking elements of the absentee ballot process in Canada is how they have reversed onus when it comes to voting. Instead of it trying to help the voter cast their ballot by coordinating with the post office to ensure speedy delivery of ballots (as is done in the United Kingdom), it is the responsibility the voter to have the ballot in Ottawa by the time of the election. This takes a fair burden off of the post office and places on the shoulders of the voters as the clear implication is that no special effort will be made to have votes moved more quickly. Particularly strange is that there no guarantee that if a ballot is in the mail by a certain day that they will guarantee that it will make it to Ottawa. The implication is that you should get your ballot in the mail as quickly as possible. The consequence of this is that people are then casting their votes days or weeks before the end of the campaign, before all kinds of policy statements are released, and at a time when candidacies may still be open to change. So much for trying to be an informed voter.

-If you are voting by absentee ballot you have to provide your own stamp, meaning that it more expensive to vote for those who can't make it to the polling station. I don't mean to gripe about 60 cents, but I do find this particularly strange when you can send letters to MPs for free. That parties use this power in association with campaign literature makes it all the more surprising that my postage isn't paid with my absentee ballot. The other strange aspect of this is that it is quite clear that they can coordinate such arrangements with the post office, so why haven't they do it in this case?

-Once you get your absentee ballot you find that they don't even provide you with a list of candidates, though you are informed that you are able to vote either for a candidate or party. Maybe this is an indication that there is a problem. If your campaign period is too short for you to be able to print ballots than maybe your campaign period is simply too short. Is it really too much to ask to at least be sent an official list of the candidates, or am I just being picky?

-Something that I learned today is that the Elections Canada people seemingly don't check name of applicant against list of registered voters (even though I.D. is required presumably for this purpose). This means that people who are unregistered to vote can be sent ballots (the question is whether or not they will be counted once they are returned to Elections Canada). It seems that they could save themselves some hassle by doing the checking before they issue the ballots rather than once they get the ballots back and are trying to count them.

-Today I learned that at least one of the employees at the end of the help line is not familiar with the the term 'absentee ballot.' Rebecca tried to ask him a question about her absentee ballot and he didn't know what she was talking about. Apparently he couldn't figure out that 'absentee ballot' and 'special ballot' are synonyms.