I see, so they charged all of us for you to vote.
Yes, that’s much better. It’s so…Canadian.
I guess the money just fell off a tree somewhere in Ottawa, eh?
2 funny.
Polls close in three and a half hours (at 9:30pm, it is currently almost 6 pm).
I voted already. My plan for this evening is to sit in front of the TV and watch election coverage. I’m so nervous. This is the first election which I’ve a)voted in, b) really followed and c) have very definite opinions regarding one of the leading candidates.
Oh heck, why couch it in polite terms? I’m terrified that Harper’ll win.
I wish! Then maybe we’d get free bananas or something while we wait in line.
Anyways, I voted today this morning - there was some confusion as I was the first voter at my polling station who was transferring from a different riding (I’ve just moved from Saskatoon, where my vote would have meant nothing, to a riding in London that’s a three-way race) and they thought I might have had to present an official form from Elections Canada. I had to wait for fifteen minutes while they hemmed and hawed and made a few phone calls, but eventually they let me vote.
Tonight I’ll be at one of the party headquarters, interviewing the candidates and campaign workers for a journalism school project. I’m thinking of hanging out with the Greens - they’ll probably have good healthy food available, and Bronagh Morgan, my riding’s candidate, is kinda cute.
You would, if any of us could figure out what you mean by that statement…
And as for David Suzuki as Minister of Environment, if he had his way Canada’s population would be reduced to about 300,000 people, living on farms, and tilling the soil with their bare hands. I’ll stick to riding my bike to work, thankyouverymuch.
There’s one other way to vote that I haven’t seen mentioned, but as a citizen currently out of the country, I voted weeks ago through a mail-in ballot, which I could either mail back to Elections Canada, or if I was feeling cheap, drop off at the closest consulate. It counts in the riding where I last lived, so I had the choice of voting for a party I like represented by a complete idiot, or voting for a candidate I liked in a party I like less so much, or voting for people who want to destroy my way of life through one of several extremes. Tough call.
What I found interesting is that the Elections Canada website was slower to be updated than the Globe and Mail’s candidate finder-- but I’m chalking that up to delays between when the election was called and when candidates actually registered.
And I’ll check out the Globe online tonight after dinner to see how the voting’s going. It would be really cool to be home-- since this is the first time when people in the West will be able to get results from the East before voting ends.
Do they also require a shrubbery?
Ni! 
So the Atlantic polls are all pretty much in. CBC is reporting 21 Liberal seats, 7 Conservative and 4 NDP.
Just got back from voting, and I’m terribly upset. There was no Marxist-Leninist candidate in my riding! How’s the revolution going to come if the proletariat can’t even get off its ass and field a candidate???
Looks like the Liberals have picked up a few seats in the Maritimes - no shock there, what with Harper’s insults to the region, and the general lack of enthusiasm for the conservative merger there.
I did the same thing except I went directly to the returning officer’s office and voted there. I just downloaded the form from elections Canada and took it with me. Of course it was the wrong form. It was the form one used if one was inside Canada, but was planning to be outside Canada except in the case of a high tide at the full moon in the house of Jupiter, or something. So I had to fill out the other form (different font, I suspect) because it collected the exact same information. I guess using one form and having a couple of check boxes on it to accomodate the different situations would have challenged the bureacracy too much. :rolleyes:
Yeehaw! I have now validated my right to bitch for another indeterminate time period! 
You must have had your eyes closed when you read it; the record LOW voter turnout for a general election is 61%.
Sven, if you don’t care about the election, why don’t you leave the thread to those who do? Go be cynical in your basement. The election does matter, and some of us would like to discuss it. Especially since, to your chagrin, there’s a high probability we will have another election real soon.
I’m beginning to think that the removal of the news blackout was a really bad idea. I’m watching CTV coverage, and so far it sure looks like a lot of last minute campaigning by the ‘analysts’ on the show. For the past two hours, based on the meager results from Atlantic Canada, it’s been a never-ending stream of ‘analysis’ about how the PC’s are dangerous, extreme, no one’s voting for them, etc.
Plus, to compensate for the lack of a blackout the polls are open until 9:30 in the East, and 7:30 in the west, giving Eastern voters much more time after work to get their votes in. This doesn’t make a difference in terms of seats, but it may make a big difference in the final vote counts, because the East, where the libs are favored, have an easier time of voting than the West, where Conservatives are favored. I wonder if that will show in the percentage of people who vote in the east vs the west.
Well, 7:30 shouldn’t pose a huge obstacle to very many, and of course it isn’t really a partisan advantage for voter turnout to be lower in the west anyways. It’s not like Liberal votes in Ontario count against Conservative candidates in Saskatchewan.
I agree about the blackout, though. Brison gave an out-and-out stump speech - not that I blame him, of course, smart move on his part, but I don’t much care for it. Thing is, in this day of high-speed internet access, it’s going to be harder and harder to enforce a blackout, even if it were to be re-imposed. A better solution would probably be to have voting hours the evening before the big day (say, 5-9:30), and then close all the polls everywhere at the same time on election day.
Hahaha, too funny! The Marxist-Leninist party is leading in a Missasauga riding! I doubt that’ll last long.
Holy crap! I quip about the Marxist-Leninists, and next thing you know one (Mississauga East) is actually leading! After 2 polling stations have reported, no less! Will the balance of power in a narrowly divided Parliament be held by ah honest-to-god raving pinko commie? Stay tuned for breaking developments!
Can the Gulag be far behind?
For those who are interested, the party standings are also being updated here.
Well, it’s looking like a Liberal minority, and one which may pull the country to the left, because it’s looking like the Liberals can survive with the support of the NDP alone. Bleh.
However, from the standpoint of a conservative, a Liberal minority is probably better than a conservative Minority, because there’s no way a conservative minority government would have held power, and if it had fallen it might have been a huge blow to the new Conservative party. Best result for Conservatives is a Liberal minority government and a new election in a year or two after the Conservatives have a chance to get their act more together.
Although the Liberals are coming awfully close to a majority, and the closer they get the less support they are going to need from outside the party to maintain the government. If the liberals finish within a handful of seats of a majority, it may be a long, long time until another election.
Wow, how about that wacky capitalization? I was all over the map with that one.
Frankly, I don’t see how the Conservatives can hope to form a stable (i.e., majority) government unless they can elect some members in Quebec. And that’s not real likely in the short term, at least.
That was my point. A Conservative minority would most likely not have survived, so better that they lose to a Liberal minority and begin preparing for another election, which hopefully won’t be that far down the road.
Merkuns, CSPAN is showing a feed from the CBC.
For some reason I find the names of the districts very funny.
Man, the NDP is getting creamed so far. Getting beat by the Quebec guys? Do only people in Quebec get to vote for the Bloc? What’s the number for a majority anyway? And, if as some of the Dopers here are predicting, the government has to call another election soon, how does anything get done on Parliament Hill? Isn’t everybody so nervous and having to spend so much time on campaigning that they can’t even propose a bill?
BTW, I watched the ABC News tonight because I thought Canadian-American Peter Jennings’ show, at least, would mention the election. Nada.
:o