Voted in the Advance Poll today (Canadian federal election)

Politics & Elections
1

It’s Thanksgiving today in Canada, and Mrs Piper and I are both going to be busy on Election Day a week from now, so we bundled up the Cub and went off to vote in the advance poll, thinking it wouldn’t be very busy.

Took 30 minutes of waiting. Poll was in a church hall, and when we arrived, the line was out the door. It got longer after we arrived.

A poll clerk was standing outside to tell people the wait times. When we expressed surprise it was so crowded on a holiday, she said it had actually been even busier on Saturday and Sunday. Apparently attendance is up at advance polls throughout the country. Will be interesting to see on Election Day if it’s just people shifting the day they vote to one that is more convenient, or if voting is up generally.

At any rate, after our thirty minutes in line we made it to the table. Two clerks at the table checking your name against the voters’ list, two more at another table, to register you is you weren’t on the list.

Once they checked you off the list (most people used their provincial driving licence as (i.d.), the poll clerk handed you the folded up ballot.

Ballot (paper) for our riding had five candidates: Conservative, Green, Liberal, Libertarian, and New Democratic Party.

Mrs Piper went first and the Cub waited with me. Then it was my turn to get my ballot, and as I went to the little table with the cardboard privacy shield, I realised I had a shadow. The Cub was following me to see how it worked.

Secret ballot and all that, but the poll workers just smiled at him watching me. Then I popped the ballot in the ballot box, and we were done.

(In the morning, I held up the local paper with the three main party leaders to the Cub and asked him which I should vote for: the Prime Minister (Harper)? The Leader of the Official Opposition (Mulcair)? Or the leader of the third party (Trudeau)?

Cub immediately pointed to Trudeau and said “Him!”

I asked why.

He said, “Because he might invite us to his party.”

Some Civics work yet to do.…

2

One way of avoiding a line is to vote early at an Elections Canada office. That’s how I voted on 11 August, and MattMCL voted earlier than that in his electoral district. As soon as possible after an election is called, Elections Canada opens offices across Canada were citizens in the respective districts can vote during regular office hours.

3

The University of Alberta had a couple of special satellite polling stations set up last week. I think they were different from the regular advance polling stations; these ones at least allowed you to cast a vote for any riding in the country (so long as you officially reside there), so it’s handy for many university students. I voted on Thursday, and it went very smoothly. There was virtually no line, and the whole process only took a few minutes.

There’s something very pure about the special ballot I was given. It simply reads: “I vote for ____________.” and one writes the name of their chosen candidate, with no party affiliation.

4

I went about 45 minutes before closing yesterday. No lines.

They had a kid manning the door, telling people which table to go to. I’m not sure how official he was, but he was wearing a nametag (“Husein”). I’d guess he was about 12, but he could have been a bit older; I seriously doubt that he was 16. Given some of the stereotypes my right-wing American relatives throw around, I was quite happy to see a young man, evidently Arabic,* volunteering his time on a holiday to support democracy.

*I didn’t ask, obviously, so I could be wrong about that.

5

My wife and I voted Sunday at about 6pm. Walked in and walked out. Took us about 5 minutes total and most of that was the poll workers flipping through their big book of names to cross us off. I enjoy the simplicity of marking a paper ballot with a little golf pencil.

A big shout out to the poll workers! The advance polling days are not too bad at 4 days of 8 hours but I wouldn’t want to do the 14 hour day on the 19th.

6

We voted yesterday. Wait time was about 20 minutes - I don’t think they expected as many people to come out as did. We have always voted on election day before, but it was a nice day and next Monday looks to be extra busy so we decided to do the advance poll thing for a change.

7

I had some free time on Sunday while my wife was out with the kids, so I popped in at about 12:30. The line was about 30 minutes long.

I know we’ve got a simple process - we had 4 candidates - but most of the delay was writing down all my info. I would have expected them to scan the barcode on the voting card, check my ID, and hand me a ballot. It seemed more like getting your boarding pass in the old days with a lot of hand writing and busy work. I think this is partly due to it being an advanced poll, so the register was manual rather than crossing my name off on the pre-printed voters list for a single polling station.

8

Honest question, but why would you vote so far in advance of the election that you would give up two months of information and opportunity for thought and reflection? Two months is more than enough time for a party to make a significant policy change, arrange a deal with another party, melt down completely, or for a wholly new issue to arise that must be addressed by the parties.

9

I voted yesterday. The winds of change are pretty strong.

10

I think this is how the prisoners vote. They don’t all vote in the riding where they’re imprisoned. They vote for a candidate in their last address prior to incarceration.

11

Anecdote from my mother, who voted in the advance poll on Saturday:

Lady behind her in line, who looked to be about 90:
“I want to vote early, just in case I die next week. I don’t want to miss my chance to get that G-D Harper out of office.”

My mom smiled quietly to herself…

12

Nothing has happened in the last two months that has affected how I voted yesterday. I’ve been watching the leaders perform in Parliament since each of them became leader and that’s how I made my decision. I’ve not really paid any attention to the campaign. If I had voted the day after the writ dropped it would have been exactly the same.

13

Likewise. I vote based on the performance over the past 4 years, not based on the quality of the promises that have been trotted out over the past few weeks to buy me with my own money.

14

I base my decision on the quality of the local candidates, the quality of the parties, performance in the past couple of Parliaments, and the issues that have been pressed well prior to the election call. Dog whistling is RO entertainment, but the one thing that I am not is a Pavlovian voter. Ever notice how the issues that arise out of the blue after an election has been called tend to be sensationalist and fall along existing party lines? They cause controversy, but they don’t add anything new to the mix when identifying which direction a candidate or party would likely take should that same issue arise following the election.

Aside from following issues in the media and reading bills that interest me, I come across enough information in my daily life to make an informed decision: a friend who is a sitting MP and candidate; a fellow board member who is another candidate; a fellow board member who is a riding association president; yet another candidate and another riding association president with whom I regularly dine; a co-worker who is another riding association president; several riding association volunteers with whom I regularly interact through my job and through my club. I’ve been approached to run by two parties, and approached to volunteer by four parties. Politics is not a big thing in my life, but it is a constant thing in my life. Although I am not fixed to any particular candidate or party, the odds are slim that my vote would be swayed by last minute information despite my decision having been carefully made over an extended period based on extensive information from all sides and extensive discussions with all sides.
What if the candidate for whom I voted were to up and die after my voting? The same could be said if I were to up and die before voting. In fact, a few days ago the person for whom I voted drove into a bear, went off the road, and rolled over a few times, where I live, in a vehicle identical to mine, a few minutes after I was driving on that same road. Could just as easily have been me. What can I say – I don’t worry about deus ex machina. The same can be said concerning when a candidate or party melts down or changes allegiance either during or after an election.
Then there is the convenience of voting in my own time at my preferred location. The Elections Canada office where I voted took me two minutes out of my way and did not interfere with my schedule, which made it as convenient as mailing in my vote with slightly less risk of my vote going astray. The poll where I am registered to vote (be it advance or elections day) would take me twenty minutes out of my way, plus a further delay due to lining up. For this particular election, I had better things to do on the Thanksgiving weekend advance poll (finishing up house painting before it gets too cold for the paint to cure), and I was scheduled to be out of town on election day.

15

Corrections (missed edit):

“yet another candidate” should have read “yet another sitting MP and and present candidate”

Add in a retired MP, and add in a past but not present candidate.

16

Similar to Muffin, several months ago I was at a public function, not a political event, where by chance two candidates from different parties happened to speak. One impressed me as a thoughtful careful guy. The other i thought was an ill-mannered jerk who thought waay too highly of himself.

Fast forward to the writ dropping, and I discovered that the jerk was running in my riding. That made it easy to cross one candidate off my list. (The other guy is running in a different riding, but if he were in my riding I would have given him a serious consideration.)

17

I’m lucky, in that all but one of the candidates in the riding in which I live and vote, and in the adjacent riding in which I work, are good and clear thinking people, so it is not the end of the world if the ones I want elected are not elected. (And I’d be surprised if the Harper candidates would win anyway – they are so unpopular here that one of their candidates apologized for the party at an all-candidates meeting.)

The one exception this election is a candidate who is a nice enough person, but who’s platform is based on incorporating Canada. 'Nuff said.

18

“I think all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not! And I’m sick and tired of being told that I am.”

19

"Well, I meet a lot of people and I’m convinced that the vast majority of wrongthinking people are right. "

20

Well this is kinda cool to look at. My newly configured riding of Hamilton West- Ancaster- had 12,161 votes cast in the advance polls over Thanksgiving of a possible 83,906. That’s the largest voter turn out for the ridings in the greater Hamilton area.

You can see the estimated turn out of voters in the advance polls of all ridings here