Canadian Election:this way

I rolled up at the local school as the polling place was just opening. The volunteers were not yet finished taping up the "vote here" signs, and impatient voters were pooling by the school's side door. At 9:29am, we filed into the school hallway and queued at the gymnasium door. It's always school gymnasiums.

As a n00b to the district, I had to re-register, and was the first one to do so this morning. The volunteer (wo)manning the table was still looking up the instructions, but fortunately the process was fairly straightforward. I then moved to the next queue: that for my voting district ("ridings": I tell myself that the electoral region got its name because that's how far a candidate could ride on horseback in one afternoon, but that's probably not true, but c'mon, it's not a bad little story).

The two women running the actual polling desk for my district reconfirmed my new registration and made the appropriate changes against the pre-generated electora rolls, and then gave me a ballot, which they hand-folded. I loved that extra touch.

Behind the cardboard blind, I ticked off the party whom I wanted to represent my riding. Canadians don't see Harper or Dion or Leyton or any other party leader on their ballots- we vote for the party, who in turn selects the Prime Minister, US-style campaign commercials notwithstanding. 

I noticed that neither the paper ballot nor the ballot-box volunteers had a USB port, so there was no chance of Diebold-style hacking. That inspired confidence. I dropped my ballot into the ballot box myself, thanked the volunteers on the way out, and made my way out of the school. Other local voters were beginning to arrive in larger numbers (i.e. more than three) as I was leaving.

My civic duty done, I came back here to write about it. Now I'm off to the gym. Peace.