election fever

Because I am a little nerd, I like to make sure I have my voter’s registration card weeks in advance. Because I have strange bureaucratic karma, it hardly ever matters: I nearly always have to fill out a registration form when I go to the polls because although I’ve been sent a card and all information is correct (and I think this is something like my fifth election from the same address), I’m not on the list.

This trend continued last evening. Somehow my bureaucratic karma spread to Ulysses and moved him off the list too. We had to wait in line for about twenty minutes. The kids went fairly wild. The Boy quietly looked at things, but Mia made a general nuisance of herself, checking out every aspect of the process and sometimes drawing people pictures and writing down anything she thought was interesting – chatting up the public.

I got a little ruffled at one point, because it looked like the officials were giving a guy a hard time because he didn’t have proof of address (he needed to swear an oath) and they obviously hadn’t dealt with it before. I told myself that if it looked like they were going to turn him away I would demand they give Elections Canada a call. But they found the information they needed and he got to vote.

It’s not much of a secret that I love elections. I remember getting to stay up late for the polls to come in when I was a kid and the general feeling of importance and bustle. We often wound up at my grandparents house on election nights with my Dad’s whole extended family. It took much longer to get results then. We’d watch them come in on the kitchen tv while we drank tea and ate oatmeal cookies. And talk, argue, capitulate, argue, and talk again.

I realized last night, while I was standing in line, that I like elections as much as I like Halloween and for pretty much the same reasons. I love getting out there with my neighbours and participating in civic life. Everyone partakes of the ritual.

When we came home, Mia made us play election. She followed the model exactly. Ulysses and I lined up at the door with our ‘tickets’, Mia took our tickets and checked us off the list. Then we got a ballot and had to fill it out at the dresser. She checked her signature and we put the ballot in her jewellery box. Ulysses overheard the kids continuing to play a bit later with Mia complaining that The Boy was bugging her and she wasn’t going to let him vote. “Actually, Mia,” he said, “that’s illegal.”

I’m sad to say that the irregularities didn’t end there. Mia wrote in some extra ballots when she counted the box. I rejected both kids’ pleas to stay up for the results. Coverage, due to the black out, didn’t start until ten and that’s two hours past their bedtime. Mia whispered, “in the morning, we’ll know the winner.”

I, of course, couldn’t resist staying up to listen to the polls come in. I was elated at the gains the NDP made. Conservative gains in Quebec alarmed me. (I’d prefer people didn’t pretend these jokers have any kind of national relevance.) I was relieved that Toronto rejected the Conservatives and I laughed fairly heartily at the Stronach victory in Newmarket.

So not a bad election all around. And though it was, as always, fun to participate in the democratic process, I’d prefer to wait a few years before doing it for the feds again.