44th Canadian Federal Election

[Jonny5]

How about instead of mandatory voting we have a mandatory maximum time to vote? Why the hell does it take so long? Has anyone asked the people who spend ten minutes staring at the sheet while everyone else waits what the hell they are doing? Even getting your ballot takes forever. Let's upgrade it so I can vote right there at the entrance in ten seconds and immediately leave. I don't need instructions. I don't need to walk 100 metres away to a privacy screen. Elections workers yesterday probably spent 200,000 man-hours carefully folding ballots before handing them to people. That's useless. You then unfold it when you tick the box the very next step! Why fold it before? Wasting more and more time.
Let me push a button and let everyone else get on with their lives too. But I can't have that. I have to be treated like it's my first time ever voting every single time and people with pencils and gigantic 500 page booklets of names have to manually check who I am.

The system is designed to check ballots as fast as possible, and cast them as slow as possible.

 

[PinkLucy]

we don’t yet have 2021 number yet, but here is voter turnout for federal elections. We’re a pretty predictable bunch. https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=ele&dir=turn&document=index&lang=e

 

[vic]

I was 5th in line to vote yesterday. Showed up at about 8:55am, thinking it opened at 9. Actually opened at 9:30.....

Anyway, they were a bit late opening. At 9:41 one guy got angry and stomped away while grumbling and tearing up his voter registration card. At 9:44, they started letting people in.

People need to be a bit more patient than that.... A 14 minute delay shouldn't stop people from voting.

Oh, the second person in line also left angrily after being let in. Sounds like maybe a case of not being on the voters list and not having everything necessary to be added. Waited probably an hour for that.

Glad I showed up early even though I stood around for almost an hour. Had to jump through some hoops to update voter registration due to moving. I did it online...but at the polling station I had to get bounced between some more experienced workers, where a form was filled out and two other lists were updated. Still made it home in time for my 10am meeting.

 

[PinkLucy]

I was 5th in line to vote yesterday. Showed up at about 8:55am, thinking it opened at 9. Actually opened at 9:30.....

Anyway, they were a bit late opening. At 9:41 one guy got angry and stomped away while grumbling and tearing up his voter registration card. At 9:44, they started letting people in.

People need to be a bit more patient than that.... A 14 minute delay shouldn't stop people from voting.

Oh, the second person in line also left angrily after being let in. Sounds like maybe a case of not being on the voters list and not having everything necessary to be added. Waited probably an hour for that.

Glad I showed up early even though I stood around for almost an hour. Had to jump through some hoops to update voter registration due to moving. I did it online...but at the polling station I had to get bounced between some more experienced workers, where a form was filled out and two other lists were updated. Still made it home in time for my 10am meeting.

There was someone in my community group who didn’t stay to vote because they didn’t like the chairs provided for those who couldn’t stand. Um, ok.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I was 5th in line to vote yesterday. Showed up at about 8:55am, thinking it opened at 9. Actually opened at 9:30.....

Anyway, they were a bit late opening. At 9:41 one guy got angry and stomped away while grumbling and tearing up his voter registration card. At 9:44, they started letting people in.

People need to be a bit more patient than that.... A 14 minute delay shouldn't stop people from voting.

Oh, the second person in line also left angrily after being let in. Sounds like maybe a case of not being on the voters list and not having everything necessary to be added. Waited probably an hour for that.

Glad I showed up early even though I stood around for almost an hour. Had to jump through some hoops to update voter registration due to moving. I did it online...but at the polling station I had to get bounced between some more experienced workers, where a form was filled out and two other lists were updated. Still made it home in time for my 10am meeting.

Barring uncontrollable issues, they really shouldn't be late to open - but so much drama - acting like a bunch of kids who didn't know that they could vote by mail or in advance.

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

we don’t yet have 2021 number yet, but here is voter turnout for federal elections. We’re a pretty predictable bunch. https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=ele&dir=turn&document=index&lang=e

You'll note we had the highest turnouts, consistently from 1958-1974 which correlates, I would argue with the greatest rise in standard of living in the nation's history, and arguably its most competent governments.

Robarts as Premier in Ontario (PC); followed by early Davis
Jean Lesage in Quebec (Liberal, quiet revolution), followed by early Robert Bourassa
Pearson in Canada from '63, followed by early Trudeau the elder.

What did this period get us?

Provincially, in Ontario, the entire Community College system, the largest expansion of Universities in our history, OHIP, Ontario Place, the Ontario Science Centre, TV Ontario, low university tuitions etc.
Provincially in Quebec........Hydro Quebec, secularization of schools, dramatic advances in women's rights, the first serious protection/promotion of the French Language, Expo '67, the Montreal Metro.
Federally, Canada associated with Peacekeeping, Canada Health Act, CPP (Canada Pension Plan), etc.
Lots of good government that had things to brag about.

I'm not about to suggest there wasn't graft, patronage or other shortcomings, but rather that these things are more easily forgiven when you're getting spectacularly good results.
People are far less forgiving when the results are mediocre.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

How about instead of mandatory voting we have a mandatory maximum time to vote? Why the hell does it take so long? Has anyone asked the people who spend ten minutes staring at the sheet while everyone else waits what the hell they are doing? Even getting your ballot takes forever. Let's upgrade it so I can vote right there at the entrance in ten seconds and immediately leave. I don't need instructions. I don't need to walk 100 metres away to a privacy screen. Elections workers yesterday probably spent 200,000 man-hours carefully folding ballots before handing them to people. That's useless. You then unfold it when you tick the box the very next step! Why fold it before? Wasting more and more time.
Let me push a button and let everyone else get on with their lives too. But I can't have that. I have to be treated like it's my first time ever voting every single time and people with pencils and gigantic 500 page booklets of names have to manually check who I am.

The system is designed to check ballots as fast as possible, and cast them as slow as possible.

I think EC err on the side of caution and cautious. Having said that, it didn't help the staff - from what I can see - aren't the particularly "quick" type.

AiD

 

[Lennox970]

There are other countries with even better turnout........

View attachment 350554
From: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/voter-turnout-by-country

Turnout? I want to go to the sausage sizzle!

I once cast a vote for an election whilst serving in Afghanistan. PPPPPPP is the key to success.

 

[PinkLucy]

I think EC err on the side of caution and cautious. Having said that, it didn't help the staff - from what I can see - aren't the particularly "quick" type.

AiD

Having worked the polls, I can tell you that there are some repeat staff who are super competent, and plenty of first timers who are learning on the fly, thanks to minimal and inadequate training. That, and given the average age, reaction times may be somewhat decreased

 

[Northern Light]

I think EC err on the side of caution and cautious. Having said that, it didn't help the staff - from what I can see - aren't the particularly "quick" type.

AiD

So, as I noted, my voting experience was fine....and quick.

But thinking about this, and about what @PinkLucy said............

The voting for me was at a condo down the street.
The polling station being inside in their amenity room.
The front door (inside lobby door) was locked when I got there.

It took a minute for the EC official to get up and open the door for me.
Not a huge deal, but rather impractical, why they didn't just prop the door open is beyond me.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Having worked the polls, I can tell you that there are some repeat staff who are super competent and plenty of first timers who are learning on the fly, thanks to minimal and inadequate training. That, and given the average age, reaction times may be somewhat decreased

I am too polite to suggest *that* On the flip side you have some members of the electorate being utterly clueless - like have your ID ready in hand with your voter information card? Watch what other people ahead of you are doing and know that you have to give your ballot to the staff to remove the tab before putting it in, etc. I swear a good amount of time was spent on people who didn't have their act together and had to be told exactly what to do, multiple times.

Anyways, given the controversy around voting machines - I'd stay well clear of them and go with the tried and true that we have - the last thing you want is having to deal with technical snafus and a public that might be utterly clueless to the point of having to be hand-held.

AoD

 

[W. K. Lis]

You'll note we had the highest turnouts, consistently from 1958-1974 which correlates, I would argue with the greatest rise in standard of living in the nation's history, and arguably its most competent governments.

Robarts as Premier in Ontario (PC); followed by early Davis
Jean Lesage in Quebec (Liberal, quiet revolution), followed by early Robert Bourassa
Pearson in Canada from '63, followed by early Trudeau the elder.

What did this period get us?

Provincially, in Ontario, the entire Community College system, the largest expansion of Universities in our history, OHIP, Ontario Place, the Ontario Science Centre, TV Ontario, low university tuitions etc.
Provincially in Quebec........Hydro Quebec, secularization of schools, dramatic advances in women's rights, the first serious protection/promotion of the French Language, Expo '67, the Montreal Metro.
Federally, Canada associated with Peacekeeping, Canada Health Act, CPP (Canada Pension Plan), etc.
Lots of good government that had things to brag about.

I'm not about to suggest there wasn't graft, patronage or other shortcomings, but rather that these things are more easily forgiven when you're getting spectacularly good results.
People are far less forgiving when the results are mediocre.

From link. I remember when "Employment Insurance" was known as "Unemployment Insurance". It is still called "Unemployment Insurance" in the USA.

Canada’s first unemployment insurance program was enacted in 1935, as part of R.B. Bennett’s “new deal.” However, the legislation was quickly struck down in 1937 by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on grounds that both “employment” and “insurance” fell under provincial powers (namely s.92 (13) “Property and Civil Rights in the Province”). This led to the 1940 constitutional amendment, which added “unemployment insurance” (as the substance of the new s.91(2A) to the list of exclusive federal powers, followed closely by Mackenzie King’s Unemployment Insurance Act of 1940, an Act solidly predicated on sound insurance principles. Prior to describing some of its features, we note this constitutional amendment represents a key turning point in Canada’s social and regional history, since it provided Ottawa with an instrument that allowed it not only to circumvent “property and civil rights” but, as well, to fragment the internal social and economic union, as long as the issues in question could somehow be linked to unemployment insurance.​

​

Shows how long it takes to get something or anything implemented by the government. BTW. R.B. Bennett was a Conservative. Back when Conservatives was more center than today.

 

[karledice]

Good news, that wasn't the last $600m in the governments pocket.
Small businesses and poor families will still receive the same amounts as before the election.

Sure, it's still a waste somewhere, somehow. All these are a line item in the budget so $600m is being taken from somewhere for this useless experience that the Liberal government came up with.

Meanwhile tons of homeless people are in the park cause the subsidized housing is a hot bed for Covid due to tiny spaces and high density.

 

[DirectionNorth]

Sure, it's still a waste somewhere, somehow. All these are a line item in the budget so $600m is being taken from somewhere for this useless experience that the Liberal government came up with.

Meanwhile tons of homeless people are in the park cause the subsidized housing is a hot bed for Covid due to tiny spaces and high density.

For some strange reason, I'm sure you wouldn't be saying this if Trudeau lost.

 

[lenaitch]

No doubt if we ever have another election during a pandemic or similar event (what if it wasn't a 'called' election - what if it was a full-term, Constitutionally-mandated election?), this might be a lessons-learned event. True that there perhaps should have been more polling stations, if they had the staff to operate them. Part of the slow pace was mandated requirements for social distancing, no polling clerk assisting the returning officer (the flipping through the list part). Elections Canada treats every voter and every ballot the same. I am sure if they didn't fold it, some numpty would want to turn into origami to make some sort of statement.

I took advantage of the FOUR DAYS of advanced polls.

I was listening to CBC radio on Monday and one lady interviewed said she tried to find where her polling station was - that morning (assuming she didn't receive her voter information card). Really - the whole event came as a surprise?