A Beginner’s Guide to Voting

SIGNY HOLMES STAFF

The election is nearly upon us, an event often marked with disinterested confusion as voters must not only untangle the vague promises and accusations put forth by politicians and their handlers, but also deal with the confusion of voter registration, special ballots and figuring out what the hell a returning officer is. It can be easy not to deal with it at all — to just close your eyes and hope that it all goes away. But a much better solution is to read on and find the answers to some of your questions.

I’m kind of nervous,

it’s my first time

Hey, I’m not here to judge. The first step to safe voting is to get registered. If you’re already registered, you should have received a voter information card in the mail by now. If you haven’t gotten one, it’s time to get in touch with your returning officer to make sure you’re registered to vote. Otherwise when you show up at your polling station you’ll have to go through a great deal of hassle involving various pieces of photo ID, complete with a signature and your address, torture and a full strip search. Or something like that.

My returning officer?

Your returning officer is the person in your electoral district responsible for organizing the voting and making sure everything goes fairly and as smoothly as possible. Tracking them down isn’t fun, but you can find out their contact information by heading to this snappily addressed section of the Elections Canada website:

http://www.elections.ca/scripts/pss/FindED.aspx?L=e&tpageid=3

You can also contact Elections Canada at 1-800-463-6868, toll-free.

I’ve moved away from home to attend this fine

educational establishment

That’s super, but it makes voting a pain in the butt. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t vote, because voting is good and good is voting.

If you’re a student living away from home, you can be registered to vote in your parents’ electoral district or you can choose to register and vote here. You may want to call your returning officer or Elections Canada to get things sorted out. If you want to vote in your riding back home, you will need to get a special ballot, which you will need to mail in. The deadline to register for a special ballot is January 17 at 6 p.m..

To register for a special ballot, you send an application form to your returning officer, who will most likely be busy given the number of things people have to contact them about, so get on that soon. These forms are available on the Elections Canada website.

So when are polls open? And where do I go?

Polls are open for 12 consecutive hours. In Manitoba, that will be between 8:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m.. Hopefully you know your riding, but even if you don’t, you can find out where to vote by going to the Elections Canada website and entering your postal code into the box in the middle of the page. On the right, you’ll see the link “Where do I vote?”. Follow it to find out where you should be going on Election Day.

Yeah, um . . . when is

that again?

That would be January 23, a Monday.

I think I’m too cool to vote

Truly cool people never think they’re cool, so there. Really though, you’ve been told a million times how important voting is but if you want to be stubborn, it’s a free country. Something you might want to consider, though: Elections Canada’s research shows that only 25.4 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in 2000. The government doesn’t know what you think if you never tell them.

Yeah, well, I can’t vote

because I have work/

school that day.

If you really, truly won’t be able to make it to a polling station, you can vote by special ballot, the same way students away from home would. If, on the other hand, you’re just being lazy, at least own up to it and stop making excuses.

Something you may not be aware of is that employers have to allow their employees three consecutive hours off work during polling hours. If you just have to work in the evening, or even 9 to 5, this probably won’t affect you, but if voting hours are 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and you’re scheduled to work 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., they haven’t met that obligation, and you’re entitled to demand the rest of your three consecutive hours. And they have to pay you for that time. It’s an offence for your employer to fail to provide time off to vote or reduce your pay for that time.

You can also get that voting done and out of the way early if you know that you’ll be busy on the 23rd. Not every polling station is open for advance voting, so when you check out where you vote (described above), read carefully. The polls are also only open for advance voting between Noon and 8:30 p.m. on January 13, 14 and 16.

Can I eat the ballot?

Why the hell would you want to do that? Elections Canada seems to consider it a “Frequently Asked Question,” so there must be a lot of people out there who enjoy digesting paper. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but not only are ballots unpleasantly papery in texture, but eating the ballot is a very serious no-no. Actually, defacing the ballot in any way is frowned upon. Downright eating sends the rebellious message, “I am seriously unbalanced and weird and who knows what I’ll eat next but it MIGHT BE YOU,” but defacing of any sort just spoils the ballot.

I have a really important question you didn’t answer

Fair enough. You can try the Elections Canada website (www.elections.ca). It isn’t the most user-friendly site you’ll ever encounter, but there’s a lot of information there. If you prefer human contact, try calling your returning officer.