10:41 PM - 09.02.05
Attenuation
My youngest must be reading my diary again, dear diary. He need to get out more I think. When I got up to go to work today he was already busy with different house work responsibilities. The garbage had been taken to the outside bins and he had torn the refrigerator apart. All the contents were nicely displayed on the countertops and the beast had been pulled away from the wall. The unit was a new-to-us donation from one of my sister's neighbours you see. They had bought brand new appliances and had just stored the old stuff out side their house - in winter. Subsequently everything, including those appliances, froze solid. My refrigerator at the time had finally packed it in, I didn't have any money to replace it and their offer of "if you move it, you can have it for free" was very welcome and impeccably timed. As a result of it's own cryogenic experience, the poor beast has always run a bit strange but it worked well enough - food didn't spoil and that's all that was necessary. Looked much better than the old rusted out thing too. Still looks great but the damage done to the coils - or whatever - has meant it's freezer comparment hasn't been doing it's job completely for the past couple of months. We've ignored the issue because with the plumbing and the cats to deal with it wasn't apparent enough to demand attention. However, soggy food the past few days meant my son felt it was time to try "least intrusive intervention #1". Empty, unplug and tighten up everything at the back that is loose then reassemble. The movie "Short Circuit" came to mind as I watched my youngest tinkering in the back as I was heading out the door. At least this thing hasn't got nuclear innards. At this point in time everything in the freezer appears properly frozen so that's one good thing to be thankful for isn't it?
On the way to work I was puzzling out loud about an email we had received from Elections Canada last night. Just a cryptic reference to a mail out registration program they have already begun stating that they are targetting certain groups of people to see if they are eligible to register to vote. that sounds good on paper - ok e trail - but I wonder which classes of people merit a two step process. Before the last election, mailouts were sent "to all people who had turned 18 (legal voting age here) within the past two or three years. I found that interesting given that two of my sons fell in that category yet didn't receive anything - at least not to my knowledge. Could be it was assumed that I'd know how to get them on the correct list, I suppose. What concerns me is that this might be a belated attempt to clean up the list from one of Elections Canada's head office decisions last electoral period.
Our constituency is home to a very large population of New Canadians and recent immigrants. Through information received from returned Voter Information Cards, targetted revision Revising Agents, and Revision staff receiving calls in the office, it appeared that many non-Canadian citizens had been put on the 2004 Electors List because they checked "Yes" to the question on the income tax form that asks if they want their information passed on to Elections Canada. As you recall, dear diary from doing our own taxes, there was no listing of criteria for eligibility included with the question. It appears that many people in our area who were not eligible to vote checked "yes" as a result. I also suspect that names imported from Provincial vital statistics databases (driver's licences do not list or encode citizenship status) posed similar problems.
There were two concerns arising from this. The first, and most obvious, is that, as a result, our lists now had an unknown number of names of people registered to vote that we cannot legally issue a ballot. They received Voter Information Cards that indicated that they could vote. Under the current Canada Elections Act Polling Day staff were not to request verification of citizenship through an oath, unless the person was not yet on the list.
The second concern was the expectation that had been established in the minds of those not eligible to vote by receipt of official Voter Information Cards with their names and addresses on them stating that their polling station was xxx that they had been enfranchised. The video for training the polling day staff told them to issue ballots to anyone producing those official voter information cards. That was further aggravated when non-Canadians not yet on the Electors List insisted that they should also have the opportunity to register and vote based on the fact that their family members had been added as a result of the glitch in collecting data from the tax forms.
We were not allowed to have our list checked for citizenship status. It would have required the ability to check Provincial vital stats for birth registrations of the electors already listed as a first pass and then a check of the balance of names for confirmation of acquisition of citizenship. There is legislation for penalizing people who vote when they are not eligible, but my staff were not hired to be investigators or law enforcement officers nor would they have had the resources to determine status.
Remember the voter fraud problems in this area during the Municipal and Provincial elections last fall? The drill in this area for decades has been for the persons who have been cheating this long to gain access to a current voters' list without being detected. they then spend a lot of time and effort deteriming who usually votes based on past scrutineers' reports from their observations on polling day. They then assign different individuals to go in to a polling place with a name of someone who has never or rarely voted to vote using that identity. That's about 40% of the nameson the list. It is very easy since no proof of identity is required if one's name is already on the list. One of the organizers of this practice used to boast openly - and often - about how easy it was for them to steal elections. Given that he was one of the backroom boys and enforcers for the current governing party provincially it was easy to watch them pull it off with impunity.
As I mentioned before, the people who were caught out this time still maintain they did nothing that hadn't been done before. During the second election I ran as a Returning Officer, my second son acted as a poll clerk at one voting station. He told me that one person stepped up to vote and gave a name and address on the list he was respnsible to manage. The person behind that elector piped up and yelled "Hey, that's my name and address". The cheater bolted from the gym before anyone could grab them. I've heard similar stories ad nauseum over the decades I have lived in this area and the variety of witnesses and the similarity of the pattern would indicate that it is wide spread. There are several other ways that the group in question pads the vote. For example, during the last election one of the candidates called at one point and became quite aggressive in asking for special ballot registration forms and kits so that people supporting him could use them. One man arrived at our office and demanded we release his wife`s ballot to him because he was on the list. When we explained that she was not registered and would have to provide identification to us first he was quite angry. He tried to bully the staff into releasing the ballot without going through the process which, in my opinion, indicates that either the spouse didn`t exist, wasn`t a Canadian citizen or was never going to receive her ballot to mark by herself. He left after about 20 minutes of discussion. Those examples are of easy to catch fruad but there are other less detectable techniques as well. I don't think I'll enumerate any other tactics in case someone other than my youngest reads your pages at some time dear diary. Not everyone is honest - are they.
As you might recall too, dear diary, in my posts during the federal election last summer I often mentioned that we were experiencing security breaches that were directly related to access to elector and worker information. In the very last week, for example, we discovered and duly reported that the transfer voting certificates locked up in the cabinet behind my desk had gone missing. Two of my staff had seen them not long before the discovery of the theft, hidden as they were under the documents that they were using to carry out their jobs. Those packages alone could have been translated into 100 extra votes. Those certificates didn't show up in my riding - because I retain carbon copies of all the ones signed and issued under my hand only - as per the legislation - and they are compared to the paperwork submitted from the election day balloting during the "validation of the vote" carried out within 48 hours of that election. However, when I went to vote in the Provincial election and declined one of my ballots, the DRO managing the ballots had no idea what to do when I did so. I had to explain the legislation for Provincial elections to her and show her where to find the information even though I have no authority other than a voter during such events. I then had to stand and watch her to make certainshe was going to follow through on how that ballot was dealt with - it has to have "Declined" written on it and then put in a special envelope. She seemed reluctant to do that. If a cheater knew which DROs were weak and which electoral districts applied less scrutiny it wouldn't be difficult to use those stolen certificates to tip the balance - especially in very close races or in ones where the appearance of a resounding victory was deemed imperative. I guess you can see why the email last night rattled my cage. It would have been nice if we had been told and shown the packages beforehand and maybe even consulted about how to approach the problem.
Speaking of secure and confidential government databases, the woman I ride to work has access to those and as I mentioned before she has given me to understand that she trolls them for her own personal amusement and to use against people like her supervisor when she is angry with them. This morning she asked me a very pointed question about information that one of my extended family filed last month in one of the most protected of those databases. Not even the same family name but she knew and seemed to be fishing for confirmation and further details both. It was obvious by her daughter's behaviour that she had already been told what her mom knew. Funny thing is that those papers were filed about a week beore this woman first initiated the contact that led to our now riding together. As I've noted before, I can't discount the kindness and support she has shown me on a couple of occasions when I really needed it, but I've also received gossip back from other people in our community that made it very clear she also spun tales that weren't true based on the knowledge she had of what was going on at times in my family life in ways that could hav been credible if the listener didn't have the actual facts. Three of my sons, when I rode with her a few years back, all approached me individually and asked that I say absolutely nthing to her about them, no matter how innocuous, because their friends were alo repeating stories they had heard that could only be traced back to her. So you see my dilemma dear diary.
Work was fine until the weekly meeting - head down push to complete my data entry targets for myself. Got into the weekly meeting and thought that the ghost of the head of Elections canada must have possessed my supervisor for the second week running. I still need to digest som of what went on but it boils down to the fact that he didn't read or listen to any of the information I had supplied him with for the past few weeks, hadn't done any research on any of the pressing issues I had raised but wouldn't let me explain them either. In fact it appeared that he and the liaison had already made plans together about the next phase of work without any reference to the actual information gathered. It also appeared that he had made commitments to tasks on my behalf that weren't physically possible. "I want x information in this format and I want it now" when it isn't there to produce either because I still haven't documented that data or because it doesn't exist on the condition the liaison has been led to believe it does either by her staff or by my supervisor/co-worker. The meeting became a series of personal put downs each time I tried to explain what was really in the records. After the formal meeting ended I looked at my superviosr and co-worker and indicated that we needed to meet immediately. I think the look on my face must have been prrty intense because they actually waited instead of running off together as has been the case in the past. The upshot was a directive to provide the co-worker with one spreadsheet out of four - the one I was just finishing up that morning and another to provide the liaison with a plan of attack for the next phase of the work - one that can work and produce real time results. My supervisor did apologize for one verbal shot he took at me last meeting but it was one of the less egregious of them. The apologies I am waitng for are the ones about ignoring or misrepresenting what I reported to him and not responding to all the times I have asked for direction or help then punishing me for it in one way or another. I also want him to either incorporate the statistical and due diligence information into what he reports to our liaison as it exists or I want him to quit giving me gag orders so that I can explain what is there. One can't build a house if the foundations are made of sand. That's where the current direction leads. I also explained that I needed to get to the optometrist by the end of the work day - that trying to spend more than 8 hours a day working on a computer when one can't see - remember my contacts were broken one day at the office two weeks ago - is really taking a toll on me. The optometrists office is only open during business hours on weekdays so even though the contacts were ready by last Thursday I haven't had an opportunity to get over there to pick them up. could I do the two spreadsheets then leave early so I can get there before his office closes. " Sure go now if you want". I didn't but the co-worker had his data beore lunch and the other spreadsheet and accompanying text went off to the liaison just after 3:30 pm. I had already had a chiropractor appointment booked for the noon hour and I needed to see him since a couple of joints in my spine were locked - probably from straining to see the computer screen - that delayed me a bit. Emailed those off then called the woman from my community - would she mind if I hitched a ride back in to the community - she leaves erlier in the day than me - so I could get to the optometrist's in time. That was fine with her. On the way home heard about her sons adventure with a stripper - he's 18 and the other sons' adventures of a similar nature too. Who needs tv or novels eh?
Noticed a call from my supervisor registered on the cell phone's call display about the time I was paying for my contacts when I got home. Tried to call him back but there was no response. I hope it isn't more of the same type of trouble this time arising from either of the spreadsheets. He said he would be by to meet with my co-worker and me tomorrow to plan the next steps in the process but I'm hoping he will actually look at what is there instead of insisting on what the liaison seems to want to hear whether it is truthful or not. when I asked him pont blank if he expected me to lie to her or promise things we can't deliver he said no - I hope he sticks with that. Next call I missed was from one of the agencies I interviewed with just before I started this assignment. They have a possible assignment for me now - am I interested if it is a match? Darn right. At this point I can only hope it's a match. I think I need to move on - don't you dear diary?
And that has been my day dear diary.
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