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01:52 - 08.01.06
10,000 Miles
Yesterday morning I took one look at my assistant's face as I stepped into her van and then started backing away from the vehicle. "What's wrong?" was my query as I was careful to keep my distance. She had one of those "if looks could kill" on her face and I wasn't about to learn the hard way why. Turned out someone had smashed three of her main floor windows about 2 in the am. Her youngest son had been in the room where it happened and saw someone in a hoodie carrying a hockey stick running away from the site when their alarm went off. She said it took until about 4:30 am for the police to do their thing and for the family to settle down. She obviously was extremely sleep deprived. I told her to go back home especially since her youngest had been really upset by the incident. Nope, no way. Well fine then. I talked about the breakin and vandalism I had experienced during the 2000 election and the effect it had had on me and my sons since. I hadn't really been afraid of much before that in my community but the invasion of one's personal space really can change that sense of security one has when one's own home doesn't even feel safe anymore. She said she was just really angry and wanted to get her hands on the teens or young adults who had done it. She felt they must be someone one of her sons knew and was in a dispute with. At that point I really didn't want to know much more but it seems that there has been on going conflict between her sons and their friends and another group of teens for a very long time based on her comments. Oi.

Got to work and started up for the day still trying to get her to go home. Our regular receptionist was late which is very unusual. My assistant called her to see if everything was ok half an hour into the morning. She arrived not long after full of apologies and carrying doughnuts as a peace offering. We seem to be receiving a box of those Tim Horton treats daily. It is beginning to be a real threat to any weight loss scheme devised for that after Christmas resolution period. I'm finding that I feel nauseous a lot so I have some protection from temptation. Some of that is probably related to all the nonelection issues we've dealt with such as the breakin and the problems that brought the database specialist out our way this week. It appears that the team from the other returning office whocame for a visit were reprimanded for doing so. Pretty sad when wanting to dothe best one can is seen as an offense against the organization. Apparently there were stories on the CBC news about the problems with the lists having deceased electors and non-Canadians re-added from when they were removed last election. One US citizen in Halifax 9east coast) was interviewed as part of the story. She said she was a Kerry supporter - not on our ballots I'm afraid.

We had the second dress rehearsal for the election night running from about 10:30 to 6 pm so a lot of the work I wanted to do wasn't possible since I had to stay off specific software for that time. It was obvious the people participating in the test were having a great time and that elevated the mood in the office too. Tried to concentrate on the tasks that would allow us to produce the second version of the electors list on Sunday but personnl and procedural issues kept demanding my attention. All part of the job but frustrating all the same. Finally grabbed the binder full of registration forms of people who who have already voted by special ballot so that they can be struck from the list before Advance Poll voting begins next weekend. If they aren't noted as voting before that second list is prepared then there is no way to prevent them from getting a second ballot for themselves you see. Stopped a couple of times to swear in more classes of polling day workers after doing the lecture on the importance oftheir completing their paperwork properly. Every document they work on during that day is a legal document so the regulations are very stringent when it comes to the quality of work that is expected from them. It is no longer just the simple process of recording a name and folding a ballot for each elector. Everything is now done in triplicate don't you know. Literacy, customer service, and numeracy skills have to be demonstrated clearly in training or we can't hire them. Different world now days. Sent in my statutory notices for approval and worked with different staff on their tasks. Moving forward.

Today the focus was entirely on the problems with the database in conjunction with continuing to strike those voter from the list who have already voted. Kept trying to shut my door with little success. The staff were in a more upbeat frame of mind so that helped a bit. My assistant's windows had been replaced and her son seemed to be settling down since his Dad had remained home with him the day before and today. Then came word her oldest son had been injured in a hockey game one province away. Possibility of surgery if the arm was badly damaged. Could she go and stay with him if that was the case. Of course, there was no question of that but it still seemed a bit overwhelming in terms of how to staff in the interim. If there was enough warning of her departure time, scheduling wouldn't be a problem but it was the unknown that was the issue. The second person I have been having difficulty with in terms of behaviour suddenly became an asset when I asked her to employ her previous career skills in service of the two or three staff members who are experiencing personal crises. She went off thrilled with her new commission and I was pleased that some nurturing that I can't do was still possible anyway. When you have lemons make lemonade I guess. Or as it was written in my favorite astrologer's blog the other day, "dum spiro spero". While I breathe there is hope. (I think the correct phrase is actually "dum respiro, espero" but there is only so much space for a tattoo - right?

My assistant, my finance office, my special ballot co-ordinaotr and our community relations officers had all stepped out to go to Hooters to take photos of our posters on their walls so that we could show headquarters that we were reaching out to young adults in their native habitats. The special ballot co-ordinator was the only male and he looked as though he didn't mind at all being photographed with the wait staff. Morale building and they get paid for it too.

While they were gone, there was a rash of electors lining up for their turn to vote, so I looked after them. One fellow off to Pakistan to help with the earthquake relief efforts there. One couple celebrating their 50th anniversary off to Hawaii. More interesting or happy stories each time I saw someone else through the process. That was the highlight of my afternoon.

My tech and I spent a lot of time off and on through the day working together on the database issues and discussing strategies for managing the problems that were intractible. For example, the one critical piece of software appears to have had a total meltdown and we field offices are completely locked out of it. That was confirmed by him when he talked with his counterparts at headquarters. The fact that part of my pay depends on that working properly doesn't seem to be an issue - I'll still be fined even though there is absolutely nothing I can do to influence the outcome. At this point, it means my pay will be less than my Asisstant and a couple of the full time supervisors even though their responsibilities end at their daily tasks. Real kick in the teeth that seems to get worse each election. We are always assured that those problems will be documented, thus removing the reason for the fines, but that certainly wasn't the case last time. Funny how those records just disappear right after an event isn't it?

Near the end of the afternoon, as I was working on the striking exercise, an odd error message arose for one voter. The address given does not exist and the range is not recognized by the database either. Now that address and street have existed for at least two elections and I know that electors from there have voted before. Just to be certain I went and checked the City of Calgary's property base maps that I have hanging on the walls, liberally annotated by my staff and me, of course. Sure enough that street was there in all it's glory and the house number attached to the elector existed too. My tech was working at the other end of the office, so I called him to come see what was on the screen. Oh ho! I had been explaining to him for the past year and it had been documented in those email reports I had sent in 2002, that there was a huge disparity in the number of electors coded on the geographic list as compared to the number of electors on the alphabetic list. In the geographic list no elector shows up unless the street is in the database of course. That is a table in the software's coding. If the links are lost or corrupted then the names are dropped. In the alphabetic list the elector names are tied to the polling division number and so will appear even if the street link is damaged. I mentioned earlier that I couldn't account for over 9000 adults between the April 2005 city census and my list early on in this event. That was how many were missing then. In the previous election it was 8000 and the one before 7000. Hmmm. That is why my door to door registration staff are so critical to my work. Without them the line ups on voting day with people who legitimately have the right to expect to find themselves already on the list would be enormous and my polling day staff receive the brunt of the anger that is generated by the inconvenience caused. My tech hadn't seen that manifestation before and he was openly sceptical of my comments about what had been occurring, because I hadn't been able to reproduce the same phenomenon for him up until now. In all honesty I should have designated the striking of the electors to one of the data entry staff but my instincts told me it was critical that I do it myself. Didn't know why but I rationalized that choice by noting that it was mechanical work and that I needed a day of that so I could process the events of the past few days while I worked. Guess I chose corectly after all. That discovery meant that we stayed later than closing time but our trainer had a late class of Advance Poll workers and the data entry staff were busy trying to get all the data added that was possible before reproducing that next version of the list tomorrow so the timing was perfect too. Seems my instincts are much smarter than my head these days. I need to remember that. Anyway time for bed. Normally we don't open before noon on Sundays but that one discovery means that we have to be in ealry to try and address that new wrinkle before we go toprint. Good night dear diary.

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