22:56 - 13.01.06
ups and ups
Yesterday was ok, dear diary. I opened my email first thing and found a memo acknowledging that a small number of residents across the country had been knowingly placed on the list even though they were not Canadian citizens. Uh huh. A Few? Removed the names of those people as they were supplied to us. Doesn't account for the rest. Was working on updating my anomaly spreadsheet, when a call came in from Ottawa. Problems with the special ballots - they don't balance. Printed off a Statement of Changes and verified the number against the Statement of Special Ballot Voters. They were identical. Next up, went through the voter register elector by elector. We found about a dozen names that had been missed out of nearly six hundred. Not the best performance, but a 2% error rate isn't all that bad is it? That one exercise took up 8 full hours of work from myself and my assistant tech. Checking and cross checking. There were a few notations that required further follow up as well - incorrect addresses for example. Shouldn't happen. As a result I missed the visit with the disabled voters that had been scheduled that night. My trainer and my second in command went instead and seemed to have had a great time. Where else could you find a group having a pizza party to celebrate the fact that they were going to be given the support they needed to actually vote themselves. Normally all we ever hear are complaints about the inconvenience of the process. We do the best we can. This endeavour was solid reinforcement for the two staff I think, and they were still chuckling about it today. The flyers for the hospital voting were delivered and the ballots we need arrived on site too. Just in time for advance polls.
Those started today so we began the morning doing the final preparations for the event. The lists had been split the evening before and the offices used as polling stations had been converted from their regular use as recruiting offices. The recruiting staff were relocated to the big workroom that had been used by the team working going door to door to register electors. Our advance polls are all held in our offices, because it was a regular practice of political parties to bring in busloads of supporters to overwhelm the two workers assigned to a single poll, often with the result that it was impossible for them to do due diligence with some of their statutory procedures. At least if they are held together we can offer protection and crowd control, as well as support when questions arise. The hallway was taped so that it resembled a public pathway downtown or a two lane roadway. Numbers of each polling station were created and handed out to voters so that they could attend their polling stations one by one. On the floor yellow arrows were taped to show the path to each polling station. Almost looked like those dance step diagrams one sees at schools. It helped the advance poll workers too in that our revising agents could continue their work of registering voters instead of creating long line ups while each non registered voter was put through the process of providing acceptable identification and being sworn in. In one of the other electoral districts where the polling station was on it's own, there was a line up of 150 people at the church hall it was located in waiting for the registration of their neighbours. At least they had a church choir practice to keep them entertained. I split my time between continuing the paperwork necessary to track my budget, expand the voter anomaly spreadsheet, the assessment and placement of polling day staff, the last analysis of the special ballot lists and supervising the advance polls. The voting was steady all day, but most people seemed to be content with the process. Our polling day staff were all really good this time and seemed to want to enjoy the experience. One person received news of a family crisis about an hour in, but chose to remain on site rather than going to the hospital. I gave her my cell phone number and told her to call me any time day or night if she changed her mind during the three day event. I also had one of the office staff brush up on the manual, so that she could step in at a moments' notice should the other woman need to leave. We have another trained person ready, but it never hurts to hedge one's bets right? Our three young technical wizards changed gear and became the greeters and security/crowd controllers much to their amusement and delight. One of the polling day staff is a retired RCMP officer and he brought his handcuffs - real ones. I offered to bring him one of the warrants for arrest from the regular polling day staffs' kits just so he could be prepared in case of a take down, but he declined with a great deal of laughter. Good thing. The only negative event was a woman who had brought in a physically disabled family member to vote. She was loudly complaining about the lack of handicap accessibility even though the floor we are located on was once the headquarters of the multiple sclereosis society overa four year period. They had regular meeting of their clients on this floor. The elevator is big enough, by building code standards, for one regular wheelchair and there are curb cuts all around the building to allow free movement around the exterior of the building. It seemed this woman had been set off because all the handicapped parking was taken. I agree that that is frustrating, but the amount set aside is what is required by law and what the building owner chose to provide. For all she knew, it could have been any one of a number of people walking with canes and voting along with her family member who had parked there. Not much we can do to control when people arrive to vote. She ranted for quite some time about the elevators too. "sometimes they don't work" How did you get up here? "We used the elevators" Then what is the problem? "Well sometimes they don't work". Turns out she once worked for the society, so it is surprising that she would claim she was unprepared for the extra time necessary to allow a person moving slowly and gingerly, because of their illness, to navigate the distance. Given the instability of the gentleman's gait, I suspect he likely had a wheel chair that would have made his journey to our office much easier. "It's not fair" seemed to be the burden of her complaint. She is correct in that it is never fair when someone you love is hit with a sudden disability that impairs their opportunity to take advantage freely of every aspect of life. Advocacy is a good thing and I highly recommend fighting for a level playing field. However, going back to her complaints about the space we have, I don't believe we could do much more for the gentleman. He seemed to be quite content with the fact he had cast his ballot. He made his way back to the elevator - slowly with his walker. I had to squeeze past a group of four of his family/friends huddled in the middle of the hallway blocking traffic in both directions. I needed to attend the end of the training session for the registration officers and could barely make it by. That group followed me to the elevators and seemed disposed to try and disrupt that class with their complaints as well. I chose to shut the door to the training room so that no further disruptions of the conduct of the electoral process would occur. They stod outside for several miutes holding that elevator, while loudly voicing their disgust with our choice of venue. I'd like perfect too.
�
�
