Belonging and the ballot

It’s election day in Canada!

Somewhat sadly, I’ll miss out on actually going to the polls as I mailed my ballot from Denmark a while ago. Assuming PostNord and Canada Post have done their work, my vote is in Ottawa, where it will be counted alongside ones from other international electors, those serving in the military, and people voting from outside their electoral districts (all of whom submit what are known as ‘special ballots’).

As with all other vote tallying, special ballots are counted by hand by at least two election officials with party representatives present. I’ve heard chatter on social media about how special (or absentee) ballots are falsified or miscounted and Elections Canada directly tackles this misinformation in their ElectoFacts. It’s not the catchiest name for a website, but it does go into depth about how federal elections are run and the safeguards that protect them.

I take voting seriously and view it as important in a democratic society — and I know it can be culturally uniting. When we lived in BC and Alberta, I worked several federal and provincial elections (see my 2013 post about BC provincial election) and there’s a buzz that happens when school gyms, community centres, and other spaces transform into voting places. Neighbours chat while standing in line. Old acquaintances catch up. Strangers realise they live next to each other.

Thanks to our Commonwealth-country passports, we were able to vote when we lived in the UK. The first time I cast a UK ballot, I befuddled the voting staff with my enthusiasm. I peppered poll workers, party observers, and other voters with questions about process and comments about how things are different or the same from Canadian elections. I found the process to be much the same, although ballots are counted at a central location in each riding rather than at the polling stations themselves, which makes for strange TV coverage of poll workers sprinting out of polling stations with sealed ballot boxes hoping to be the first district to start the count. There’s also a lot of pride in being the first district to report. The UK doesn’t distribute ‘I voted’ stickers, but they do have an awesome tradition of dogs at polling stations.

I wrote about feeling culturally adrift in my Tur-retur column for Last Week in Denmark — and participating in elections is a component for me being rooted and having a sense of belonging. It will take another four years for me to be eligible to vote in local and regional elections in Denmark (and I’ll have to have full Danish citizenship to vote federally); in the meantime, I’m proud to keep this connection with Canada, even though it’s at a distance.