Municipal elections in Alberta today. Holy crap, what a mess. Some polling stations don't have wi-fi so they're still using the binder-and-ruler method of looking people up on the voters' list.
Social media (I belong to a group that's anti-UCP) is ballistic about a form that some people had to fill out even though they were already on the voters' list. I had to fill it out because I don't have any of the required photo IDs (even though I'm on the list). What annoys some people is that everything was fine until it came to the school board ballot. We have two systems here, public and Catholic. People normally vote for whichever system they've directed the education portion of their property tax toward. So you can vote one or the other, or decline both. You can't vote for both.
I can't believe that after 40 years since I was a DRO in the 1980s, there are STILL people who don't understand this. It's not rocket science. I get why some people were freaking out about signing a form they shouldn't have had to (if they were already on the voters' list AND had photo ID). But the form itself doesn't ask anything especially sinister - just to verify the voter's name, address, age, a declaration of eligibility and that they haven't voted before in this election, plus the specific ballots they asked for.
Either the DRO manual is clear as mud, or the training wasn't very good. The DRO (Deputy Returning Officer) I had to deal with didn't understand the concept of voters who don't have photo ID. I provided two perfectly acceptable ones with my name and address and he still had to call his supervisor and ask.
Whereupon she looked at me and asked, "Have you ever had a drivers' license?"
That is so none of her fucking business. It's an absolutely unacceptable question to ask. And then the DRO decided to make a comment about the amount I get as my monthly disability benefit: "You're rich! You have a lot of money!"
I guess the training didn't mention that they weren't supposed to make personal remarks to the voters. Actually, I still have one of my old training manuals, and they just assumed that we were grown-ups and civil enough that we didn't have to be told.
Somehow one of the council candidates blocked me on FB. I have no idea why, since we might have spoken once, 45 years ago, in high school and I haven't had any reason to speak to him since (either in person or online).
