I worked for Elections Canada on Monday the 23rd. I arrived at the EC office at 8:30 am, and after about 90 minutes of waiting, my role as a standby DRO/Poll clerk quickly switched and I was sent out as an Information Officer to a public school gymnasium about a kilometer from my house. I quickly shot over and reported for duty to the supervisor at a 10 poll congregation surrounding the gymnasium.
My duty was, basically, to greet voters, guide them to the correct polling station or to the Registration Officer, a really nice lady named Barbara who managed her duty with such great diligence, that you would not have known it was her first election worked. It was great of her husband to make a couple of Tim Horton’s runs for us all. He was off duty until doing his DRO duties of counting ballots for the advance poll he managed.
I quickly let my salesmanship show through as I got comfortable and directed the voters with ease. I had to hold up a couple of voters due to the lineups being long enough to hinder other voters from making their way to a poll further into the gym. But they were very understanding and one of the DROs told me later that I did a wonderful job keeping the people in the right line ups. I give much of that credit to the intelligence of the voters themselves.
I had little time to eat the piles of food I brought with me. But I had to be prepared for a trek out to a single poll with an unknown access to food/drink.
I had a wonderful time teasing children who were holding their parents registration cards, telling them that I hope they had identification. One 4 or 5 year old said she wasn’t voting, and when her mom asked her why not? She answered in a loud giggly voice, “Because I’m too little!” Needless to say, it was one of the highlights of my day.
I also found my DRO training to be highly effective, as I faced several odd situations which I will be sending a recommendation to EC on. These included out of riding voters and numerous registration issues which Barbara handled great. I also jumped in and started helping her out a bit with finding the correct poll for those who didn’t need to re-register, but needed to know which poll to head to.
At the end of the day, I witnessed one of the poll counts, and then took a half dozen sealed, counted, ballot boxes back to the central returning station before heading off to the campaign office/celebration party of my Conservative M.P. Gordon O’Connor. I congratulated Gordon, and spent some time milling about talking to some of the other supporters I know and watched both Martin and Layton speak on the big screen. After that I was quite bagged and rolled into my driveway well after 1 a.m.
All in all, it felt great to do some civic duty, and even if they had not paid me for it, I was quite content to help out and enjoyed my long day thoroughly. I highly urge anyone and everyone to sign up at some time and do their civic duty of helping out at some time in their lives. The experience of seeing it work beyond walking in, voting, and leaving was very educational and fulfilling.