Canadian Election: Carleton riding election officer shares their experience

With the Federal election nearing, I felt an unusual urgency to somehow get involved this time. I think the threat to our sovereignty has had a mobilizing factor that's played out in many ways, including a record turnout for early voting in my riding.

I found my way to Elections Canada online and applied for a variety of roles for Election Day. I was called to go in for training to be a Deputy Returning Officer. I learned so much about the electoral process in that 3 hour session and came away with the impression that the government has gone to extreme lengths to make voting for Canadians fair and as easy as possible.

I learned that I would be responsible for the ballots at my polling station, or desk, and that only I could count them at the end of the night. I was pretty excited to do such an official act as opening and counting votes.  When the polls closed, the time came to open them up and read them out. When I say open them up, I mean the longest ballot you've ever seen. At over 3 feet long and with 92 names, unfolding and looking for the candidate took longer than a normal ballot and required a lot of space.

I had an observer at all times who would double check the name that was voted for. I also had representatives from the Conservative and Liberal parties looking over my shoulders as I read out the winners. It is their right to oversee things and I think that's great. They could check my numbers, which they did and all was well. 

My polling station was in a rural town in the riding of Carleton, the riding that Pierre Poilievre lost. It is also the riding that had the highest turnout in the country. Despite the overwhelming population of blue collar workers, farmers and tradespeople, the Liberal candidate, Bruce Fanjoy, beat the leader of the Conservatives, Pierre by dozens of votes at my table alone. 

I counted and recounted several times to be absolutely sure of an accurate vote. Two of the young women observing my count noted how hard the voting circles were coloured in for Poilievre. They commented on how they noticed a pattern in how hard the pen was used to vote Conservative and wondered out loud about might motivate that intensity. The count went until 12:45am. 

Some other random observations from working this historic election in the Carleton riding:

• Voters often reacted to the length of the ballot with disdain, saying, "what a waste of paper"
• Several voters wanted a place to complain about the long ballot
• Some voters brought pens only to be surprised that Elections Canada provides pens and pencils to fill out ballots
• Early voting was so successful that 60% of the voters in my binder had already voted

In conclusion, I am really satisfied to have taken a bigger role in a very historic election. I think if the Canadians who are skeptical of the electoral process got behind the scenes too, they would have more confidence in the results.