I voted in my very first municipal election today, here in Burnaby.  I wasn’t on the list of electors since I had registered for the federal election after the municipal list had already been created. No worries. They let me register when I went up there to vote.  I was up last night researching all the candidates for mayor, city councillor and school trustees. I hadn’t heard of any of them, nor did I really know what any of them did, so I called the election office yesterday to get a better idea about what they’re responsible for.  I spent several hours going through the profiles of each candidate, what party they’re affiliated with (if any) and making notes about things that stood out in each of their profiles and positions on various things. I figured that since I actually live in the city in which I’m voting for people who will directly affect the way things are around here, I might as well make informed choices. I felt very proud and like a model citizen. :-p

I met a lady walking down the sidewalk when I was heading to the school where we had to go to vote. I asked her how the people who are in now have been doing and she said, "I’m just voting for all white women!  My kids say ‘Mom, you’re so racist!’ and I told them, yeah, well they are, too!" LOL  Good lord.  Worse yet, I think she was pretty much right. I think a lot of people are biased towards people who look like them and against those who do not. It’s sad, but still a reality, as is obvious in a lot of places – not just the Southeastern US.

When I went in to register, the people at the table were nice and I was telling them I’m from Louisiana and that always seems to pique people’s interest somehow. If you want to seem more interesting to people, move to the opposite end of the country or to another country! haha

I brought my camera in with me and snapped some photos of the ballot and the little cardboard thing they had set up to give people privacy when voting. This ballot was a little more interesting to capture than the single candidate ballot I cast in the federal election. It had those arrows that you draw a line between the two ends of the arrow to fill it in and make it a whole arrow. It’s hard to describe. I’d never seen one before, other than the photos Frank took of his presidential ballot, since they had the same type as the one I had today.  When finished making selections, I went over to a guy who was manning a machine where you feed the ballot in and it counts the votes and prints the info on a roll of paper, much like a cash register receipt. He said those rolls are taken to city hall when voting is finished and results fed into the computers to get final results. Very different from the old mechanical lever machines we used in Louisiana when I lived there.
 

We were supposed to vote for 1 candidate for mayor, 8 for city councillor and 7 for school trustee. They stressed several times that you could vote for fewer candidates than the max number but not more. In looking at the returns, it’s amazing how many people UNDER-voted – meaning, they didn’t vote for the full number of seats to be filled. Seems weird to me.

According to all 37 polls’ returns, my choice (incumbent) for mayor wins by an overwhelming majority, 4 of my 7 trustee choices were elected (only two of whom were incumbents) and only 3 of my choices for councillor were elected. Crazy that the whole election was swept by candidates of the same party. Not one person from another party or anyone not running under a party got in – not a single one. Scary!

Got this quick snapshot of a makeshift sign taped to the outside of the building. Found it somehow charming.  I think it would make a cool t-shirt decal. Maybe I’ll have to do something about that…