The Special Thing About Special Ballots

I thought I would write one more thing down about the election. It was going to be in this other elections post, but as a question. Now I have the answer, so I thought I would post it in case others were wondering too.

I was talking to a friend who had to vote early at the returning office, and she asked me “How are you going to handle this ballot?” I said I would get the poll worker to set up the stupid template thing with the holes and tell me who’s no. 1, 2, and so on, and then make a mark in the appropriate box. Then she said “But no, the ballots are different this year. You have to write the candidate’s name on the ballot.” Then I was super worried. Had they had so little time to prepare that they hadn’t made ballots where you make your little x? Were we scrambling that much?

Thankfully, that was not the case. It turns out that since she had voted at the returning office, she had voted by special ballot. I always thought you could use a normal ballot even if you voted at the returning office, but I guess not, at least not this year. These ballots are weird because they could be filled out potentially before all candidates are confirmed if the person wanting to vote is an uber keener. So they expect you to find your list of candidates, and then write down the name of the one you want to vote for on the ballot…which I could definitely not do.

So, if you thought maybe you’d have better luck voting at the returning office because there wouldn’t be heaps of humanity all crammed in there, if you’re a blind guy who doesn’t know how to write stuff with a pen, you might end up with a different problem. And now I know more about special ballots.

Necessary Voting In Unnecessary Elections

So we’re voting again. I’m not looking forward to dealing with this right now, but I don’t really have a choice so off we go. I thought I’d post what answers I could find about the process, and ask a few questions of my own.

First of all, if you’re wondering if your vaccine status will affect your ability to vote in person, the answer is no.

Elections Canada says it won’t require voters to be vaccinated or to show proof of vaccination in order to vote in the 2021 federal election. 
The B.C. government’s website explicitly states its vaccine card won’t be required to vote. 
A spokesperson for Quebec’s Health Ministry said in an email its vaccine passport is limited to activities deemed non-essential and a high risk for transmission. 
“Polling stations are not part of it,” said communications director Robert Maranda.
In Manitoba, a spokesperson for the provincial vaccine task force said it had advised Elections Canada that vaccine passports won’t be required to access polling stations.
Ontario’s system won’t be in place until after voting day.
In short, you can be unvaccinated and still vote in person at these locations:
• At an advance poll between Sept. 10-13.
• At an Elections Canada office before Sept. 14.
• On the Sept. 20 election day.

If you’re like me and haven’t received your voter card yet and are wondering what to do if it doesn’t show up, this should help. But I guess we should only worry if it’s not here by the 10th.

If you’re wondering where your polling stations are, type your postal code in here.

Now, here are my questions. First, I hope with all the restrictions in place, that poll workers will still help. Since the federal elections never have anything resembling a true accessible voting option, I kind of need the poll worker to read the order of the candidates and line up the template so I can mark my vote in the right spot. And no, bringing a friend or having someone else cast my vote is not an acceptable solution. It sounds like they still are supposed to help, at least that’s the theory. Let’s hope it happens in practice.

And while we’re on the subject of their idea of accessible voting, get a load of this joke of an option at the bottom of the list.

We have reviewed and updated our Accessibility Policy and Service Offering policy. Available in multiple alternative formats, it shows the accessibility services available to polling staff and electors, including:
• Sensitivity training for staff working at the polls
• Sign language interpretation services available upon request in advance
• Tools to help electors vote
• A redesigned ballot that improves readability and optical character recognition (OCR) by screen readers

The first three are fine, and the last one is good as far as making a ballot more readable, but who honestly thinks that anyone would be able to use OCR to read their ballot and then accurately cast it based on the results of that scan? Let me explain.

  • First, I would have to aim the phone at the ballot and hope it got the whole thing.
  • Then, after I got the scan back, I would have to hope that it read it properly.
  • From that, I would have to guess where each choice was written on the ballot and then hope I targeted the right spot to make my mark.
  • and then, since most OCR doesn’t read handwriting, and my mark probably wasn’t anything resembling a letter, I wouldn’t be able to verify that I did it correctly.

Anyone who bought the idea that electors will be using optical character recognition has much, much to learn. At that point, you might as well request assistance from someone with functioning eyes.

I guess I get doubly irritated, because if they just got a damn machine like the municipal and provincial elections have been using for years, they wouldn’t have to lay out a line of bunk to make people feel better about the options that are being offered. Admittedly, the machines need to be more readily available, but at least using the machines feels like a truly independent and accessible voting experience.

Happy voting, everyone.

Le Dinner Debonair


Man, some people really hated this. Me personally? I laughed and I laughed and I laughed and had so much fun. Then again, I’ve never been one to think that wrestling has to always be one thing. Giving a mostly serious presentation doesn’t prevent you from using comedy and vice versa. If the mix is presented well more often than it’s not, it works great and keeps people coming back. The WWF made a bazillion dollars doing that for years back when Vince and company knew what they were doing, and they’re still coasting on that reputation to this day. Even the territories that people like to hold up as being “serious wrestling” have had their moments. Were they as over the top as this? Generally no. But who out cringed who isn’t the point. We shit on the phrase “sports entertainment” a lot, and deservedly so. But there is some accuracy to it. At its heart, wrestling is an entertaining sport. It was that way long before my lifetime and will be that way long after I’m gone. Whether we’re talking about outlandish gimmicks, weird storylines or segments that feel more like a movie or an old school variety show, wrestling is in a unique position that allows them all to coexist with the sports aspects as long as, like I said before, it knows when to be what and how to stitch all of those elements together. The mini musical that broke out in the middle of AEW took nothing away from the first round of the world title tournament, the number one contender match for the tag titles or Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston’s extremely personal promos leading to a match where two old friends are going to beat the life out of each other, perhaps literally. The silliness was contained to one story and involved two extremely talented guys whose characters probably would end up in a douchey song and dance. It was a good example of the something for everyone part of wrestling that I find serious fans tend to forget.

Peas

We haven’t posted many jokes lately, so here’s one. Credit or blame goes to Carin who saw it on Facebook and knew I would laugh.

Q: What’s the difference between black eyed peas and chickpeas?
A: Black Eyed Peas can sing us a tune, but chickpeas can only hummus one.

Whataflasher

Not that any of you need a reason to refrain from exposing yourselves in a Whataburger drive thru, but if you’ve been on the fence about it, perhaps knowing that you won’t be fatally exposed to a great big truck while running away if you don’t might swing your vote.

When the officer arrived, the man took off on foot, running across I-10.
Police say he made it across the westbound lanes, but was hit by an 18-wheeler in the eastbound lanes.
The officer did not pursue the suspect, as HPD policy is to not run across a freeway.

I feel like that’s probably good policy in general.

How Are There Still Gangs After This

You know, if more of the homies from the hood had seen this back in 1992, the world would be a very different place today.

In 1992, the El Paso police department fancied themselves rappers in this cautionary tale about gangbangers. The song’s called “Think Twice” (words & music by Greg Brickey) and it’s pretty awesome. I bet a lot of gang members saw this and were like “Woah, I should stop being a gang member!”

And PS – the lady police officer with the mullet is my new favorite person on the planet.

Here Comes The Ba Da Ba Ba Bride

I have nothing much to say about these people who got married at a local McDonald’s. I’m really only posting this so I can make that title joke.

But since I’m here, come on, CTV. The best you could come up with was “McWedding vows”? Step it up, guys.

Anyway, congratulations to the happy McDoubles.

The fast-food chain offered the micro wedding to two couples who couldn’t get hitched during the pandemic.
The Hammonds say McDonald’s has a special place in their hearts as it’s where they met 14 years ago and where they currently work together.
“It’s where we met, like all of our kids were born while we were working at McDonald’s,” Stephanie said. “I was pregnant with our first and we nicknamed him Little Mac, it’s just a fun little nickname. And yeah, by the time we came out of the hospital that was the first thing we grabbed … McDonald’s is always a go-to.”

Did You Say We Needed Honey?

Once again, Steve sent me a story about bees that made me squirm.

It appears a guy went grocery shopping, but when he came back to his car, the back seat was full of bees, and I do mean full. There were 15000 bees in the car who had just started to swarm.

What amazes me is he managed to get in and start to drive before he realized that he was not alone and asked for help. How? Did they all go quiet for just long enough for him to get himself in?

I remember when one bee flew into our car and somehow flew under my seated butt when I was super small. Suddenly, I was upside down in my seat belt and my mom wondered what was wrong with me, and then saw the bee. I can’t imagine sharing a car with 15000 of them.

Luckily for him, there was an off-duty firefighter who is a beekeeper too, so he came and wrangled all the bees with minimal upset.

That’s…a lot of bees!

1-800-Got Nightmares

There’s this commercial that comes on for 1-800-Got Junk that says something about “Call 1-800-Got Junk. We’ll be there before you hang up the phone.” If I could link to it, I would, but it’s not anywhere I can find. Every time I see it, I can’t help but think of the bit called “No Anchovies please.”

Does anybody else think that? Anybody? No? Just me?

Also, it says “When a clean, shiny truck pulls up in front of your house, things are about to get happy.” Are we sure? I hope it came from the junk people.