I Tried!

I don't remember the first time I opted to vote by mail, but my guess is that it was around Covid lockdown times so I'll just stick to that as an origin story, but I have voted by mail for the last few elections.  For me it one hundred percent beats waiting in line to vote, even if waiting in line always filled me with a certain warm fuzzy feeling that we were all being civically responsible and involved!

So we have (had) our civic (local/municipal) elections this month (last weekend) and I requested a mail in ballot the day you could.  And then a provincial election was ALSO called and I did the same... requested a mail in ballot as soon as I was able to.

And for the first time of all the times I have voted by mail, the ballots didn't arrive.

I started to get nervous about the local election ballot a couple of weeks ago. So did my neighbour and friend who had requested a mail ballot.  And then just about a week before election day someone online mentioned that they had been told there was an issue with the mail.  It wasn't going to arrive in time.  BUT it might arrive in time but you couldn't mail it back, it was too late for that, you'd have to deliver your mail in ballot instead of putting it back in the mail.  (Which yes defeats the whole purpose.)

I got... really worried.  Voting is important to me.  It's a privilege not everyone has had or didn't have until not all that long ago. I don't take it for granted.  I think it matters.  But what if I wasn't going to have my vote counted!

And then it came to the news.  (The day after I heard about it online.)  Canada Post and the municipality both pointing fingers at the other but a few thousand of us caught in the middle of whatever did or didn't happen.

So I read through my options and luckily was able to go vote in advance, which I did, and it was a beautiful day for the walk to the polling place and I was in there for about 20 minutes total which isn't all that bad all things considered.  And so that was a relief.  

And then I realized my provincial mail in ballot also wasn't here yet.  And that it was cutting it too close to be able to safely mail THAT back in time to be counted even if it arrived "soon".

So I saw that provincial advance voting had started and that there was a spot not too far from my place so I went and explained my situation and no one was bothered and I was able to vote provincially as well so on Friday of last week I had both of my votes done, in person and that was a huge relief.

Friday afternoon my local ballot arrived, which TECHNICALLY is in time but I'd still have had to hand deliver it to a polling station on voting day (Saturday) so not the "in time" that it's supposed to be.

And my Provincial one still hasn't arrive and for sure not in time to be mailed back so I'd have had to hand deliver that one to a polling station this Saturday too so I'm glad I voted in person in advance and my shredder will be dealing with the "too late to use" ballots.  

I read about a woman in a municipality nearby who isn't going to GET to vote because her municipality says that you can't change your mind and "too bad" her ballot didn't arrive in time (even though her husband's did) and that's wild to me.  It's also what I was legit worried about.

So I'm glad I got to vote.  I'm bummed I didn't have the easy "mail in vote" experiences of the past and I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to choose to do next time.  (I still don't love waiting in line, even when they do their best to be well staffed and relatively quick.)

But yeah, I tired to make voting easy on myself again and this time I got a very much not easy on me stressful go of it. But I did get to vote and got my votes in and that's the result I was hoping for anyway.  But yeah.... Voting.  A little less smooth than I'd have liked this round.  Yikes.