As a result of my younger brother evidently staying with his girlfriend Bev last evening and spending the night at her home, I never had to get to bed too early as a measure to avoid him if he arrived home after his 8:30 p.m. deadline. Instead, my bedtime was around 10:45 p.m.
As usual, I never slept especially well; and finding myself awake enough to be checking the time at some point well past 1 a.m., I reluctantly rose to come here to my computer to deal with a few tasks.
I wanted to get out in the early morning and advance-vote in the current provincial election. The advance polling stations open at 8 a.m.
The sole advance polling station listed on my voter's card is about 2¼ miles from my home, yet I have read in at least a couple of different places that people are able to vote in any electoral district's polling stations, and are not restricted to doing so in their own electoral district.
Thus, if that was true, then the nearest advance polling station would only be about three blocks from home.
But I was somewhat suspicious, because each electoral district has always had voting ballots with the names of candidates that are of course specific only to that district. So if I happened to live in the far north of the province but was down here on a visit and wanted to vote, how likely would it be that any advance polling station I might stroll into around here would have the ballot I needed?
Because of this uncertainty, I felt that I ought not to risk the local short walk, but instead tackle the very much longer hike. And that was going to require some further bed rest.
So around 5:15 a.m. I was back in bed with my cellphone's alarm set for 6:15 a.m. It seemed to me that if I left here at 7 a.m. or soon after, I would be able to arrive at the distant location around its opening time. It was raining, by the way.
Well, when my alarm sounded at 6:15 a.m., I was extremely overcome with the need for sleep. It has been a long while since I have felt in such a wretched state. And so it was that I was only able to just lay there for another 15 minutes, half-decided that I would not go.
But in the end, I did rally and went downstairs to boil water for a cup of hot instant black coffee.
Nevertheless, I was to dally here at my computer with one thing or another until it became obvious that I would never be able to arrive at the distant voting location anywhere near its opening time.
I was going to have to try the voting station three blocks from here, and hope for the best. By this time, the rain was extremely light.
When I got to the location, I was to find that I was the only voter in the place, and I felt quite conspicuous. However, the young face-masked woman who received me at the door examined my voter's card and my ID, and seemed to have no problem with the fact that I came from the neighbouring electoral district ─ this was not even mentioned.
She had me extend my hands so she could squirt a dab of disinfectant on one of them for me to massage between my palms, and then sent me off to one of the stations that were set up.
All of the personnel in the place were wearing face masks, and each person manning a voting station did so from behind a glass or plexiglass shield or window. My station was manned by a young fellow whom I often could not understand ─ his face mask and the transparent shield on his desk profoundly muffled his voice. There were times when I was unable to understand even one word in an entire sentence.
But I finally did figure out the voting process. I was given a ballot with a blank space at the bottom where I was to enter my chosen candidate's name ─ I have never before had to do that.
What concerns me about this process is just how forgiving the people will be who tabulate such ballots. For example, if I was told that I had to print my candidate's name and not write it, I never heard it said ─ I simply chose to do so, for it seemed most likely to be what was expected.
However, what of people with atrocious handwriting who are barely above making scribbles at best?
And did it matter if a candidate's name was entered by first and then last name, instead of by having the last name indicated first?
I have no idea.
Also, did it matter that I never also added in my candidate's party's name or at least its initials? Again, I don't know.
When it comes to regular ballots where voter's simply mark an option box or circle next to their chosen candidate, there are certain conditions that have to be met in making that indication. For instance, sometimes a circle option must be entirely filled in, and just ticking the circle or putting an 'x' in it may not be considered valid for the vote.
What if I misspelled my candidate's name? Again, I don't know the answer. I was presented with a book listing the names of candidates in each electoral district so that I could see my candidate's name in order to copy it out correctly, but I have known people over the years who were quite incapable of being relied upon to be doing something that simple without making a mistake.
Anyway, I got the job done insofar as I understood what was required of me.
In the last provincial election, my wife and my eldest stepson never bothered voting; only my youngest stepson went ahead and voted.
Well, my wife and eldest stepson have both been benefitting to some very large degree from the various financial support payments that the federal and even the provincial governments have offered to those affected by the COVID-19 lockdowns and shutdowns over the past months this year. If my youngest stepson has had his working hours reduced, it has been insubstantial, so I don't think he ever bothered applying for anything.
In yesterday morning's edition of the Vancouver Sun, I saw something that should only be perceived by my wife and her eldest son as being almost vitally important, so I composed an E-mail and sent the following to all three of them:
Perhaps this may motivate you to vote ─ this is from the Vancouver Sun today:
If the B.C. NDP wins a majority in the election, John Horgan intends to recall the legislature as soon as possible to begin implementing some of his party’s campaign promises.
At the top of the list would be getting legislation passed so that the government could send out COVID-19 recovery benefits — one-time payments of up to $1,000 for families and up to $500 for individuals — by Christmas.
Notice, though, that the words “up to” are used, so the actual amounts could be considerably lower, or maybe certain families or individual persons would just fail to qualify for anything at all.
I’m sure there will be conditions that need to be met in order to qualify, and I don’t know what those conditions are.
The NDP need to win a majority vote in the election, though, or the proposed COVID-19 recovery benefits may not go ahead at all, even if the NDP does come back to power.
They were a minority government until now; if they win again and are still only a minority government, then the payments ─ however much they might turn out to be ─ just may not happen.
Up to you, though ─ vote or don’t vote!
My wife has voted in the past, but only when I have practically made her. I finally gave up trying, for she wouldn't even bother herself to figure out who she personally cared to vote for ─ she always insisted that I give her the names of the candidates that I was voting for.
And she would be insufferably miserable that I was making her vote. So I had my complete fill of that and gave up on her.
My eldest stepson has never bothered to vote, and he's now 26 years old.
Will my E-mail spark them to vote on their own this time? My wife is only working very reduced hours at the Thai restaurant that employs her; and my eldest stepson has not worked at all since early this year. The manufacturing facility that had employed him closed down as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
If the two of them can't care enough to try and ensure that the political party that might financially benefit them actually comes to power with a majority win, then there is just no helping the pair.
It is 9:37 a.m. as I type these words, so I am going to take a break now. I would like to get back to bed, but I want to await my brother's homecoming first so that I can let him know that he can indeed vote at the same location I did instead of driving to the remoter voting place.
As is too often the case, my evening is now upon me, so I have scant time to spend on this post. I became embroiled in working on my new website MyRetirementDream.com, hoping to get its very first post finally finished and published before too many more days have passed.
I should mention that there has been very little rain over the day.
Also, my wife showed up this mid-afternoon to do some cooking for us all. She later left again, and I don't think that she will be back this evening...but I am unsure. Maybe she will show up late.
Whatever the case, having her home allowed me to casually mention the due monthly mortgage ─ normally, it would have been debited from our chequing account today; but since today has been Sunday, I am not expecting the debit before tomorrow.
The related conversation was overheard by her two sons who are both supposed to contribute toward the mortgage, so they got involved in making a transfer to me. And now once the mortgage is taken, I ought to have a tad over $160 remaining in the account to tide me over with some spending money until my monthly pension shows up during the final week of the month.
I had some concerns that I might have nothing to shop with for the next 10 days or so.
I also brought up the topic of voting, and my wife is keen on participating this time. In fact, she said that she will be home tomorrow, and I can accompany her over to the location I visited this morning to ease her into the process.
So maybe she will yet be home later today or overnight.
Finally ─ and concerning my brother this morning ─ I never could wait up for him to arrive home. I needed a nap too direly.
When I did finally speak with him during the midday, I learned that he had already voted on Friday at the remote location where the ballot actually had the names of the only two candidates who are competing for the seat representing our electoral district.
I didn't mention that earlier. Despite there being possibly four different political parties vying in this election, only two of them have any representation in this electoral district: the Liberals and the N.D.P. So if I was desperate to vote to have the Green or a related party in office, there is nothing I could do ─ I can only vote for the two people competing in my electoral district.
That doesn't quite sound fully democratic, does it?
Anyway, this is why I didn't feel particularly bad for sending out that E-mail yesterday to my wife and her two sons, tempting them to get out and vote for the N.D.P. The Liberals already have possession of this riding by a wide margin, so three more N.D.P. votes may not matter at the finish. We may still have a Liberal in charge locally.
We'll see.
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