Election reflections

Marking ballots and losses

Canadians elected a new federal government on Monday.

My husband Doug and I were two of the record 7.3 million citizens who took advantage of the opportunity to cast our ballots over four consecutive days of advance voting.

We voted on Good Friday—the first possible day to do so—a day when more than 2 million people (another record) lined up to vote.

After church in the morning, we came home for a bite of lunch, and a little rest. Then Doug insisted we go and cast our votes. He knew who he wanted to vote for, and said there was no point in waiting until election day.

So we walked the 15-minute route to the polling station, took the elevator to the fourth floor and joined the lineup.

The folks at Elections Canada were clearly unprepared for the turnout. They advised us at the door that the lineup to vote was such that we could expect to wait about an hour. Did we want to come back? It was a cold, grey afternoon, so we decided we would be content to take our place in line and wait for our turn.

A tall slender young woman dressed casually led us into a large, mostly empty room lined with 70 or so white plastic folding chairs, which had been set up in a large circle to accommodate those like us, who preferred to wait. Every chair but the last two—for us—was filled.

People chatted with their neighbours and watched, as every few minutes a small handful of folks at the farthest end of the circle from where we all began were ushered out of the room to vote, leaving the rest of us to stand up, shuffle a few seats to the left and plunk down again, making more room for new arrivals who were lined up out the door.

The mood in the room was pleasant, even cheerful. That atmosphere felt like a small but significant thing; on what was a day off for most people, everyone waited patiently—not with resignation, but expectation—as if for a table at a favourite restaurant where they were about to be served something delectable. One of the elections officials came in every few minutes and apologized for the wait; there was only one poll open for all of us, she explained. She asked the room’s permission to take a photo of our crowd to send to her superiors so they could see what she and her staff were dealing with. But the kindness, general good cheer, and patience exhibited in that room—by people who clearly cared about the future of their country—made me feel proud to be a Canadian.

Photo by: Element5 Digital, Unsplash

Still, at one point I began to wonder how long we’d been sitting there. “What time is it, hon?” I asked.

Doug looked confused, then held out his voter registration card. “It’s 603,” he said, pointing to our poll number.

“No, hon. On your watch. What time is it on your watch?” He responded to my question with a blank look.

Stab.

In this era of everyone carrying cell phones, or wearing tiny computers on their wrists that measure everything from their hours of sleep to their footsteps, Doug is one of the few people I know who still wears a wristwatch. He has seven in his jewelry box. He’s always been a wristwatch-wearing kind of guy, someone who has loved his watches. I gave him an elegant black and gold Seiko as a wedding gift, and had it engraved on the back with the date of our wedding and “Until death us do part” (something that at the time seemed romantic but today strikes me as morbid.) For years after his dad died, he cherished what had been his father’s wristwatch. The latter decade or so of his working years as an advertising and sales executive he wore a gold Seiko Mickey Mouse watch; I think he loved it because it fit with his mildly quirky, fun-loving personality. Today he favours a sporty waterproof model that our little grandsons love to slip off of his wrist and onto their own when they’re sitting on his lap or snuggled up beside him.

Realizing he didn’t understand what I was asking for, I reached for his wrist and pushed back his sleeve. “It’s 3:15.” I told him. “We’ve been here an hour already.”

*

It would be another hour before we were escorted to the room where we could cast our votes. This time we took our place standing in a line behind four others.

As we waited for our turn, I described the process to him, my voice low in his ear. “First, you’ll go to the table. Then you’ll give them your voter registration card and your driver’s license. They’ll give you your ballot. Then you’ll go over to that table. Stand behind that cardboard screen. Mark your ballot, then bring it back and give it to them. They’ll tear a strip off, then hand it back to you so you can put it in the ballot box. Do you remember the name of the person you want to vote for?”

“Yes.”

When it was his turn, I had a moment of concern when he seemed to be taking more time than he should have needed behind the cardboard screen. But in the next instant he reappeared, holding out his open ballot to the elections officials seated at the table.

“Did I do this right?” he asked.

They recoiled as one—putting up their hands in front of their faces to block their view. “Don’t show us!” they said almost in unison.

Obediently, he folded his ballot, handed it to them and when they handed it back, he inserted it into the slot at the top of the ballot box, then left the room.

I was next in line. I couldn’t help overhearing one official ask the other, “Do you want to write that up?”

“Okay.”

I watched as the second woman flipped through a blue binder until she came to a page headed “Notable Events.”

*

When I’d cast my vote and rejoined Doug in the hall I asked him what his concern had been.

“I just wanted to know if I did it right.”

“Did you mark an ‘X’ beside just one name?”

“No. I made a checkmark.”

Another stab.

It occurred to me in that moment that my husband had very likely just cast his final ballot in a federal election. Maybe in any election.

“When you’re living with dementia, waiting to grieve until it’s all over is not reasonable,” writes Pauline Boss in Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping With Stress and Grief, “for that may mean years of holding back the tears. Instead, give yourself permission to grieve along the way, whenever you notice a new loss, small or large.”

Having noticed two losses in the span of time it took us to exercise our civic duty, my soul wanted soothing. And if it was Doug’s last election, it felt important to mark it in a significant way. So I suggested we head over to a local dessert spot for a treat on our way home.

Delighted, Doug ordered a mocha coffee topped with whipped cream and caramel sauce, together with a piece of cherry cheesecake—his favourite.