As I've said on my Facebook status, I voted this morning (about an hour ago or so). It was the first time I've voted at a continuing care facility (but that's where my polling station was). This made me think of two things: how happy I am to be able bodied (even if I have my share of complaints (mostly wrist pain these days)), and that I know where my polling station is.
Today has gotten me thinking about both things, partially because I saw so many folks with reduced mobility voting (yay!), along with so many younger and/or more able bodied folks at the polling station (yay!), and partially because I had a conversation with a neighbour (he's lived here for nearly 9 years now and this is the longest conversation I've ever had with him). Turns out that the problem that I feared really is a problem in this building. He doesn't own a computer or have the Internet or a smart phone or really any of those things that would have informed him about where to vote. The only way he knew where our polling station was is through word of mouth in our building (and I know for a fact that while some of us converse, this isn't frequent nor is this universal). As he delivered me my Yellow Pages (why I am getting the yellow pages is beyond me… but this is what led to our conversation, so all is well), he also talked about some of the other aspects of the building (the fact that we think that no one lives in the bachelors suite next to me (or if they do they're darn quiet), the fact that when another tenant died water leaked into his suite, etc. Anyway WHY ON EARTH did we not (it's a 12 unit apartment building) get any information sent to us about where to vote?!? We're all registered to vote, and went out of our way to do so, but I'm somehow doubting that everyone in our building knew to do that!
I mean, sure I have other complaints about this election (and if you want to know elections rules or something http://canlii.ca/en/ab/laws/stat/rsa-2000-c-l-21/96612/rsa-2000-c-l-21.html will give you all the info you want about the Alberta Election… thanks to Jason for posting that on Twitter (gotta love librarian friends!)), but I don't want there to be more excuses for not voting than necessary. And it's nice to see folks with limited mobility, or limited information exercising their rights to vote… but it also makes me really wonder at what else about the process is broken or could use some tweaks.