On Monday Canada had our federal elections and as usual I worked at it. This year I worked as the Registration Officer and was stationed at a nearby condominium. They actually didn’t tell me until two days before so at one point I thought I may not be working that day. We were a very small station with five people and served only one of the three attached condominiums. I felt sorry for the Deputy Returning Officer since this time, two roles were combined into one. She really had a lot of work to do and they did not train her well enough. Unfortunately she wasn’t told to pick up the voting box (with necessary materials inside) so we had a bit of a rough start. We had one person for each role, except for the Information Officer. There were two of them.
We had some busy moments, but for the most part it was quiet and calm. We had some complaints that people in the other two buildings had to go down the road to vote. Not our doing, so it was no use to complain to us. I heard the polling site down the road had 11 stations and there was a massive lineup going outside. I thought that was a lot but my friend told me where he was there were 40. There were a lack of polling stations this year because they couldn’t use elementary schools due to concerns with Covid-19. But I find they could have brought more people to our site and set up another station since our max number of voters was already 300. Only about 210 of those people voted.
As for my job it wasn’t too difficult since everyone was from the same address. A few address changes, name corrections and one vouching. I wasn’t able to go on break or go for a coffee run, but I did manage to take a Rilakkuma lunch bag full of things to eat. Lots of veggies from our garden. And I used three frozen drink boxes as ice packs. I also took a thermos of coffee plus another with ice cold water. The coffee was gone quickly but the cold water and drink boxes helped me last through the long day. I started at 7:15 a.m. and was there til 11:15 p.m. My friend on the other hand at another location was there at his site until 2:00 a.m. and had no time to eat or take a break. I guess I was lucky this time.
I was paranoid over the weekend thinking it would be busy and constantly went through my notes and guidebooks. Due to this I couldn’t work on reviews/recommendations, but now that it’s over and since I have recovered from the the long day, I am ready to write more. They may come slowly but I will be working on them.