Saturday, January 14, 2006

I Shot The Sheriff...

But I did  not shoot the deputy.

That gives me some measure of comfort, as I've been signed up to be a Deputy Returning Officer for the election on the 23rd.

When I was approached about it, I thought- Sure! Deputy Returning Officer... how hard can that be? The Deputy is always the foil for the Sheriff. There'll be someone else in charge. I'll be the helper. Great! No problem!

I find out that the  Returning Officer, the Head Honcho, the Guy In Charge, the "Sheriff" if you will, is actually in charge of the whole district, and he has a little army of Deputies out there running the actual Polling Stations.

So, now I find myself attending a training session, and growing increasingly alarmed as the enormity of the position I've undertaken comes home to me. I leave armed with a training manual, a ballot box and  voting screen to assemble, and echoes of "Phone Barry" reverberating through my head. (Barry is the Returning Officer... if anything untoward happens, "Phone Barry!") I, and I alone, am permitted to handle your vote... if you happen to be in that polling district. I must set up the Polling Station. I must take it down. I must count the ballots. If I am not there, (if I must attend a call of nature, for example) the Polling Station will be temporarily closed. If there's a dispute with a Candidate's representative with regards to the acceptability of a ballot, I have the final say. That's a lot of responsibility!

I am having a recurring nightmare that on election day all the results will be in except for Prince Albert North,  where there has been a seventh counting of the ballots and the Deputy Returning Officer has been remanded for  questioning.

5 comments:

  1. Chris has done that job here in the village for a number of elections. Well done that woman - I hope you're paid well for it.

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  2. you will do fine. I worked in the elections office for the last provincial election, and i know you can do the job.

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  3. I know, I know. It's a scary thing. I worked for the Returning Officer (City Clerk) for municipal elections many moons ago. It was an exciting night when the returns were phoned into the main returning office and I got to make the tallies and hand them over to the boss who in turn handed them in to the local radio/TV station. A grand evening it was with an enormous amount of (b)political (s)electricity. Yes, and lots of it, if you get my drift!!!

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  4. We do actually read your blog, Lauralea, contrary to what you might have thought after we questioned you about this Deputy stuff tonight. It seem the PrairieFusion RSS feeds aren't updating...perhaps I need to adopt Randall's model of reading blogs: actually checking the site itself...




    Anyway, good luck to you and your posse.

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  5. "...perhaps I need to adopt Randall's model of reading blogs: actually checking the site itself..."



    Works for me too.

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