Canadians who live outside Canada but have visited Canada any time in the last five years, and who intend to return to Canada, are eligible to vote in this coming 2004 election by special ballot.
The details of how to obtain the request form, and what to do with it, are on the Elections Canada web site, and the form itself is here. (The deadline for registering is June 22, so if you are planning to vote this way, don't wait.) My husband and I are eligible, so we sent off our requests. We received our voting package yesterday. Practically by return mail, I might add -- a very quick response.
Americans who vote by absentee ballot may be interested in how the Canadian voting mechanism works...
Inside the envelope from Elections Canada, one finds:
- a ballot,
- three other envelopes, and
- a bilingual brochure explaining the process.
To vote:
- You write the name of the candidate you want to vote for on the ballot. You seal the ballot in the inner envelope.
- You seal the inner envelope in an outer envelope, which is coded with a bar code, your name, and your riding. You sign and date the outer envelope, certifying that this is your (one and only!) vote.
- You seal the outer envelope in the mailing envelope, which has been pre-printed with the correct Elections Canada address. You add your return address and adequate postage, mail it -- and you're done.
Here's the way they handle the received envelopes:
- Under the supervision of the Special Voting Rules Adminstrator, the mailing envelopes are opened and the outer envelopes are extracted.
- Each bar code on the outer envelope is then electronically scanned to ensure that the ballot is from a registered voter, and that no previous ballot has been received from that voter.
- Once validated, the outer envelopes are sorted by electoral district.
- The outer envelopes for each electoral district are opened, and the sealed inner envelopes are extracted. The sealed inner envelopes containing the ballots are mixed together, by electoral district, in a sealed ballot box.
- Later, the box is opened, the ballots are removed from their inner envelopes, and the votes are counted.
I know procedures differ state by state, but I wonder, how does this process compare with those used by various American jurisdictions?