I voted today.
I received my registration card in the mail many weeks prior. And weeks prior, still today, there is encouragement on billboards, on television, radio, on the internet, to VOTE. Today I went to the basement of the local Catholic Church. People going in and out, no big lineup.
Downstairs an electoral officer read my card, showed me the line I was supposed to be in. 5 people ahead of me. This wasn't going to take long.
Got to my poll, showed them my card and my provincial ID card. They crossed my name off the list and handed me the ballot, showed me to the cardboard booth.
Pencil. Paper Ballot. Paper voter list. No Diebold technology whatsoever. I didn't even see a laptop.
I placed my X on the ballot, came back to the poll table. Another electoral officer checked the number on the ballot with the stub it came from. She asked me to place it in the ballot box and watched me put it in. I was done. I left.
I suppose that this makes for a pretty boring diary. I hope it does. Voting should be just, well, VOTING. A cherished right but nothing to be extremely excited about. It's what you do when the time comes. It should not be an act of courage, or a struggle.
I cherish that I live in a country where I can do that with this kind of ease. Not in a place where, depending on where you live, those in charge of elections are moving the goalposts on you.
I hope for you Americans that what I did will be as mundane and valuable for you as it was for me.