| Sunny Side Up Nov. 5, 2003 � 2003, Kathleen Gibson Never waste a vote None of the Yorkton Gibsons are working today �well, not at our usual jobs anyway. It's Provincial Election Day. We rose early, packed giant-sized lunches, crammed our cars full of official paraphernalia and headed to separate polls to act as DRO's. We've been there all day, distributing and collecting ballots. Our whole family has worked elections for years, in little towns and big, for municipal, provincial, and federal elections. We've pounded the streets as enumerators, pounded in signs for candidates, pounded a few figurative podiums making our opinions known, worn calluses on our fingers copying voters' lists, scrutineered, poll clerked, and DRO'ed. If you're reading this before the polls close and you haven't yet voted, grab your coat and hurry down. We've saved you a ballot. If you've already voted, I hope the DRO smiled and thanked you. For rearranging your day to vote, you deserved that. After all, in some quarters voters are becoming endangered species, and must be treated gently. So whenever I work an election, I smile. We all do. A lot. We look better that way, anyway. (So do you, by the way.) The Preacher and I worked the municipal election a few weeks ago. When I woke the next day, my smile was stiff. In the years I enumerated I often heard, perhaps at doors just like yours, "What's the point? It doesn't make a difference who you vote for anyway." Pardon my frankness, but that excuse is the sign of a lazy mind and an underdeveloped sense of citizenship. In spite of the spin doctoring, accusations, finger-pointings, and outright lies, I still believe in the democratic process. I believe in kitchen-table debates and open forums and needling out the truth. I believe in reading the platforms. Watching or listening to debates. Asking questions, and speaking out on issues that concern me. In short, I believe my informed involvement makes a difference. And so does yours. When minority groups can so tickle the ears of even our highest level of government so that laws are passed in their favor -- and let the rest of the country be hanged -- it proves to me yet again that a small voice can have an impact. A small voice joined to another, and another, and another. In some countries, people wait outside for hours for the chance to place their X, and consider it a privilege. In countries where a female vote is frowned on, some women risk their lives to vote anyway. Nations who have lost their democratic right to vote are dissolving in their own blood. If more and more Canadians refuse to vote, is it possible that one day we too could wake up and find our headlines reading, "Elections cancelled due to lack of interest. Leaders will be arbitrarily named"? I wonder how many then would shrug and say� "It doesn't matter, anyway." You have a mind. Exercise it. You have a voice. Use it. You have a vote. Today, did you waste it? You may respond to this column at [email protected] |
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