> I was utterly shocked to find that nothing had been posted yet regarding the Canadian election which was today... In particular, I expected Spacebar to have something to say about it. Anyway, here's my comment to get the ball rolling.
>
> I found the election process to be very quick and easy. How quick? The span of time from when I left my house and when I got back to it was eight minutes (according to my roommate) or ten minutes (by my estimate). How easy?
> 1) Hand in my voter card.
> 2) Get them to fix my middle initial for future use in the permanent voters list.
> 3) Get my ballot.
> 4) Spend ten seconds pretending to come from Florida and trying to decipher the ballot.
> 5) Realize that there is a list of names on ONE side, perfectly lined up with a set of circles, and that the desired method of marking your choice is to mark an "X" in the appropriate circles with a pencil.
> 6) Realize that there is a pencil in the voting booth.
> 7) Pick up the pencil.
> 8) Mark my choice.
> 9) Resist the urge to steal the three inch HB pencil from the voting booth.
> 10) Return to the voting station with the completed ballot and put it into the box.
> 11) Go home.
>
> OK, that looks complicated, but I added a few (perhaps unneccesary) steps to my description. Seriously, though, getting to and from the polling station was harder than voting. I had to parallel park AND make a three-point turn, for cripes sake. (Not in the same maneuver. I'll have to try that sometime, though.) Anyway, I think ten minutes is my personal best for the amount of time taken to decide my country's future. I was also in a highly contested riding, so my vote should have meant something. I say should have, because when the results came in, the race was actually pretty one-sided. So my vote meant nothing. But at least I voted!
>
> I like rambling. Anyone else care to join me?
>
> Don

Ah, it's good to see that some of England rubbed off on you Canadians. We use the same process, and, unlike the USA, it takes less than 12 hours to work out who our prime minister is. This is especially good, seeing as we can count roughly 30,000,000 votes in 12 hours, while Florida takes nearly four weeks to do 6,000,000.

Also, the UK and Canada are alone, or so I have heard, in having parliaments where opposite parties actually face one another across a room, instead of being in a cresent. I've never seen the point of the cresent shape - it takes up too much room, and there is a real risk that somebody sitting next to you from another party can take a peek at confidential papers and then leak them to the press.

If only we had won the War of Independance...

Chr"May the Fourth be with you!"ico