Canadians: you can register to vote at the polls

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Amazing how easy voting is, if you don’t have major blocks of voters to suppress.

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Please note the oppressive requirement of an ID, the sine qua non of voter suppression.

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“* Do you want to vote right now? You can! Head to an Elections Canada office with proper ID.”

Why can’t we do this in the USA?

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I understand why the legal requirement to register residency and own (not carry) an ID is frowned upon, but for votes it’s useful and convenient: A few weeks before any vote here in Germany (all levels of government from municipal to supranational [EU]) I receive a letter with ballot papers and can decide if I ignore it, vote in person at the defined polling place or request the forms for absentee ballot.

It’s only oppressive if it’s burdensome to get one. Some people try to lighten the burden - some are working to make it harder.

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That’s how it always was in Wisconsin - same day registration at the poll. However, given the current climate there, I doubt that it is true anymore.

Edit: they still have election day registration

or at the polling place on Election Day.
First time registration
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That’s for registration. Not for voting.

Because up here in Canada we have a single organization that is responsible for organizing our national election. Sure this election hasn’t been their finest hour (although it is something less then 1% of voter information cards that have wrong information on them) but still, every ballot in the country is in the same format, everyone votes under the same rules. I remember when I learned this wasn’t true in the United States, during the whole hanging chad fiasco, I was stunned.

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Question for my fellow Canadians:

I live in a riding that is probably going to be painted Red - ThreeHundredEight’s riding predictions give it a 93% chance.

My vote, therefore, probably doesn’t mean much in terms of electing a candidate.

I’ve researched the candidates themselves (as much as I could) and find none of them compelling.

Should I vote Red, to try to ward against the ~7% chance that the Blue party splits the Red/Orange vote and comes up the middle (the way they did last election), even though I’m not particularly a fan of the Red Party?

Should I vote Orange, who, until a few weeks ago, had a decent chance of winning this election - though not this riding - and, of the three parties that plausibly could have won, would be my choice?

Should I vote Green, to maybe help a small party whose goals I agree with get off the ground?

Or should I vote for the Independent candidate, to express my disdain for party politics in general?

(Please note that there is no way I’m going to vote Blue, or at least not this year).

TL;DR: Do I vote for the party which has the best chance to beat the party I dislike, the party I’m rooting for to win the election, the party I want to help out the most, or do I just vote Independent as a protest vote?

It’s been the first election I was torn over how to vote in a long time (I voted in advance polling yesterday).

Our riding has been blue for a long time. Worse, the MP is a benchwarmer at best with the IQ of a toaster oven and has been spamming us with borderline intolerant/racist/bullshit letters for years. So he has to go.

3 weeks ago it was a 3 way split - Blue, Orange, Red, with a Green chaser. I tend to Orange and have for a long time, but the Red candidate is actually a much more compelling individual - Mr. O is likeable enough but not likely to be much more than a backbench applauder…

So I was torn between wanting an Orange government and preferring the Red local MP. And most compelled by wanting the Blue guy to move on to his next job writing angry letters to the editor on an old typewriter.

This week the Orange has fallen behind nationally and locally, leaving me even more in a pickle. I am now receiving letters from Blue directly targeting Red - their polling has clearly shown her as the real threat. And public polls show her 1-2% ahead of Blue.

So I voted Red for the first time in 20 years (during which I’ve been Orange or Green). Now let the chips fall where they may.

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With the per-vote subsidy now phased out by the Conservatives, your vote can do one of two things: be a vote that pushes your candidate to plurality in your riding, or nothing at all.

This sucks and is the biggest problem I have with first-past-the-post systems. If we had some proportional representation seats, then every vote could matter.

But this is the way things are. Applying this to your particular case, you can vote with a clear conscience for Red because it likely won’t actually give them anything, doesn’t deprive other parties of anything, and helps you prevent the Blue outcome you seem to want to prevent.

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