Vote Mob

It's Election Day! Are you wearing your special election bonnet? Mine has purple ribbons all over it, which gives me a jaunty non-partisan air as I approach the polling stations tonight. I'm also carrying my special election ID (the only ID I have with my current address on it, a hospital card from when I had the grapefruit removed) and eating my special election snack (just kidding, it's an apple, regular-styles). I'm excited!

Actually, smarminess aside, I am pretty excited about this election. Maybe it's the orange wave or the non-starter massage "scandal," but Jumpin' Jack has been swinging a big stick this campaign, and it's fun to watch. I voted Green - hey, I live in Olivia Chow's riding, and it'll be a cakewalk for her, so I figure I'll throw some funding over to a party that believes in solar farms instead of prisons. I'm sure my grandpa is rolling his eyes at my youthful stupidity, but hey...what's that saying? If you're not young and liberal, you're hard-hearted, and if you're old without being conservative, you're soft-headed? Anyway, I'm part of the much-discussed youth vote (am I still a youth at 27? I hope so!) and as such, can vote as far left as I want.

Elections aren't exactly fun, per se, but voting gives me that satisfied citizen feeling that you can also get by shopping at organic grocery stores, but for free. I enjoy snarking on the candidates, watching my Facebook feed blow up with exhortations to vote, and get interested as the results come in. I feel Canadian when I vote - I can just show up and they let me pick! Unlike in other, more contested parts of the world, my country has decent elections that are fair and transparent. We are lucky! And that deserves respect, best shown by taking advantage of the opportunity to vote and doing it.

I'm not going to spoil this entry by telling folks how to vote - the Globe and Mail already lost a large part of my respect when they officially endorsed Harper's Conservatives, a party that has almost nothing in common with the way I live my life. Other papers have picked other parties, a practice I'm perplexed by. I'll just say that I hope you find a party or a representative who aligns with the way you prioritize your life: money, family, jobs, the environment, civic duty, transportation, foreign aid, urban development, rural funding, education, health care, food, human rights, taxes, death, and all the other glorious moving parts that make up this country. And if you can't find a party who can do all that, at least you have the option of voting for a man who will eventually get into the Mustache Hall of Fame.

Vote early, vote often, and vote well, friends: the next few months of this country depends on it.