Ford Nation and a sleazy election all round

Image: Doug Ford's entourage

The whole Ontario Provincial Election was a slapstick farce from start to finish.

I never liked slapstick; too nasty; too destructive.

The very term "Ford Nation" gives me the willies. It evokes a zombie image, arms outstretched, shuffling behind the biggest zombie, grunting and lurching toward something, anything, to gobble up, knocking over anything in the way.

But the photos strongly suggest Trump, Melania and Ivanka, so god save us all.

Here's a better view [YouTube] of his entourage from back in 2014. Stop the video at 0:15 and you'll swear that's Melania in the dark blue zipped-up jacket outfit. 

I really don't want to think about deep, institutional crookery, but my town is known as Liberal (not me, I dislike all politicians), and Canada Post did not deliver my Voter Card. In all my years of voting for the underdog (only because I didn't know I could officially decline), I have never been so thwarted and literally prevented from voting in an election!

I'm going to tell you things today that should make your hair curl.  And if it doesn't, then you're probably in the zombie line.

Even the post-vote speeches were badly orchestrated - or else organized in Ford's favour, but backfired on him. Consequently, his first act was to get booed, and he didn't like it. The guy needs adulation like he needs a lot of food.

But there's an explanation, or is there? It was blamed on the new technology. That's the neat thing about technology. All kinds of human bungling and hanky panky can be blamed on it.

And we're supposed to believe there is honesty and capability galore running the Province (into the ground).

Electronic voting seems to have been sprung on us at the last minute. It was all in the interest of saving money, of course, though it cost over 13 million.  For such a wealthy province, one wonders why Toronto alone has thousands of unemployed and homeless people - whole families for whom there is no housing.

Email from a friend in Northern Ontario:

• I was disappointed to learn that machines are used to tabulate the vote. I asked the woman inserting my ballot into the machine to tell me about what it is and what it does. She offered no details. She just said "It's a tabulation machine."

• I asked if there was also going to be a hand count of the ballots. She said "Only if the results are really close." Sigh.

• My concern is not so much about hacking. The machine looked a lot like a printer, and I couldn't see any ethernet cable attached to it. The worrying part for me was that they inserted my voter registration card (with my full name and address) into  a different machine. This was done before I cast my ballot. So the anonymity of my voting decision seems potentially to be in jeopardy. If the data from two machines can be cross-referenced it would be game over for anonymous voting!

My friend did not vote for Ford (would I have a friend who would?), nor is he impressed with the alternatives. He sees them as Taiaiake Alfred's "Four Horsemen of Capitalism". So do I, but I didn't know about Mr. Alfred and I'm going to watch his videos.

Here are some examples of the kind of schmozzle this election turned out to be:

Ontario parties still running Facebook ads during election day blackout

• Andrea Horwath's NDP running [16 different ads] ads attacking Ford, insists it's operating within the law
• The confusion over the ads points to a potential grey zone in Ontario's elections laws as legislators, authorities and political parties try to keep pace with changes in technology and social media.

Technical issues, delays reported at some polling locations

We have entered the era of digital polling and Murphy's Law hovers over all.

How many people do you think saw these notices in time - or at all - or any other notices like this?

• ED076 – Orléans - École Ibn Batouta is no longer a voting location. Voters assigned to this voting location should go to Carlsbad Springs Community Centre (Centre communautaire de Carlsbad Springs) at 6020 Piperville Road to vote on June 7 from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M (Eastern Time).
• ED095 – Scarborough—Guildwood – May Tower 2, 11 Lee Centre Drive is no longer a voting location. Voters assigned to this voting location should go to May Tower 1, 1 Lee Centre Drive to vote on June 7 from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M (Eastern Time).

Seven Ontario election polling stations had to stay open later than 9 PM because of "a myriad of issues".

Definition of Myriad: Too numerous to be counted. (Artha)

Me? I didn't get to vote at all.  My Voter Card never arrived and there was no explanation as to why except that they were "delayed by Canada Post" because of "a mechanized process failure". I entered my postal code online to try to find out where to go and the answer was way out to the other end of town. This can't be right, I thought; you vote in your own neighbourhood.

Well, I reasoned on voting day, the mail comes around 1 pm, and maybe the card will yet arrive. No luck.  Around 1:30, resigned to just doing the laundry, I went downstairs and noticed a small scribbled note on the main door of my apartment building. It said the residents could vote in the building next door - until 2 PM only.

I hurried upstairs, got my ID, hurried back down and across the parking lot and into the apartment building next door. Saw a big sign saying "VOTE" that pointed to the inside door, so I tried the door and it was locked. There were no greeters. I hammered on the door, but no one came. I swore loudly (I've been doing that lately) and went home to finish my laundry.

No big loss to the election, I suppose.  I was only going to use my blogger friend Penny's method of voting. In Ontario you can officially "decline to vote". In fact, in 2014 declined ballots jumped by 1300%.  That's something that's not broadcast loudly in the media. You just accept the ballot, then you give it back. And it has to be officially recorded as a vote.

Here's Penny's experience in her own words:

• Of course I got the 'oh my you have three heads and six eyes look' Whaat. Why.
• I asked that my ballot be marked as declined and that it be counted as declined. It was marked as such in my presence
• I explained that none of the three parties offered anything of real substance in my opinion. And I left.
• I overheard some woman say "was she not allowed to vote?" I kept walking but thought to myself, surely, you'll hear soon enough that I opted to decline due to a lack of real choice. Even if it's whispered amongst the workers lest others realize this is a viable option in Ontario.

That was a gutsy thing to do considering the lack of privacy just to go through the process, not to mention the reaction from the polling clerks and voters standing in line.

But the question remains - if the Voter Card is fed into a tabulating machine, is there any such thing as anonymous voting anymore?

Ah well, it's clear that the libs tried hard to prevent Ford from winning. The NDP did amazingly well, and there is also now a Green Seat in the house for the first time. The Green guy comes from Kansas! And he's a bit of a mystery man, but better Green + NDP than Ford Nation hogging all the seats.

One last note: I sincerely want to thank all of the pollsters and politicos for days and days of robocalls. They appear to have stopped now that the election is over. Not much mention of them in the news, though.Those politicians want so badly for us to like them they're willing to risk alienating us entirely. 

​Congratulations! It worked for me.

Below photo: The good old days