Voting by mail: Canuck Conservatives show what can go wrong

In 2019 the Canadian sheeple were herded to the polls to vote for a new government. The Conservative Party of Canada, led by Andrew Scheer, got more votes, but because the Liberals won more ridings (= electoral districts), they formed the government, and Just In Trudeau is still Prime Minister. [Where have we heard that before? Ed.]

Mr Scheer duly announced his resignation and plans were made to hold a leadership convention this spring to choose his successor. The last time the Tories did that, in 2017, they adopted a one-member-one-vote system, rather than the traditional delegated convention, to signal that they too were in favour of participatory democracy, diversity, inclusivity, yada yada yada. And they decided to allow voting by mail, as well as in person. With 13 contenders vying for the poisoned chalice, determining the winner was bound to be a complex and tedious business, but they muddled through and, by a narrow margin, chose the aforesaid Mr Scheep over Mad Max Bernier. Bad move.

The plan this time, in part necessitated by the Covid-19 "crisis", was to simplify matters by having mail-in balloting only. And instead of having votes counted at various places around the world's second-biggest country (by landmass), all ballots would be sealed in special envelopes and delivered to Ottawa (the world's second-coldest capital city) by Canada Post. What could go wrong?

Did I mention Canada Post? The crown corporation that runs Canada's alleged postal system is marginally more efficient than the USPS, but when Canucks pay 92 cents (plus tax!) for a stamp, they say it's 2 cents for postage and 90 cents for storage! Canada Post also has very strict regulations about the size and weight of letters.

In 2017 the Conservatives' ballots were so large (13 names, remember) that they had to be stuffed into oversized envelopes, for which CanPost charged extra. This time, CanPost told the Tories, use smaller envelopes and you'll save thousands of dollars. Great idea, said the genius in charge of logistics. Sadly, though, the genius didn't think to reduce the size of the ballots to fit nicely into the smaller envelopes.

Oh, you're getting ahead of me. Fast forward to Friday afternoon, by which time 174,000 envelopes, fat with ballots, were in a Very Large Room in Ottawa, where they would be opened by electric letter-openers. [They have such things in Canada? Ed.] The ballots would then be removed by human beings [Looks like only men in the photo? Ed.] and fed into machines which would scan them and tabulate the results. Again, what could go wrong?

The Big Reveal was supposed to begin at 1800 ET, and Canada's two major TV networks had cleared three hours or so of time to broadcast the speeches (to empty rooms) and the pundits' dreary drivel. At 1800 the Tories annouonced that there was a slight problem and the results of the first ballot (of a possible three -- a ranked ballot was being used) would be forthcoming at 1930. Then it was 2000, then 2100. By this time the talking heads on CBC and CTV were running out of things to say, but kept talking anyway.

What's the problem, they asked? Conservative Party officials fessed up that there had been a little problem with... wait for it... the machines. Seems the letter-openers had cut pieces off some of the ballots -- only a few thousand or so -- which then had to be taped back together to be fed into the tabulator machines, which also mangled some of them. (Think what your printer/photocopier does when a piece of paper gets caught in a cog.) In some cases, the damaged ballots had to be rewritten... by hand... onto new ballots, under the keen eyes of scrutineers for all the candidates to ensure that the voter's intention was accurately reproduced. Can you imagine...

2100 came, and still no results, so the "organizers" decided to run with a canned speech by Mr Scheep and a video of the lowlights of his career, followed by a much-too-long explanation of how the votes would be allocated so that the smaller regions of Canuckistan would not be dominated by the larger ones. Sports fans were switching over to the basketball and hockey games, but the non-show went on... and on...

After the 2230 quasi-deadline passed in silence, Party flak-catchers started saying "We'll give you 15 minutes notice." That notice came at 2315 ET. [We're running out of space. Just tell us when and how it all turned out. Ed.] The announcement of the results of the first ballot began at 20 midnights past midnight. None of the four candidates got the 50%+1 needed to win. There followed another half-hour delay, even though the votes had already been counted, and finally, at 0115 ET, the results of the second and third counts were announced in the space of about two minutes.

For what it's worth, the winner was another dimpled, slightly overweight, blue-eyed, non-threatening Canadian type named Erin O'Toole, seen here with his dimpled etc etc wife and kids. Mr O'Toole beat the runner-up (and establishment favourite) Peter Mackay, by virtue of being able to speak halting French, whereas Mr Machackey's had apparently learned his French, as a lad, from John Diefenbaker. (Older Canucks will know what I mean.)

The CBC, owned and operated by and for the Liberal government, is already spinning Mr O'Toole's win as proof that "socons" -- social conservatives -- are gaining control of the Conservative Party. Mr Mackay, they say, was the last of the oxymoronical Progressive Conservatives, whereas "Erin O'Toole courted the right of the Conservative Party and won" (Éric Grenier, 24/8/20).

Walt says Mr O'Toole is just another bland contrist with no real vision of where he wants to lead his party or, indeed, the Great No-longer-white North. All he wants to do is beat Mr Socks in the next federal election which could happen as early as November 3rd. [Eh? Ed.] In that, Walt wishes him many good lucks.