A Step Back in Time

Municipal elections just took place in B.C. this past weekend. I worked as a scrutineer for the encumbent Regional Director for the Central District of Kootenay. It was refreshingly archaic as all the votes were hand counted and we had to wait around for a couple of hours to find out the final tally. I'm not sure how many polling stations were actually "out there", but I believe it was four, plus the advanced poll. Kaslo poll was by far the largest of the 5 polls. No one could find any results for our area on the CBC radio carrying the results or on their website. We waited until nearly ten o'clock for a phone call (to some this might be considered using technology) from "up the lake" to receive the poll results from Argenta and Meadow Creek. We then added up the total votes en mass - in our heads - just like elementary school! Our encumbent won handily; in B.C. elections like this winning by 150 votes is considered to be a bit of a landslide. Last time he won by 12 votes. Our candidate is pretty "green" and two more people of the green persuasion were elected to the Board of Directors of RDCK. As well, community planning seems to be alive and well in this part of the Koots.