get your vote on

BC had a provincial election the other night. it was interesting in a depressing kind of way.

we had a "get your vote on" critical mass, which i attended as the voting fairy:


despite all our efforts, there was only a 41% voter turnout, which is shockingly low, i think.

chicory's human, my roommate (who i am going to christian Mr. Fix-It), and i went to a pub on the drive to watch the election results come in. we bullied the bartender into switching one of the tellies over from the hockey (luckily the canucks just got booted out of the finals, or there would have been a riot) and steadily sank lower and lower on our barstools as the right wing Liberal party got more and more seats.

there was also a vote on the table about bringing in a preferential voting system instead of keeping the "first past the post" system BC currently has, and that was soundly defeated as well. the greens got 8% of the votes this time and not one seat.

i like the fact that none of this was my fault, though. it's relaxing. we were the only three people in the bar interested in the election. chicory's human tried to engage the waitress in discussion on the topic. "i'm an american!" she says. "so am i! *she's* australian! he's the only one here who can actually vote!" chicory's human says, pointing at mr. fix-it. "i tried," he replies.