Voters urged not to eat their ballots

[Freddie Stubbs]

Mon 28 June, 2004 17:04

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Canadians have gone to the polls in a federal election with a firm warning from election officials: Please do not eat your ballots.

"Eating a ballot, not returning it or otherwise destroying or defacing it constitutes a serious breach of the Canada Elections Act," Elections Canada warns on its Internet site.

more: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=537308§ion=news

[asthmaticeog]

1. Um...

... has this ever been a problem?

[iverglas]

3. apparently!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=1331383

Three Alberta men were charged with eating their paper ballots during Canada's last federal election, in 2000. The members of the Edible Ballot Society were protesting against what they said was a lack of real choice among candidates.

I've scrutineered (represented my party as an observer of voting and counting) for, oh, 30 years, and never encountered a ballot-eater.

There is an official procedure for declining one's ballot -- one accepts the ballot and then hands it back unmarked, and it is recorded as "declined" -- although a lot of local poll officials don't seem to be aware of it, in my experience.

[slackmaster]

2. Gotta love those Canadians, eh?

http://www.thetoque.com/031118/internetdown.htm

[kayell]

4. Gads, I knew Canadians ate strange things (like that odd fries dish

they had as prime minister for a while), but really, ... ballots?

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. Poutine?

http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/poutine.shtml

[treepig]

6. what, somebody ate the former prime minister?

don't have time to read the link right now, but this sounds to be really serious.

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. That is the only Canadian odd fries dish

that I know of. You can even get it with you value meal at Burger King.

[jmowreader]

10. The former prime minister was more edible than, say, Babs

This is the Rt. Hon. Avril Phaedra Douglas "Kim" Campbell, the installed Prime Minister of Canada. She served from June 25 to November 4, 1993, when all but two of the Progressive Conservatives were flushed out of office in a huge Liberal landslide.

Ms. Campbell served four and one-half months, which is approximately one week longer than our installed leader has spent at work in the three and one-half years we've had to put up with him.

[iverglas]

14. show them the good one

They say she was actually wearing a strapless dress behind there.


These days, btw, she's doing good work:

http://www.clubmadrid.org/cmadrid/index.php?id=1

Democracy is a universal value that transcends cultural and religious differences. Defending democracy takes priority over the particular interests of any nation, since no other political system is as favorable for economic and social development. In this respect, democracy goes hand in hand with peace, since the only alternatives to freedom of expression and representative government are oppression and violence. Peace requires an agreement entered into freely by citizens, without fear, and with respect for reason and the right of law; in other words, a democratic framework.

The Club of Madrid is an organization dedicated to strengthening democracy around the world by drawing on the unique experience and resources of former heads of state and government of democratic nations. Working in partnership with other organizations and governments that share its democracy-promoting goals, the Club of Madrid provides strategic support and technical advice to countries seeking to consolidate their democracies and those making the first step toward a democratic form of government.

There really are better ways to spread democracy and freedom than by killing a few thousand people ...

[kayell]

9. That's the one - Prime Minister Jean Poutine

http://www.dewit.ca/archs/poutine/index.html

OTTAWA (AP) Stung by a pop quiz about foreign leaders earlier in his campaign, U.S. Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has fallen victim to a foreign affairs prank.

Canadians are chuckling over his on-air answer when a comic posing as a reporter made up a story that Canadian Prime Minister "Jean Poutine"; had endorsed him.

"I appreciate his strong statement<,> he understands I believe in free trade," Bush replied. "He understands I want to make sure our relations with our most important neighbour to the north of us, the Canadians, is strong and we'll work closely together."

Canada's prime minister is Jean Chretien, not Poutine, and he has endorsed no one in U.S. politics. Poutine is a popular food in the French-speaking province of Quebec, consisting of french fries, gravy and cheese curd.

etc

[iverglas]

11. that's the President of Russia ;)

Just ask google images:

http://images.google.ca/images?q=poutine&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en

Took me a minute to figure out how Vlad got mixed up with the cheese curds and gravy on chips -- "poutine".

It's because when you say "Putin" in French, you're saying a word for "prostitute". ;)

I like this one ... looks like Putin eating poutine ...
http://www.urania.be/php-txt/dynpage/ Poutine.jpg
but it won't get clickable, so you have to copy and paste.

Only George W. Bush thinks that Poutine is the PM of Canada, btw.

[kayell]

12. Perhaps ballots too are tasty with cheese curds and gravy

[stellanoir]

7. we don't have that problem south of the border. . .

we're so high tech that we have electronic voting machines eat our ballots for us. . .

[damnraddem]

13. Why not?

Is it bigger than a ballot box?

[Seabiscuit]

15. When Canadians eat their ballots

to they eat them with shallots?

[iverglas]

16. or

do they eat them like Perot?

Oh look -- you can hear Jesse Jackson do Green Eggs and Ham on SNL!

Well, bits: http://www.wavsource.com/tv/saturday_night2.htm

http://www.wavsource.com/tv/snl/green_eggs1.wav
http://www.wavsource.com/tv/snl/green_eggs2.wav

[serryjw]

17. Does that mean I have eat OUR touch tone voting machines?

The modern day way of protesting?