Humour

How to Vote

Dear Students of the Waterloo campus,

As you have no doubt noticed, big yellow X’s have started sprouting around town. On posters in hallways, on the sides of convenience stores, maybe even on your street. These are not marks for demolition, please do not be alarmed; all hallways will continue to have the correct number of walls (2).

It is in fact that a strange mythical time is upon us, a time prophesised by those who came before us: time to express your opinion – for once someone is asking and looking for an answer! Yes, it is Elections Season.

This season is not for steaks, it’s for choosing a new leader for this great province of ours. This season is for searching deep into your soul, buried deep beneath false apathy, a jaded view of life, and a lot of crumbs, to find that nugget of Values you hold dear. Take these values out. Polish them off, they should shine up pretty nice. Take a good look at them under a microscope.

Now you’re ready for the next step: comparing these values to party platforms. This sounds gross, I know, because it sounds like it requires heavy research on your part. I’m here to reassure that this is not the case! I mean sure you could spend half an hour (10 min) on “Vote Compass” figuring out where your values align most, but a brief Google done by me five seconds ago reveals that you can pick a party based solely on your favourite colour! Someone has nicely given each candidate a colour to represent their platform, and this can be used to decide where you should put an X come June 7.

Alternatively, you could decide where to vote based on your risk tolerance. This is something you will have come across if you’ve done any investing with money before. If you dislike risk and want things to continue as present, not a bad option, quite comfortable, vote for the person who’s been there for the last while. If you prefer adding some risk to your juice, spice things up by mixing in a new player – we don’t know what they’ll do but it could be interesting to watch.

Now you’ve got an idea of where to cast that ballot, take a walk over to Elections Ontario (just Google it, I’m sure you won’t click the wrong thing). If you have voted before, you’re probably registered. If you are over the age of 18, you’re also probably registered. MAKE SURE. Click the large and intimidating yellow box that says “Confirm your voter information”, then when they ask if you’re registered, because we want to be certain that we live in Ontario and can vote, click “Let’s Check” as though we’re all in this together. Quickly skip the giant block of text saying something about “privacy” and click “Next”. Once you have filled in your info, check that your birth year is correct because they designed this website to allow you to scroll through the years while you’re scrolling down the page without noticing and then you’ll have to go through this whole process five times internally screaming “HOW CAN I NOT BE REGISTERED I’VE VOTED BEFORE!!” until you realize your birth year is 1965 and you’re definitely not 47.

Once you click “Search” we hope you get taken to a page that displays your info and says “I’m glad to see you are registered to vote, congratulations!” but might just say “We found you”, or worse still “You don’t exist” in which case you should check your birth year. In all cases except the last (in which case you should get on that registration train!) tell them to confirm your info and you’re all set! Happy voting!

In all seriousness, register to vote and use your voice, we only get to be heard once every four years, make it count!

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