I voted today...

...although it took a bit of work.

Since I have dual citizenship, I have the pleasure of obsessing over two federal election choices rather than one. I didn't expect to be voting in Canada this fall, what with the "fixed election date". Maybe that's what distracted me.

That vote was a couple weeks ago -- then I turned my mind to the American election. I realized just after the Canadian vote that I still didn't have my US documents. Phoning them, I found that my registration was only good for two years and had lapsed. But their professional and easy to use website (congratulations Hennepin County!) enabled me to get the registration forms, fill them out, get my lawyer to testify that yes, I was me, and fax in the registration.

Very efficient. The fax went out at 2 PM, I had the ballot and instructions four hours later, by E-mail.

But of course I couldn't vote by E-mail. So I carefully filled out the ballot, researching one candidate I had never heard of, and rushed off downtown to courier my vote to Minneapolis.

It's gone, it might be in the air now, it should be in their hands Monday. A great weight is off my mind. This is possibly the most important vote I will cast in my lifetime.

I must say that when I had marked the ballot and before I sealed it in its envelope, I kissed the paper, as though blessing a carrier pigeon before turning it loose. Sappy, sentimental? Maybe. So what's your point? I do this every time.

Fly. Be free.

The fancy franchise. A conservative's wet dream.

Impolitical asks: Do the Conservatives want to disenfranchise millions of voters?

Is this a veiled attempt, pardon the pun, to make it more difficult for millions of Canadians to vote, a pseudo-purging of the rolls as Republicans to the south have done?

Although the post is about health care in the US, Badtux actually provides an answer:

Modern conservatism isn't about solving problems. Modern conservatism isn't about providing solutions. Modern conservatism is all about "let them eat cake" -- an imperious declaration from upon the throne that there is no place for any collective action on the part of citizens to defend themselves against those who would take advantage of them....

The problem is that it would appear that the Conservatives do not understand what purpose the identification process at the polling station is intended to serve. Either that, or they understand it all too well and they're pulling a Disraeli.