big problem in the voting booth

I've just come back from voting and immediately called the Toronto Star, to alert them to what I think is a story. Maybe I'm getting paranoid in my old age. I went behind the little cardboard screen and opened my ballot, and then looked at the large piece of paper showing me how to mark the ballot.

"How odd," I said to myself. "It shows that I should put an X through the name."

And then I looked at the top of the instruction sheet and it said, in small letters, "This is how you should not mark your ballot."

Instructions on the right way were on the far side. The wrong way was printed on the side closest to me. If I were not fluent in English, I would have looked at the picture of the wrong way to vote and voted that way. Had I been asked to design an instruction sheet to confuse as many non-English speakers as possible, I would have designed this one.

Be careful today, Canadians. I'm thinking of hanging chads, and many years of George Bush because of a (deliberate?) design flaw.

PS Okay, little Miss Paranoia, settle down. Several people have written to say that there's no such confusing notice where they vote. Could it just be local? In any case, nothing to be done now. The sun is almost out, which is good. I just taught my first home class of the term, which was superb. And now - off across town to celebrate my daughter's birth 29 years and 364 days ago. The best morning of my life. And the best evening, three years later.

There's a tingling in the air, supercharged, exciting. It feels like change to me.