I was quite ignorant of how things work at a Canadian election. I got to see first hand. Best (political) experience for me ever.
It just isn't possible to rig an election here. Too many checks in place. Each party had two scrutineers who had the right to observe the entire process. I did not know a single person I was working alongside. so collusion would be out of the question. Plus ballots are quite spread out, meaning returning officers only counted about 200 votes each (for whomever voted at their station) so it wasn't overwhelming. I helped count just 167 ballots, of which one was spoiled and 166 were valid. When we let the supervisor know we had a spoiled ballot all the party scrutineers came over and agreed the ballot was spoiled. The voter wrote "NO" in all of the circles of the candidates except for the one he chose and wrote "yes". This voided the ballot as only one circle may be filled with an x or check or smiley face. Yes I saw a few smiley faces.
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I'm also glad to report that I recorded ZERO votes for the marxist-leninist (communist) party candidate here in Windsor west.