During commercials between the scenes of our favourite Wednesday evening television shows, in our household we searched for results from the city’s civic election.
We muttered when the results weren’t reported 10 minutes after the polls closed, perhaps an indication of how one loses one’s patience as age creeps up.
Forty-five or 50 years ago we would not have been home watching television while the excitement of the election swirled through the corridors of city hall, where doors opened early and stayed open late to accommodate interested citizens and the candidates for council and mayor. And those doors had to be open so ballot boxes could be dropped off after results had been phoned to the city clerk’s office.
Some election officials were more efficient than others, although they all had received the same intensive training. Those were the ones who counted quickly and accurately and then brought their boxes to city hall before going home to rest, or horrors, going to bed and having to be called by an irate city clerk.
Yes, those were the days. I remember my first civic election where I was assigned to sit in a small room in city hall along with a contingent from CHAB Radio, the local television station, and some tabulators who provided backup information on sheets prepared especially for the reporters.
I was in elite company and was looked after by Bob Wyatt, the accounting genius who verified the adding abilities of poll clerks and others who had called in the numbers. I started out copying his results in my notebook until he kindly told me the sheet he handed me was mine for the taking. What a relief. I did not want to make an adding error when reporting on my first election.
I didn’t know it until later but Bob was also responsible for the plates of sandwiches and platters of doughnuts and pastries that kept us charged into the late evening/early morning hours.
In later years, I was asked by a different city clerk to work with him on a fancy new computer system with which I would post results on a screen in council chambers. I knew nothing about computers but I learned quickly: I had one key to push to update results every 15 minutes, and another key to go back to the previous results.
I managed to perform the duties to the best of my ability and even managed to annoy a rather egotistical Regina television reporter who demanded I hold the results until her report from Moose Jaw. “Oops: did I just hit the button too soon?” She complained to the clerk and he kindly but firmly told her she’d get her results at the same time as the local reporters.
Our reporting work, of course, was not done when the last ballot had been counted. We had interviews to complete, candidates to track down, and then off to the newsroom to nibble on pizza and doughnuts until the city editor was satisfied the extra newspaper pages were filled with photos, stories and charts.
Yes, those were the days, my friends. We thought they’d never end — but home we sat last week, itching to learn the results, but not wanting to go out after dark to join other citizens at city hall.
So we searched various outlets until we found some results. And then what did we do? We went back to watching our Wednesday evening police and fire shows.
I betcha the late Bob Wyatt would be disappointed, especially when there were no sandwiches or doughnuts to keep up our strength.
