Part of the democratic process

I signed up to work for Elections Canada for a few reasons. One was that I needed some income to tide me over while looking for steadier work. But I also was curious to step inside the democratic process and be a part of it. So I eagerly approached the Vancouver East electoral office and grabbed a Deputy Returning Officer position for election day.

Let me toss out some terminology before going any further. Even though the votes in my Vancouver East riding are all counted equally, you can’t vote just anywhere. Little bite-sized pieces called “polling districts” get mapped out with a few hundred voters each.  A number of districts are then assigned to a nearby polling place. Inside the polling place, each district is represented by a table with a ballot box on top, a privacy shield on a table behind it, and two workers – the DRO and poll clerk. Together we are responsible for distributing ballots, recording paperwork for special cases, collecting and counting votes. Our particular district consisted of two small blocks containing a couple low rise buildings and a small number of houses.

The first thing I had to ask from any voter was identification. Elections Canada requires some sort of proof of current address. Most often this was a driver’s licence or BCID card, but sometimes the address was not up to date. Voters without either type of card had to bring a piece of mail from a utility company or government institution to go with their ID. Counterintuitively, the Voter Information Card (VIC) that EC sends to every voter *does not qualify* as mail from a government institution. Moreover, the ID requirements were sent to voters in a separate mailing that many voters missed, and the VIC doesn’t very clearly state that it can’t be used as proof of address. A voter without proper ID can also be “vouched for” by someone living in the same little district, usually a neighbour, if they both recite some oaths and we jot their names down for record-keeping.

These identification requirements came into effect in 2007 and first went into action for the 2008 federal election. Many groups were concerned about possible disenfranchisement as a result of these requirements to have proof of address. Special exceptions include that voters with no fixed address can get a letter from homeless shelters, soup kitchens and so forth, attesting that they reside at that address for the purpose of an election. Although my riding of Vancouver East includes the city’s largest homeless population, I cannot speak to their experience as my own table’s voting district consisted of two residential blocks in the Grandview-Woodlands neighbourhood.

The apartment buildings included in this voting district included a Baptist seniors facility, as well as a few other locations with a large fraction of elderly residents. Many of these citizens had voted in every election for decades, since before I was even born, and were understandably indignant at the idea that they would have to prove themselves. A common scene that played out was that I would apologize that we need to see proof of address, and the voter would then start rifling through everything in their wallet – ultimately futile because the only wallet-sized ID with address in BC is the driver’s licence or BCID – and then go back to waving the VIC and asking why they couldn’t use it. This is where I was glad to have a central poll supervisor who could mediate the situation and allow the remaining voters to proceed.

So who was likely to be disenfranchised in my district? The first broad category had to do with mobility. Many of these seniors explained to me that went to significant efforts to get themselves out of the door, through the rain, to the polling place 4-5 blocks away. They were proud to do their civic duty and vote, but once they found out they lacked proper ID, it became a question of whether they had the energy to make it home, retrieve a document, return to the polling place, and return home again. Some voters were wonderfully persistent and came back, while others angrily departed and did not return.

The second broad category was anyone with a significant language barrier. One of our information officers was able to converse in Mandarin and Cantonese, and he was very useful in explaining the ID requirements to seniors who typically did not have driver’s licences and were confused as to why they could not vote the same way as usual.

However, we were completely at a loss for words when an elderly Korean-speaking couple of approached us without proof of address. Despite the promise that Elections Canada could provide translators over the phone, this did not pan out in reality. The poll clerk and I were not able to feel confident that anything we said to this couple was understood. I did manage to write on this information card the words “proof of address”, which was enough for them to depart and return a few hours later with a hydro bill in the husband’s name. I was therefore able to issue him a ballot, but I still didn’t have anything that would allow me to issue his wife a ballot. Legally I could allow him to vouch for her, but this would have required that they take an oath, and my supervisor confirmed that I could not legitimately have them take oaths without understanding the content.

My supervisor told me at one point that I seemed to be getting all the textbook “problem cases” – people whose ID I wasn’t allowed to accept, ladies shouting voting instructions to their elderly mothers, voters who could not understand the choices on the ballot, voters who were accidentally removed from the list, and many more. It was frustrating to be representing a bureaucracy where nothing had a simple answer that didn’t involve filling out more paperwork. I genuinely wanted everyone at our table to vote, and yet it was my job to make sure they followed a list of strict rules. But I’m still glad that I took the job. I had plenty of moments throughout the day that reminded me of how good it feels to be useful, and how people notice when I take initiative.

So this is my little glimpse into the democratic process. Even if my stomach churned at the results of this election, I couldn’t help but have respect for the other people like me – I’m guessing at least 150,000 of them nationwide! – who spent the day making sure that proud voters would get to cast a ballot.

Of bone marrow, Google and middle fingers

“Hello, could I please speak to Charles Troster? This is Cheryl calling from the OneMatch Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Network.”

I blinked and took a deep breath. I knew this day might come, but I didn’t think it’d be so soon. About three years ago, an advertisement for OneMatch was posted in the men’s bathroom at Celebrities. The only problem was, I knew gay men weren’t actually allowed to join this important and life-saving registry.

All jokes aside about how this must have meant Celebrities is getting straighter than ever, I called their bluff and applied. The registry is administered by Canadian Blood Services, which has a longstanding policy banning male donors who have had sex with men. But here’s the thing about marrow and stem cell matches – they are incredibly rare between unrelated individuals.

Suppose you are a patient whose life depends on a marrow transplant, and I happen to be a suitable match. There could be six other matches like me, or possibly zero. If I’ve been prevented from joining the registry, ostensibly due to the “risks” of taking my donation, you will never even know I existed – and thus you won’t even have the chance to make an informed choice about your own survival.

The story of my rejection letter was documented in Xtra, and New Ad Media apologized for unwittingly placing the ad in a gay bar. In fact, to this day, Google strongly associates any searches for my name with this article. This particular quote is the first place where my full name appears in the article:

“The moment that I got this slim envelope I knew,” says Charles Troster. “I felt like laughing in their faces and raising my middle finger.”

As a result, the cited quote always appears on my first page of search results. So thanks to my premature venture into the world of stem cell and bone marrow donations, Google now points directly to my middle finger. To that extent I now have a bit of a “Google problem” which I can’t think of any brilliant ways to undo. But I do have the capacity to tell my own stories and make them part of my public Internet presence.

Getting back to the matter at hand, in late 2009 this same exclusion was lifted. The moment I read about it, I reapplied, and uploaded a picture of my DNA swab kit to Facebook for posterity. Wow, I thought, this could really make a difference in someone’s life!

So when Cheryl called from OneMatch, I felt rather vindicated that this whole matter had come full-circle. I’m a potential match, and I need to come in for further genetic testing to be sure. But first, the verbal donor questionnaire.

Have I ever donated blood? It’s a simple question, and the first awkward moment. Well, no, for reasons only obvious upon disclosing that I date men.

Have I shared needles? Have I spent months in the UK during the Mad Cow epidemic? Have I ever had jaundice except as an infant? The list went on. And then, of course, the sexual history. Have I had sexual relations in the last six months with anyone whose sexual history I don’t know? Again, awkward pause. And then she asks me how many.

Ultimately, whether I end up donating will depend on numerous factors – the patient’s health, the existence of other better matches, the donor screening process and so forth. But I’m already glad I signed up. Someone’s life out there may well depend on my bone marrow. My rare, one-of-a-kind, unabashedly gay bone marrow.

Well hello there, Internet

Hi there!  I’ve decided to start a public-facing blog.

It’s not that I’ve never blogged before. I was all over the concept in the pre-Facebook era. I came up with a witty Internet nickname and posted countless ruminations on a certain blogging site that has now fallen quite out of favour. I don’t think it really counted as “public-facing” though – I didn’t make any effort to hide my identity, but over time my more public sentiments made their way to Facebook and Twitter. The old blog became a place where I’d occasionally write a friends-only entry, a safe haven from other much more exhibitionist social media sites.

I started this site because I already have a public presence on the Internet, but much of it was not my own doing. There are many things you will find out about me if you start digging around.

You will probably discover that I have studied and taught chemistry, posted a few messages on an analytical chemistry forum, and even participated in chemistry contests when I was in high school. You may uncover that I participate in an online genealogy web site, a personal finance blog and related forums, a linguistics blog, and a few different cell phone user forums. Even some of my high-school grades can be found online.

A perceptive researcher may also take note that my name is relatively unique. I was named after my great-grandfather. Aside from him, nobody on this Earth with the same first and last name as myself is a relative. I am pretty sure there are men with my name in Texas and California, both of an older generation. None of these men appear to have created public Internet presences for themselves.

The Internet will also tell you that I have been interviewed a few times for Xtra!, and that I’ve attended a number of queer events in Vancouver and Toronto. You might vaguely get a hint of my politics, and you may find that my sister once quoted me on an older political blog of hers.

Those who search more cleverly may also find a mishmash of less public-facing trails I’ve left behind me on servers far and wide across the globe. I have nothing to hide, but I chose to use handles in place of my name on those trails for a good reason – to give me some measure of control over how strongly that content is tied to my identity.

How does all this information represent me? Or better yet, how does it misrepresent me? Having graduated from UBC with my Master’s recently, I find myself facing the job market in an age where we are all accustomed to finding instant information about any topic at our fingertips. I’ve asked myself, if I had some control over the information you could find instantly about me, which choices would I make?

And so, I decided to start a public-facing blog.