Voters lists and the election

Elizabeth Laporte has a timely posting on Voter`s Lists at LAC on her blog just in time for the election next Tuesday.

I confess to having felt a bit older reading the start of the posting "I can remember when I was but a youngster of voting age in the early '70s living on Olivet Street in Halifax, Nova Scotia ..."

I was in the Halifax area working as a newly minted meteorologist during the previous election, that of 1968, the one remembered by those of us senior enough for Trudeaumania.

In those days the official weather forecast included a short synopsis about the weather, often referring to conditions expected for upcoming holidays and local events. Radio stations, especially the CBC, would use the synopsis in broadcasting the forecast. As I was working the night shift on election morning I produced a timely synopsis. It got more than the usual amount of attention. It started:

"Liberal amount of cloud and conservative amounts of sunshine will be scattered democratically across the Maritime Provinces this election day."

In Lesley Anderson`s presentation at last Saturday`s BIFHSGO meeting she mentioned that voters lists are one of the record types of interest to Ancestry.ca for digitization.