I had an idea a long time ago for a dystopian story. One the elements in the world would be that voting was mandatory. Much later, someone told me that voting is compulsory in Australia. After you've voted once, you face a fine if you don't vote in future elections.

---

Plus, They Give You Cookies

The four of them sit at their usual table. It's not really much to brag about, being regulars in one of the worst pubs in the city. In every reasonable measure: hygiene, quality of food, friendliness of staff, Lou's beats almost no other place in town. Where it does win, though, is price of beer and proximity to their office. Jeremy got a double order of garlic toast while Keiko bravely ordered the day's pasta special. She pushes penne noodles around with a fork, wanting to do as much reconnaissance as possible before committing to tasting it. Eddie is eating apple pie and ice cream. Both his elbows are on the table and he sits hunched over his plate, shoveling forkfuls in as fast as he can. Tom, the project manager for their software group, isn't eating at all. He has settled for mugs of beer this evening. His stomach is growling but choosing something from the menu was making him hyperventilate.

"Why are they showing the news?" asks Jeremy. "They never show the news at Lou's."

Tom looks at his watch and says, "We should be getting back soon I guess."

"We haven't been gone even a half hour yet. This is supposed to be our supper break," Keiko tries one one of the pasta noodles. The skin between her eyebrows wrinkles a bit and she says, "I should have asked for no sauce."

"But the deadline is coming up and-"

Jeremy takes a sip of his beer and responds, "We've been putting in sixteen hour days for the last month. The can't begrudge us a proper meal now and again."

Tom gives up on arguing and takes another miserable swig of beer. He knows he'll lose against the three of them. He shouldn't have let them talk him into going out for food in the first place.

Eddie stops eating long enough to ask, "What's with that siren?"

Keiko shrugs, "Sirens are pretty common in this neighbourhood."

Eddie shakes his head, "It isn't an emergency vehicle."

Jeremy, still watching the news drops his piece of garlic toast, which bounces off the table and hits the floor. "Oh fuck."

"What is it?"

"Shit-fuck. Is there an election today?"

"No, no, no, there can't be an election. We have to get back to the office. We have a deadline."

Eddie goes back to his pie at double speed. But Jeremy and Keiko are out of their chairs. Keiko grabs Eddie by the arm. "Would you come on? We have to go!"

The few other patrons are hastily tossing money down onto their tables and grabbing for their jackets.

Tom puts his face into has hands and moans, "This can't be happening. It isn't fair. We have a deadline."

"Tom, let's get out of here."

Keiko says, "Jer, leave him. We gotta go."

But the doors to Lou's burst open and in charge several men. Most of them are security officers dressed in riot gear who take up positions surrounding the door. A customer, who was already running toward the door tries to push past them, but one of the officers knocks him to the ground and another holds him down.

There is a moment of tense silence as the security officers face the people in the pub. The bartender stands frozen, his hand still on the filthy rag with which he was smearing grease around on the bar. Two men, dressed in lab coats, walk in through the doors. Each carries a tablet computer. Keiko, smaller and quicker than the others sees her opportunity, lets go of Tom and dashes across the pub toward them. As she runs she fishes her identification card from out of her purse while shouting, "I refuse my ballot! I refuse my ballot."

One of the lab coats frowns and pulls a barcode scanner from his pocket and scans her id card. He looks at his computer and says, "Fine, Miss Nakamura, you may go."

Keiko squeezes past the security officers without even sparing a glance back at her coworkers. Jeremy quietly curses her quick reflexes.

"Asian-Canadian female. She'd have hit a couple of data points."

"We'll have to do another sweep through Chinatown later."

The lab coat who scanned Keiko's id, addresses the remaining crowd saying, "There are no more ballot refusals available. Any eligible voters will be required to come with us to the nearest polling station."

Eddie finishes licking out his ice cream bowl, stands up and announces, "I'm a convicted felon!"

The head security officer steps forward and responds, "Let's see your id."

As Eddie passes Jeremy he says, "Armed robbery and assault. Four years ago."

"Lucky bastard."

After his criminal record has been verified, the guards let Eddie go. As he's about to leave, he spins and with each hand flashes his middle finger at the rest of Lou's customers and then walks out of the pub, a bounce in his step. Tom begins to sob.

---

Jeremy and Tom end up in different trucks and Jeremy worries a bit. If Tom has a total breakdown over this, Jeremy is the next most senior programmer in their group and will likely be assigned the project management role. He tries not to think about it. He should be more worried about his immediate plight anyway. He and the other voters were rounded up and manhandled into the back of a one ton truck that smells as though it was most recently used to transport farm animals. The floor is strewn with dirt and straw, but there isn't enough straw to make sitting comfortable. The truck has poor shocks; each time they hit a pothole, a jarring shock runs up Jeremy's spine.

There are two guards. They don't look like they are carrying guns, probably just batons and pepper spray or Tasers. Jeremy entertains a brief of fantasy of leading an uprising. There are thirty people in the back of the truck and they could easily overpower the guards, force the driver to pull over and escape. Of course, all of their ID cards have been scanned and they'd be arrested the next morning. And everyone else in the truck looks too sullen or drunk to make a stand for human rights and dignity.

Except for one guy. The man sitting across from Jeremy is sitting cross-legged. He's smiling and has been humming to himself the entire drive.

Jeremy gives him a nod and says, "What's your story? You high?"

The man looks confused for a moment, then answers, "High? You mean on drugs? No, not at all."

"Most people don't look so happy, getting shoved into a truck and hauled off."

"Shoved? I hopped in. I volunteered to go vote."

"You...volunteered?" Jeremy has never heard of anyone actually volunteering to vote. Except, of course, for characters in the advertising campaigns put on by Elections Canada.

"Why not? Voting is fun. Plus, they give you cookies and juice after you're done."

Jeremy looks around, trying to make eye contact with someone else in order to escape the conversation with an obviously deranged person, but no one else is biting. He spends the rest of the drive with his head on his knees pretending he's fallen asleep.

---

The truck eventually jerks to a halt. They are hustled out of the truck by the guards and outside Jeremy sees they are in the parking lot of a school. There are several of the matte green trucks and a large crowd of people. Before he can see if Tom is around, one of their guards shouts, "Let's go! Let's go!" Jeremy's group is hustled into the school and into a classroom where the guard orders them all to find a seat.

Jeremy guesses they are in an elementary school. The walls are painted a bright yellow and above the blackboard at the front of the room is a long poster featuring cartoon animals and all the letters of the alphabet. The only places to sit are the desks and Jeremy is able to only barely squeeze into one, his legs out in the aisle. They are left there for ten minutes before someone comes in, carrying a stack of yellow legal pads. He's a teenager, an election volunteer and he distributes a pad and a crayon to each person in the room, then leaves.

The happy guy from the truck is sitting beside Jeremy and he leans over and says, "It's so you can take notes if you need. And you get to keep the pad and crayon afterwards." He says it in a whisper, as though a teacher is going to give him heck for in class.

Jeremy whispers back, "A crayon?"

"They used to give out pens or pencils but some people would stab themselves with them. You'd be surprised how often it happened."

Jeremy doubts that.

A few minutes later another man comes in. He's wearing a suit and has some sort of security badge dangling from his breast pocket. He half-sits on the teacher's desk and addresses them.

"Congratulations to all of you for coming out to vote. It's only through citizen participation that we can maintain a vibrant and healthy democracy." He goes on like that for several minutes, thanking them for taking time out of their busy lives to vote, emphasizing again and again that they are the cornerstone of the nation and then finally explaining that they will be called by name and taken to the preparation area and after that to the voting booth. The happy guy from the truck diligently writes everything down on his legal pad. He gets called before Jeremy and gives him a thumbs-up as leaves the room. Jeremy doesn't return the gesture.

---

Eventually, it's Jeremy's turn. He is led down the hallway by a man in hospital scrubs to the school's gym. He can see coloured lines on the hardwood floor designating the courts for various sports and it looks as though the entire room has been turned into a makeshift hospital. It's divided up by grey curtains in small rooms. Guards and orderlies come in and out of the rooms and at one point Jeremy has to stop as an unconscious guy in jeans and a t-shirt is dragged out.

The man Jeremy is following says, "Don't worry, most voters don't faint."

They eventually find an unoccupied spot and go inside. The man pulls the curtain shut and says, "Have a seat."

He sits down and when he puts his arms on the chair's armrests, restraints clamp shut over his wrists. The orderly says, "The doctor will be with you in a few minutes."

While he waits, Jeremy tries to listen to what's going on in the other rooms but the curtains seem to do a good job dampening sound. He thinks he hears the occasional muffled scream. After a while, he hears the curtain pulled open and two men come into his room. One is a different man in scrubs, and the other is wearing a white lab coat over a shirt and tie.

"Hello Jeremy, I'm Dr. Johannsen and I'll be your attending physician this evening." He looks at his clipboard and continues, "You haven't voted before, have you Jeremy?"

"Nope. First time they caught me."

"Well the process is really very simple. You'll watch a brief multimedia presentation detailing each of the candidates in your riding and then you can make your choice."

"Can't I just skip that part and fill out my ballot?"

"I'm afraid not. We've found that electoral recruits are rather uninformed about the major election issues as well as the various candidates. We've developed a program to help you get quickly up to speed, however."

"How many candidates are there in my riding?"

Another glance at the clipboard. "Fifty-seven. You don't have a credit card, do you?"

"No, why?"

"You should think about getting one. Elections Canada can use your purchasing history to develop a personality profile for you. Then we could have narrowed down the list of candidates to a subset who'd be most likely to appeal to you. As it stands, you'll have to get the full dose. Are you left handed, or right handed?"

"Right."

The orderly in scrubs steps forward, takes a firm grip on Jeremy's left bicep and injects a syringe into his arm, just above the elbow joint.

"What was that?"

The doctor responds, "A mild sedative and psilocybin. Helps with information retention. Just try to relax."

The orderly puts a pair of goggles over Jeremy's eyes, he winces when the elastic snaps against his head.

"The candidates' videos will be projected through the goggles. And then you'll -" Jeremy doesn't hear the rest because the orderly covers his ears with a pair of overstuffed, leather headphones. There is a click and a buzz and stream of images begin to appear inside the goggles and audio kicks in. Jeremy is bombarded by a series of campaign speeches from each of his candidates, each of them a fifteen minute pitch crammed in twenty seconds. He gets flashes of immigration policies, what they'll do to restore the arctic sea ice. Overcrowded public transportation, the healthcare system. All of it blasted at him at a speed that hovers at the liminal. Elections Canada doesn't need Jeremy to be able to write essays on each of the candidates positions. They just need him to get the gist.

At one point, the onslaught slows to something close to normal speed. This scene is of a young woman in a bucolic setting. She's wearing a loose white dress and has long, wavy brown hair. She takes a few dancing steps toward the camera and says, "Oh! Hi there, voter. My name is Madeline Beauchamps. I know you're probably feeling a little overwhelmed by this point so I'll be brief. I feel terrible about how voters are treated these days. This isn't what democracy should be about. I promise to you that if I'm elected, I'll end mandatory voting. And my government will no longer force social assistance recipients to volunteer for pharmaceutical testing."

She goes on for a while about other changes her government will enact but Jeremy closes his eyes and lets her soft voice drift over him. His grip on the chair's armrests relaxes a bit. When her presentation is finished, though, the blast of campaign promises begins anew. Jeremy feels like he's been plucked from a quiet picnic and dropped into the middle of a rock concert. A rock concert where the crowd is rioting.

When it's finally over, the orderly removes Jeremy's headphones and goggles. Then he vomits into the pail the orderly is holding up for him.

"Don't worry about puking. It happens all the time."

He has fuzzy memories of the orderly helping him out of the gym and down the hall to the voting booth.

---

Jeremy wakes up on his futon with a stiff neck and funny taste in his mouth. He remembers getting driven home in the back of the military transport and shoved out the back onto the sidewalk in front of his tenement. He can't think of what day of the week it is and wonders if he needs to go into work. He fumbles with his remote and manages to turn on his television. A news announcer is discussing the election.

"Political newcomer Madeline Beauchamps and her Shiny, Happy Party have won a surprising victory, securing more seats than any other party. Pundits are debating fiercely what other parties she'll be meeting with to form a coalition government. Let's play more of her victory speech from last night."

The scene flicks to Madeline Beachamps stepping up to a podium in front of chanting supporters. She's wearing a pinstriped suit and her hair is tied up in a complicated, expensive-looking arrangement. She thanks her supporters and campaign workers and her worthy opponents and then says, "Best of all, last night's record turnout of nearly twenty percent of eligible voters - I think this shows that voter cynicism is on the wane. And it demonstrates the incredible success of our nation's voter recruitment policies. One of the first acts in Parliament of our coalition government will be to increase Election's budgets to help allow more Canadians to have a say in their government."

Jeremy's phone begins to ring.

6 responses to "Week #6 - Plus, They Give You Cookies "

jess wrote: Monday, 14 Jan 2008 03:33 um, that is terrifying. thanks, dana. :P

Erinn the Bold wrote: Monday, 14 Jan 2008 04:38 I wish it was longer. Maybe it's just because I'm really interested in this topic though, and not because I cared for the writing. Wait, I liked the writing. Good job, Dana. "Shiny, Happy Party" = awesome, and I liked the title quite a bit.

Ginny! wrote: Monday, 14 Jan 2008 10:24 Got a bit of the Cupertino effect going on? "he hears the current pulled open" And something going on here: "changes her government in enact". But I liked it quite a bit. ^_^ I'm pretty sure Australian voting is nothing like this.

Marie wrote: Thursday, 17 Jan 2008 19:01 Look here, I know you're Canadian and whatever, but do you really need to set all of your stories in Canada. I don't know nuthin' about your Canadian politics nonsense whatever you call them, but this story clearly belonged in the U.S. ;)

Dana wrote: Friday, 18 Jan 2008 02:53 I think it would be kind of uncouth to satirize another country's politics when I can just as easily make fun of my own :P

Marie wrote: Monday, 21 Jan 2008 19:20 I think that's just your cover for ignorance of American politics. Which reminds me, I'm curious about your opinion of our pending primaries and upcoming elections.

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