Tyros are beginners, people who are learning. They are much like many of the staff of the town of Babel. Among the staff are people who come to a small town such as Babel to learn their craft. They come to make their mistakes. They try to minimize those mistakes though and put caution in the way of any progress. It is a caution they carry throughout their careers working for Canadian municipalities.
The reason little happens in Babel is not as much the conservatism of the members of council as it is the conservatism of the tyros. It makes for some frustration with what does not happen with any alacrity in Babel.
An interesting example is the computerized voting system used by Babel for municipal elections. With the speed of change in computer technology, this voting system was obviously out of date the first year it was used. Having been asked to help troubleshoot the voting process for a mayoralty candidate in the last municipal election, it became a lesson in what can go wrong with this type of system. The conclusion of the experience was that the system is too cumbersome, too slow, too expensive and causes too much confusion for support staff and voters.
And the tyros of Babel think they are with it because they use a ‘computerized’ system!
What they are really using is the rough equivalent of the punched cards in Florida state and federal elections with their hanging chads and questionable counting procedures.
But when you ask why the town has not turned to Internet voting, you find that the tyros do not trust the Internet. When you consider the federal and provincial government agencies that use the internet for very confidential information, the millions of citizens who do their banking and bill paying on-line and the billions spent with credit cards on-line, you wonder if these tyros know something the rest of us do not.
Internet voting is something that is starting to take place elsewhere. Babel would hardly be the first if it moved into the 21st Century in this manner. It might not improve voter participation but it would make it convenient for the caring voter to vote anytime over a period of a few days from the convenience of his or her computer or smart cell phone.
We regret to inform you, there will be a ward by-election in Babel in December. City council passed a by-law the other day without a single question from any of the politicians either in committee or as council. The by-law allows for three days of actual voting, at different times and at different places. It will use the old voting machines with their awkward computer counting of the results. It seems that democracy in Babel is at the convenience of the tyros, not the voters.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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