Voting in Canada

My voting experience in Canada has been so much better than compared to the States. First off, by law, employers must give people three contiguous hours off at some point between 7:00 and 19:00 to be able to vote. And this is paid leave.

And because elections occur somewhat randomly, you are only voting for a single thing, so the ballot is extremely simple; one item to vote on. And the ballot itself is designed simply. You just put an 'X' in an oval next to the person you are voting for. The background is hashed so as to make the oval and the name of the person stand out more. They just use a pencil; no chads or unsafe electronic voting machines.

How could voting get better? Well, for one, they don't have the "I voted" stickers here. =)

But the other is allowing people to vote at any polling place. People in Iraq get to do this thanks to the stained thumb, so why can't we? Shouldn't the barrier to voting be lowered to the point that it is trivial to vote? I think so, and it could be doable in Canada thanks to the fact that voting is handled by a federal organization that is non-partisan, unlike the States where each state handles it.