I don't remember attending a major political event, except at very local levels like campus student bodies, or speakers on campus. In the just finalized federal elections, I was involved with Elections Canada as an employee.
More than being a very shot term employment opportunity, what I've found is that the experience of getting involved has given me a sense of citizenship that no other events have.
It is common for politicians in campaigns or speeches to claim how being in campaign tours had brought them close to the voters - that they have seen and heard voters and have come to understand their concerns first hand.
There may be some truth to it, aside from it being a campaign cliche...
What impressed me during the training day was the diversity of the trainees. Our age ranged from a girl who I would say is just out of high school or even still in high school, to a man who must have voted in the last seven elections. I don't know if that were the shared sense of responsibility in understanding well and following the electoral rules or the interactive nature of the training that gives one a sense of citizenship for being part of the process.
On election day, I had a glimpse of what politicians may call the "fabric of the society." The voter turnout (which I thought was descent, given the number of polls in our location), the order of the process and great discipline that everyone involved showed. There were the elderly voter, the first time voter who needed to register just because she turned 18 last week, the pregnant woman, the dad with twins in a stroller, the businesspeople who just got out of work and came in rushing to vote before it was over, and there was the lady in a wheelchair who knew exactly which station she was going to vote in. From my observation, it was by no means a fully representative voting crowd (college-aged young people were not as visible, for example), but it were representative enough for one to see what the society is made of.
And then there was the voter who drove back to her house and dutifully brought her proper identity, and the other voter who was very insistent in voting and having her voice heard and made two trips to another voting location that the records showed she was eligible to vote in, only to come back to our location because she "lives next door."
It is easy enough to see that outside this particular event, these people are businesspeople, dads, moms, doctors, retirees, nurses, caretakers, customer servers, TV show hosts, and so on. But on this particular day, they were all citizens who wanted to make their voice heard, who wanted to make sure that the voting process was fair and error free, and that the rules were followed and respected -- the latter often enforced passionately and forcefully.
