Not all the gears mesh smoothly when they fire up the Elections Canada machine every few years.
A Pender Island couple trekked all the way to Saanichton to vote a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't find the returning office. So they went to Elections B.C., which pointed them to another federal office downtown.
In Port Alberni, an exchange between an Elections Canada rep and the chief of the Tseshaht First Nation read like Monty Python when the latter posted it on Facebook.
In the Comox Valley, two mothers emerged shaking their heads after separate trips to the local returning office to register their 18-year-old daughters.
Both Joanne Steven and Helen Austin described drawn-out, confused processes in a little-advertised, hard-to-find office with poor signage. They were left with the impression of an organization not that interested in getting young Canadians to vote.
Austin, who is best known as a Juno-winning musician, responded by posting her own here's-how-and-where-to-register guide on Facebook, hoping to make it easier for young people to sign up. It shouldn't be that hard for them to dive into the democratic process, she says.
"I want to stand outside on the highway like the pizza guy with signs that say 'Registration This Way.'"
In other years, all this would be put down to growing pains - temporary workers learning new jobs in unfamiliar offices.
Alas for Elections Canada, this time it labours under the shadow of the new Fair Elections Act, legislation that inspired dark mutterings about voter suppression when introduced last year.
Some of the contentious parts of the bill - such as the bit that says you can't use the voter card you get in the mail as ID at the polling place - remained.
Others, like a proposal to limit the chief electoral officer's ability to communicate with the public, were modified by the time the law was enacted.
For some, the details were lost in the hard-to-scrub-off allegations of a Conservative attempt to co-opt Elections Canada for partisan purposes - an impression the agency must now work hard to dispel.
To that end, big yellow and black signs now make the Saanichton returning office hard to miss.
And after initially having his request for election materials refused, Tseshaht Chief Hugh Braker wrote a followup Facebook post praising the Elections Canada official who stepped in to straighten out what was said to be a decision made in error.
Elections Canada also announced the launch of an advertising campaign this week, along with a pilot project targeting aboriginals, students and seniors - the groups most often cited as being hurt by the new identification requirements.
The pilot project will let people register and vote at 52 campuses, youth centres and native friendship centres across Canada from Oct. 5-8.
The ad campaign focuses on how to register and how to vote.
The easiest way to do the former is to go to the Am I Registered To Vote spot at elections.ca.
Going there is a good idea even for those who have voted for years, as the redrawing of electoral boundaries has put many in new ridings.
There are a few ways to vote.
Election day is Oct. 19.
Unlike provincial elections, you may only vote in the polling place designated on the card you should get in the mail by Oct. 1.
The ID requirements are stricter than before (again, details at elections.ca) but officials expect 86 per cent of voters to flash a driver's licence.
Prior to that, advance polling will be held over four days spanning the Thanksgiving weekend, Oct. 9-12.
You can also vote at any Elections Canada office between now and
Oct. 13, using what is known as a special ballot. (Special ballots are also used to vote by mail.)
Since nominations don't close until Sept. 28, and the complete list of candidates won't be published until
Sept. 30, anyone voting before that will have to know and write in the name of the candidate he or she supports.
