Nearly 30 years as an assistant returning officer
An intense, interesting, challenging and rewarding job
April 14, 2025, 11:21 am
Donna Beutler is an additional assistant returning officer for the federal election in the Souris-Moose Mountain Riding—something she has done for almost 30 years. Her office is located in Whitewood. Following is a first person piece on her role in the election:
My first foray into the federal voting process was in 1997, the last year that enumeration was done across the country. Those door-knocking days when electors were signed up to vote have transformed into what is called a National Registry of Electors and today, as a Canadian elector, voters who are “on the list” can or register to vote at polls close to where they live, providing they are at least 18 years old and are a Canadian citizen with identification showing where they live.
When I first started with Elections Canada, I oversaw the enumeration process in the Whitewood area and that spring, oversaw the hiring and training of poll workers who would work on Election Day ’97. The job meant working approximately 40 consecutive 12-hour days and I was definitely up for the challenge although when I look back, I feel like I knew absolutely nothing at the time.
Over the past nearly 30 years, I continued in my job as an additional Assistant Returning Officer in the Whitewood-Grenfell-Moosomin-Wawota-Kipling areas in the upper corner of the Souris-Moose Mountain Electoral District, north to the valley, south to Kenosee Lake, east to the Manitoba border and west to nearly Wolseley.
Over nearly three decades, I have worked 10 elections, including this one. In the 2000’s our country saw an election in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011, though since then, the elections have more or less been every four years with the exception of 2019 and 2021.
Though the period of time that an Elections Canada office is set up in Whitewood to serve the electors of this portion of our district is very short, some five, six or perhaps seven weeks, long hours help my team and I get done what needs to be done.
A recruitment person comes on board to hire about 130 poll workers in this region and that is an intense job that requires countless hours on the phone.
Since the office is open 12 hours a day, two teams of service agents assist voters with changes to their voter information or, if they have moved, whether in the district or from outside into our district, they can be registered to vote here. The process can be done in our office or at the polls but the main thing electors have to do is have appropriate identification. It’s imperative that an elector’s place of address can be shown in order to be registered to vote if they are not already on the list of electors.
Service agents also provide electors an opportunity to vote right in our office or to complete the necessary forms for electors to utilize what is called special ballot voting and take a voting kit with them in order to do mail-in voting.
As for myself, I train my poll workers (approximately 100-plus) and this is probably one of the biggest parts of my job and something I have done for all but one election. It takes an incredible amount of time to be prepared to present several different training sessions for the various positions, but it is the one that I enjoy the most and is one of the reasons I keep coming back to the job, election after election.
Once my office team and I reach the mid-way mark of the pre-election day period, we are super busy, putting training kits together, creating training scenarios, contacting poll workers, sorting supplies to ensure every poll has the necessary forms, supplies, ballots and ballot boxes to ensure election day(s) go as smoothly as possible. From the start of advance polling days until the day of the election, we move from 12-hour days to 14- and 16-hour days, depending on the need.
While it’s a relatively short period of time to work, it is an incredibly intense, interesting, challenging and rewarding job to do and I am honored to have done this for so long and to have been able to see the process in action.
