Federal Election 2007
My alarm went off at 6.30am yesterday morning. What? You might ask… quite incredulously… this was a Saturday morning, right?
Well, I was a polling assistant in our Nation’s Federal Election yesterday. That meant turning up at 7.30am, helping to set up the polling booths and getting ready for the onslaught of voters. Let me tell you, there was an onslaught! From the moment we opened at 8am, there was absolutely no let-up for 4 hours! Queues right out the door! I got my first break at 11.30am but only because we needed a break from concentrating, not because it had quietened down!!
So what did I do? I was one of those cheery assistants behind the desk who asks for your name, address, checks you off the electoral roll, asks whether you have already voted in today’s election, signs the ballot papers before issuing them to you and then gives you a quick run-down on how to fill in your papers. Phew!! After doing that for most of the day, my eyes felt sore!!
Somewhere between 4.30 and 5pm the voters got down to a trickle and we started to take turns with some admin and clean-up. The polls shut at 6pm so we all had a quick break before six, ate something for dinner and then the "day" starts in earnest! We had over 3,500 votes to count for each paper (so 7,000 altogether as there was a vote for Senate and House of Reps). BTW, *please* don’t fold your ballot paper and if you feel you have to, don’t fold in more than once – do you know how long it takes just to unfold the darn things?
It was a great experience being behind the scenes and as long as I bring a cushion to sit on, I’ll do it again. It actually gave me a lot more faith in the process and we had very few disillusioned voters. Of 3,500 votes, we only had 69 informal ones and half of those were because people didn’t understand how to fill in the Senate paper! Grr! We only explain it as we hand it out and then there’s instructions to read on the paper itself!!
We had a great group of people on the booth and chatted happily with the scrutineers. They were a nice bunch too.They are not allowed to touch the ballot papers at all so it was interesting if you accidentally put a paper on the wrong pile. They would have to say – can you just go back one or two and check that paper? Sometimes, yes, you had put it on the wrong pile and sometimes, it was their minds playing tricks!! Every vote was double checked by another polling official and the scrutineers over your shoulder. When the vote was in, the scrutineers called their headquarters with numbers and voting trends. All the ballot papers were then packaged and sealed and they will be re-checked centrally before being declared as the"official" result for that booth.
We finally left to go home at about 10pm!! It was an exhausting day but one I’d do again. If you have teenage children, check the age requirement for the job – I think it would be good to get them involved in the process!
Regardless of your voting preferences, your disappointment or elation at the change of government in Australia, it’s good to see the system works. There’s an honesty and accountability in the processes that we have.
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