Polling Booth Official - The Inside Word!

The only thing people hate more than their least desired party winning an election, is if no one wins the election. On March 15, I spoke to a Liberal member, handing out how to vote cards in the district of Wait, who said they honestly didn’t care who won, so long as we ended up with a government leading in the majority. Well we were all in for a shock, not only did her party not win, we also have a minority government at the hands of Geoff Brock, the Member for Frome (read Member for Port Pirie and surrounding areas).

To become a polling booth official, you know the people who cross your name off and give you your ballot papers when you come to vote? Yeah well to become one of those people you have to have training, have a passion for reciting the alphabet at warp seeds and want to initial your name over and over…. All day long. There is a lot you have to be responsible for as well, I mean just look at Western Australia; someone, somewhere along the lines stuffed up and lots and lots of ballots were lost, and now the entire state has to go back and vote for the Senate on April 5. I know some people will wonder what the big deal is, but if less than 20 people had voted differently in the Senate, 2 different people would have been elected Senators… 20 people!

The day started at 6.30am arriving at the polling booth to help set up the little booths you actually vote in, as well as to assemble the boxes for the ballots to go into. There was a palpable hub of energy inside the booth as we knew that the day ahead, was going to be long but very exciting. Polling started at 8am, and as we watched the seconds ticking away we could see the queue stretching back almost 300 meters!  When we first opened the doors my job was to sort the people who were from the District and who were voting outside the district, this was important because if you don’t vote in your district you have to do a Declaration vote as opposed to an Ordinary vote.

As the hours wore on, I became friends with the people handing out how to vote cards for all the different political parties. You hear horror stories of people refusing to talk to other people from opposing parties, and even abusing voters for not taking a how to vote card….. That didn’t happen where I was, instead they had a party, the Liberals supplied the TimTams, the ALP supplied lunch, the Xenophon Group looked old and the Greens looked scared of talking to people.

Being in the heartland of Wait (Liberal Member Martin Hamilton-Smiths district) it was almost comical to pick out the non-liberal voter, and as the day wore on, the how to vote card handouters engaged in a game of spot the ALP/Liberal/Green voter with surprising accuracy.

When the doors closed at the end of the day the real fun began. Due to the increasing risks associated with counting votes after a long day of handing out ballots, the counting is done in steps to avoid any mishaps. Starting with the House of Assembly ballots, unfolding and separating the formal from the informal votes. While this is going on, other people are unfolding the huge, ginormous Legislative Council white papers. The House of Assembly ballots are then sorted into piles (the amount of piles depends on how many people are contesting the seat) grouped together by first preference votes, and then are handed over to the Polling Booth Manager to distribute preferences until there are only two parties left (usually Liberal and Labor but not always). Counting then can begin for the Legislative Council separating votes into formal and informal, above and below the line until you get piles from A to X up and down the floor. While the night did not produce a conclusive result, the experiences and lessons learnt from a day on a polling booth will enlighten even the most apathetic voter to the sacredness of voting and elections.

 

Election Night

All our dreams have come true! Political Junkies were spoilt for choice tonight, with two elections being contested, the Tasmanian ALP lead Government and the South Australian ALP Government were up for re-election. Now while the result seemed inevitable you can’t always judge an election by its opinion polls and this evening was no different. A landslide and a hung parliament. Two vastly different results from two vastly different places. I am sure the Tasmanian election will be talked about in the days to come, it is the incredible results coming out of South Australia that has the nation captivated.

With the election result still in jeopardy, only one thing is for certain, us South Aussies, are a strange bunch of people! Who would have thought, after what some call the most disastrous parliament of all time – at a federal level from 2010-2013, that we could potentially be having another hung parliament in the House of Assembly!

 Many just thought that after the ALP's loss at the Federal Election last September, they would just shrivel up and fall in a heap and that the Libs would rule supreme at this election, but apparently not. ABC commentators and interviewees tonight have been spruking the power of the negative campaign the Premier ran against the Liberal Leader and his party, but is this close result something inherently deeper? Jay Weatherill would like you to believe that this close outcome was the states way of rebelling against the Liberal Federal Government, but I don’t know if I agree. For a state that has seen some sad times in the recent months, it almost seems as though people are not ready to let go of the protective womb the ALP have woven around us. For years and years they have been our pillars, our guideposts, and to have them ripped out from under us, I think people are reacting badly. That is not to say the relationship between the people and the Rann/Weatherill Government has always been smooth sailing, it is more a reflection on the fact South Aussies are notorious for rejecting change at every opportunity. That is not to say that when everything is said and done, when all the votes are counted, and then double counted, along with pre-poll votes, postal votes and voters voting outside their electorate the people may have voted for change. The thing is, even if the government changes hands, it has changed hands by the smallest of margins and so whoever forms government, will have their work cut out for them in the next four years. Huge Suburb unemployment, rising taxes and cost of living pressures, and a stagnating economy, as well as a great chance of needing support from independents to pass legislation – who would even want the job?? I joke, I joke, but seriously it will be a tough gig for either party.

Anyway, stay tuned as many votes still need to be counted, as it currently stands 22 ALP 21 LIB 2  IND, election night may be reaching a close but the results will be a while away yet – and then for the fun part, piecing the state back together!

 

Less than a week to go!

Less than a week. That’s right people, is less than one week, the fine people of South Australia (and actually the pretty fine people of Tasmania as well) are counting down the hours (well nearly!!) until they have to get out their favourite pencils and mark those ballot papers once again! With Premier Jay and Opposition Leader Steven out pounding the Adelaidian pavement, drumming up support and scouring votes, I am turning my attention to another pressing political matter COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS TO GO!!

Looking at the main issues being spoken about during this campaign, it has mainly been to do with State issues. Our pollies are promising more money, more resources and even the kitchen sink, if they think it will give them a leg up on the other side. In the name of winning votes, pollies have plastered their face on stobie polls, on billboards and subject themselves to the humiliation of standing on the side of busy highways in order to capture that extra few votes. Upgrades to certain troublesome roads, cutting/capping/halting council rates as well as future infrastructure and building projects are just some of the enticements on offer during the last week of campaigning.

The general consensus is that people are swayed by what they read, what they hear, what they see and what they experience when it comes who to put before whom on the ballot paper. Obviously there are rusted on, or hard core Liberal, Greens and Labor voters but an increasing number of people are becoming swinging or non-affiliated voters with a number of Independents in the mix at the election. Probably due to the increasing centralisation of the major parties on many issues, people are finding it harder and harder to pick a side and stick to it. Furthermore when elections roll around, there is so much negativity and so many games being played, that people are at a loss about which party truly deserve to be in power. Now yes, I guess that mainstream media is kinda, maybe, partly to blame but with the internet being the wonderful magical thing that it is, finding out information is always only a click and a few key strokes away. But many people are still undecided, if the circumstances were different the choice might be easier, but with such a long period of Labor rule it seems that the Liberals are finally making a comeback.

In terms of the election on Saturday, this final week of campaigning will be crucial to the end result. As it stands, the Liberal Party seem to be out in the lead by a fraction of a whisker, but if you referred to Newspoll last week, the result would look something like another hung parliament. Something, despite it being a highly successful federal parliament, in terms of legislation passing- it is doubtful, many people would like to see it again in the near future. That being said, the likelihood of there being the same amount of criticism placed upon the Leader of the Government would seem remote, at the current stage.

Whatever the result on Saturday, one this is certain the government will have a hard time convincing voters to keep them in when their term expires in four years’ time as unemployment will be one of the hotly debated issues in the coming years…