election day

[deird1]

Senior Labor figures concede Kevin Rudd has lost the election, as exit polls suggest Tony Abbott will be elected in a landslide.

*narrows eyes*

Now, I realise the journalist was probably just trying to phrase things in an interesting way, BUT if they'd tried to phrase things in an accurate way, they would have gone with this:

Senior Labor figures concede Labor has lost the election, as exit polls suggest the Coalition will be elected in a landslide.

Otherwise, unless the exit polls were purely polling people in Toby Abbott's district – and, somehow, Kevin Rudd was competing for the same district – there is no way that those polls could be predicting Toby Abbott, specifically, being elected in a landslide.


I despair for the political education of our future children, I really do.

---

In other news, we had an election today.

Our House of Representatives voting is fairly simple: order the candidates from 1 to whatever-number, with 1 being your favourite, 2 being your second-favourite, and so on.

Senate voting is a little more complicated. Either you can order the candidates from 1 to whatever-number, as per the House of Reps ("below the line" voting), or you can just put a 1 beside your favourite candidate, and the rest will be filled in automatically ("above the line" voting).

Usually, I vote below the line. Which means I have to spend an extra minute or so filling in all 30 boxes.

Today? I took one look at the massively huge voting form, with its 97 boxes... and decided that I'd vote above the line.

I mean, 97 boxes? 97? Really?

Comments

[juliet316]

At least it's not California where apparently they had upwards of nearly 300 candidates in their recall election several years ago (the one where Arnold Schwartzenegger was first elected Governor).

Still, even 97 seems like a bit too much for one seat in an election (unless their vying for more than one seat - I know very little about Australian politics).

[nimthiriel]

I numbered all 97 boxes. No party's preferences are closely-enough aligned with my own for me to be willing to risk letting them decide where my votes go. It didn't take *too* long... And I drew all over my polling booth to help me keep track of which number I was up to :-p

[(Anonymous)]

It's been referred to on Facebook as 'the Senate tablecloth'. (laney here)

[velvetwhip]

Here in Idaho, I get to practice "there's no real point in my even showing up" voting, since I am one of about six sane people in the state and everyone else votes for the gun-toting, wealthy-ass-kissing, racist, misogynistic dickweeds.

Still, I vote in every election.


Gabrielle