What a line from the polling booth!

cybereye (Mario) · #1 08-09-2013, 03:49 PM

While I was standing in the long queue waiting to vote yesterday, an electoral official walked along asking if anyone was from outside the electorate. This old bloke standing behind me replied dryly "If this queue was much longer I would be..."

Cheers,
Mario

multiweb (Marc) · #2 08-09-2013, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cybereye

While I was standing in the long queue waiting to vote yesterday, an electoral official walked along asking if anyone was from outside the electorate. This old bloke standing behind me replied dryly "If this queue was much longer I would be..."

Cheers,
Mario

That's gold.

Astroman (Andrew Wall) · #3 08-09-2013, 03:55 PM

HAHA! Yes there were some long lines.

Larryp (Laurie) · #4 08-09-2013, 03:57 PM

Love it!

About the same as where I voted.

mithrandir (Andrew) · #5 08-09-2013, 05:07 PM

We took Mum down to vote and it seems that because we were with her she got no consideration for her age or infirmities and had to wait in the sun. Another elderly woman with a walking stick was taken straight to the head of the queue because she came by herself.
A good thing we went when we did. By the time we left the queue was twice as long.

Hans Tucker (Hans) · #6 08-09-2013, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mithrandir

We took Mum down to vote and it seems that because we were with her she got no consideration for her age or infirmities and had to wait in the sun. Another elderly woman with a walking stick was taken straight to the head of the queue because she came by herself.
A good thing we went when we did. By the time we left the queue was twice as long.

Why didn't you get her to put a postal vote in?

mithrandir (Andrew) · #7 08-09-2013, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hans Tucker

Why didn't you get her to put a postal vote in?

We asked if she wanted to do that but she's too independent minded Hans. Has her own house. Lives alone. Does her own shopping. Still has an unrestricted drivers license. Not bad for almost 90.

Hans Tucker (Hans) · #8 08-09-2013, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mithrandir

We asked if she wanted to do that but she's too independent minded Hans. Has her own house. Lives alone. Does her own shopping. Still has an unrestricted drivers license. Not bad for almost 90.

Head strong 90 year old...brilliant....and still driving. I can only wish to live so long and have all my faculties. I gather putting forward an argument was futile.

tlgerdes (Trevor) · #9 08-09-2013, 06:11 PM

I think you are all mad for queuing up.

Went to the electoral office 2 weeks ago and pre-voted, in and out in 8 mins including parking, no wait, no queues, no fuss, no reason needed.

If you haven't made your mind up by 2 weeks out from an election, then you haven't been paying attention to what's going around you.

Terry B · #10 08-09-2013, 06:16 PM

I voted at the local hospital. No one was there. The entire process took less than a minute.

LewisM · #11 08-09-2013, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlgerdes

I think you are all mad for queuing up.

Went to the electoral office 2 weeks ago and pre-voted, in and out in 8 mins including parking, no wait, no queues, no fuss, no reason needed.

If you haven't made your mind up by 2 weeks out from an election, then you haven't been paying attention to what's going around you.

Yup. I usually pre-poll, but this time, wife and I enrolled for postal voting(no fuel required

)

The cars and line up at the local school was staggering, even at 3pm.

The_bluester (Paul) · #12 08-09-2013, 06:54 PM

We thought about an early vote but never got around to it. Then suddenly found ourselves with a 900 KM round trip to do interstate on election day. Tip for the uninitiated, they only keep stuff for absentee votes within your own state apart maybe from major polling booths out of your home state.

Made it back into Vic and voted in Wodonga with an hour to spare having been on the road since before polls opened, walked straight into the polling place, voted and walked out to get back on the road again.

GeoffW1 (Geoff) · #13 08-09-2013, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlgerdes

I think you are all mad for queuing up.

Went to the electoral office 2 weeks ago and pre-voted, in and out in 8 mins including parking, no wait, no queues, no fuss, no reason needed.

If you haven't made your mind up by 2 weeks out from an election, then you haven't been paying attention to what's going around you.

Awww...

Lots of interesting stuff happened in the last 2 weeks.

Sure. Let me think. There was what's-'is-face getting the boat people policy all wrong, there was Mad Bob complaining about Clive, there was mad Clive complaining about Rupert, there was mad Rupert writing classy journalism complaining about Kevin.....lots and lots.

We'd have missed all that. When I got in the long queue yesterday, I just laid down on the ground. When they came around I groaned "Vote, I must vote, have to vote". It was easy.

The hard part was figuring out who to vote for.

Mods, apologies if this was too political

GrahamL · #14 08-09-2013, 09:59 PM

We always go around 3.00pm or later and theres no one there ever !
even found $5 sitting in the grass on the way out

massive lines everywhere in the mornings as always !

tlgerdes (Trevor) · #15 09-09-2013, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeoffW1

Awww...

Lots of interesting stuff happened in the last 2 weeks.

Sure. Let me think. There was what's-'is-face getting the boat people policy all wrong, there was Mad Bob complaining about Clive, there was mad Clive complaining about Rupert, there was mad Rupert writing classy journalism complaining about Kevin.....lots and lots.

We'd have missed all that. When I got in the long queue yesterday, I just laid down on the ground. When they came around I groaned "Vote, I must vote, have to vote". It was easy.

The hard part was figuring out who to vote for.

Mods, apologies if this was too political

Yeah, but that started 5 weeks out, Jayme (who would spell their kids name like that?) muffed it in the first 3 days, Clive and Bob were raving from the opening gunshot, Rupert was too.

The last 2 weeks was only ever going to confirm in your own mind that you made the right choice.

AstralTraveller (David) · #16 09-09-2013, 10:49 AM

It's true about there always being queues but the number of senate candidates, coupled with the near-universal unprincipled distribution of preferences, can't have helped. It really meant that any concientious voter had no choice but to vote below the line. That was a 30+ minute exercise if you were fairly organised and I know someone who took an hour (after stuffing up their first attempt).

The_bluester (Paul) · #17 09-09-2013, 11:29 AM

If you were gonig to vote below the line, the best thing I saw were the websites that allowed you to work out where you wanted to put your preferences and gave you a printed out dummy ballot to take in with you to copy your numbers down from. At least that way you could take your time in the comfort of your own home to decide where the numbers went and then it would just be monkey see, monkey do on the day to copy down what you printed.

You would still need a pencil sharpener though.

AstralTraveller (David) · #18 09-09-2013, 11:41 AM

Yes, if you waited till you were in the booth to start thinking then you would be there all day. Even handling the sheets with the votes printed on them and the tablecloth in a polling booth was slow work. That isn't a complaint, it's just the way things are.

Ric · #19 09-09-2013, 12:13 PM

We're pretty lucky at our polling station being rural.

If we get 10 people at one time we call it the rush hour.