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Australian Election Day process

Kid Eager

Philosopher
Kid Eager
Joined
Nov 5, 2010
Messages
7,296
All,
I've been away from the forum for a while but thought I'd share what election day was like on Saturday:
  • It's a Saturday, so there's plenty of time to vote. I decide to wander to the local school, which is set up for the day as a polling booth
  • So, after breakfast, walking up the street, seeing some others walking up to vote as well. Wave, say hi, they say hi back. Never met them before.
  • Get to the polling station, sausage sandwiches and cupcakes on sale.
  • Party reps waving their how to vote cards, not pushy, asking do you need the (insert party here) how to vote card. I say yeah nah, I'm cool. They say no worries.
  • They check my name off the voting register. House of Reps voting card is A5 size. Senate card is a metre wide. Who the fire truck are all these moron single issue parties?
  • Do Reps vote in reverse order, all good.
  • Now the Senate Card. Okay, working out who to avoid like the plague. Done. Now, have to number remainder 1-12. NUmber 12 goes in first, to the remaining most dick-ish party, working backwards to first choice. Done.
  • Put votes in the boxes, roll eyes at the scrutineer re long senate paper and he says "yeah, everbody's having a bit of a laugh over that one." Walk outside.
  • Too early for a sausage sandwich and I'm not really wanting cake (which is not a lie), but buy some cupcakes to donate something to the school.
  • Walking home, I encounter some people I haven't seen since the last election. I ask them if they'd like a cupcake and they're like "yeah nah, we're going to buy some for the same reason you did. Thanks,though."

And that was voting in suburban Australia.
 
Can we have that here please? Including the sausage when we drop off our mail-in ballots? I like sausage.
On my other forum, one of the members forgot to take his wallet, and couldn't buy the sausage. What a pity.
 
Bloody Aussies! Any excuse to chuck a couple of bangers on the barbie!

While on the subject of Aussie elections, it was good to see Fraser Anning egged out of his Senate seat. On the other side of the ledger, it was disappointing to see as much as 10% of Australia's version of the American South voting for Australia's (female) version of Donald Trump.
 
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smartcooky said:
Bloody Aussies! Any excuse to chuck a couple of bangers on the barbie!

While on the subject of Aussie elections, it was good to see Fraser Anning egged out of his Senate seat. On the other side of the ledger, it was disappointing to see as much as 10% of Australia's version of the American South voting for Australia's (female) version of Donald Trump.
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Excellent to see Anning out. But Pauline, it seems, we can't get rid of.
 
smartcooky said:
On the other side of the ledger, it was disappointing to see as much as 10% of Australia's version of the American South voting for Australia's (female) version of Donald Trump.
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Pauline Hanson got 8.7% of the vote in Queensland. Under the NZ MMP system, she could have gotten 2 (even 3) of Queensland's 29 seats. Instead, she got none.
 
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Mongrel said:
How long are the polls open? Does it give the people who have to work (retail\hospitality is teh biggest group I can think of) a chance to get their sausage cast their vote?
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Polls are open from 9 - 6pm on election day. If someone cannot get there on election day people can vote before election day. An increasing minority are doing so.
 
I found it hard to decide who to put last. pauline or palmer. didnt have Anning on my senate paper. I bought a sausage and went to the fire brigade open day around the corner and bought another one.
 
psionl0 said:
Pauline Hanson got 8.7% of the vote in Queensland. Under the NZ MMP system, she could have gotten 2 (even 3) of Queensland's 29 seats. Instead, she got none.
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We don't have MMP in Provincial Elections, only in General Elections. Provincial Elections use either FPP (for the Mayoral race) or STV for the Council.

Someone like Hanson wouldn't even get a ½% of the vote in this country.
 
Fun with Maths

smartcooky said:
We don't have MMP in Provincial Elections, only in General Elections. Provincial Elections use either FPP (for the Mayoral race) or STV for the Council.
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If Australia ever adopted MMP for the House of Representatives then it would have to be on a state by state basis. The constitution doesn't allow a single national vote as is done in NZ.

Just out of curiosity, I figured what the results would have been if MMP had been used:
Coalition - 70 seats
Labor - 58 seats
Greens - 18 seats
One Nation - 4 seats
and Andrew Wilke

Labor would have been able to govern with the support of the Greens but getting a speaker would have been problematic.

smartcooky said:
Someone like Hanson wouldn't even get a ½% of the vote in this country.
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One Nation only broke the 5% barrier in WA and Queensland. In the other states they didn't get anywhere.
 
Trebuchet said:
Can we have that here please? Including the sausage when we drop off our mail-in ballots? I like sausage.
On my other forum, one of the members forgot to take his wallet, and couldn't buy the sausage. What a pity.
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Agreed. I think I need to start planning for the next vote here. Maybe set up a barbeque in the school yard?
 
Everyone I met that day asked me if I'd done my 'civic duty'. For some reason, they appeared pleasantly surprised when I told them I was not eligible to vote.

I did buy the last of their sausages though.
 
This is The End said:
Are the sausages pork? Beef? Mixture? Unknown?
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Australia appears to be almost unique in that we have a default sausage, which is called a "sausage". Other countries have lots of different kinds of sausage, and we can get some of those too, but if you refer to a sausage in Australia you're referring to a basic standard probably-beef sausage. They're cheap and they're plentiful and they're pretty tasty on bread with fried onions and tomato sauce.

They put my onions on top, by the way.
 
This is The End said:
Are the sausages pork? Beef? Mixture? Unknown?
Click to expand...

arthwollipot said:
Australia appears to be almost unique in that we have a default sausage, which is called a "sausage". Other countries have lots of different kinds of sausage, and we can get some of those too, but if you refer to a sausage in Australia you're referring to a basic standard probably-beef sausage. They're cheap and they're plentiful and they're pretty tasty on bread with fried onions and tomato sauce.

They put my onions on top, by the way.
Click to expand...

The above answer is not the whole story. The meat is often off cuts. Then if the sausages are cheap flour, water, salt, fat, flavour enhancer and preservatives are added.

I suggest that they are avoided except for special occasions.

Read more here https://www.goodfood.com.au/eat-out/news/what-are-sausages-really-made-of-20150709-gi74yx
 
rjh01 said:
The above answer is not the whole story. The meat is often off cuts. Then if the sausages are cheap flour, water, salt, fat, flavour enhancer and preservatives are added.
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Yeah but no-one cares.

rjh01 said:
I suggest that they are avoided except for special occasions.
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Except for people who are, like, concerned about their health or something.
 
The regular Woollies sausages are actually pretty good these days. It's still sausage meat, obviously, which is made from bits that you wouldn't make steaks from, but they're a lot better today than they used to be.

The "high fat offal tubes" episode of Yes Minister had an effect, I think.
 
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