Saturday 7 September 2013

On Voting Today...

So yeah, I just came back from voting and I'm still mixed in my thoughts in this. Whilst I must say as much as it's probably still bothersome, I prefer the old paper and ballet box method of voting as opposed to touch screen alternatives... I've read enough of those shenanigans over in the US, and whilst I love technology this just seems to be too open to corruption or exploitation. That being said it's also a society that find itself incapable from punching a hole in a card, so I'm guessing voting "1" might be a little extreme, let alone the rest of the numbers... I imagine it would go something like, "Whut do you mean we 'ave to count to '7'? I don't 'ave dat there many fingers on ma hand!" before running off to make out with their cousin in a barn. I apologise to my American readers, I love your country but Jeebus some of your education standards need to be raised (and not in a "No child left behind" manner either).

So anyway I think I voted in good conscious, which doesn't say much as I ultimately didn't have much choice in the matter as most of the parties  I would have liked to have voted for weren't on my ballot. The thing that really got me annoyed was that we hold all our polling events at public schools, and obviously they allow the various political parties to post their campaign posters to be visible to the voters as they walk in (to then be confronted by the pamphlet wavers which do bug me). However this wasn't the annoying part, although somewhat tedious it's something we probably have to endure as its a way of the parties getting themselves exposure (as opposed to the months of constant media noise, numerous print and TV adverts, and Rupert Morduck constantly telling us who we have to vote for), however today just made me a tad angry.

As I approached the school, I noticed that all along the wired fencing was campaign posters for one of the major parties we shall call A (those on my twitter and facebook know which one, but for this point I'm keeping the party obscured), with little to no sign or mention of the other major party we shall call B. Now I can be fairly certain that the district I'm in is probably one of those annoying ones were the candidate is in a 'safe' seat, and that my vote ultimately has no sway in any regard to this, and this is quite possibly why these posters are heavy handed. I must admit ignorance at this point in that I don't recall which party holds the seat in my district, it's partly that I didn't find out and partly because I don't really care... at least I'm being honest here. Anyway there was a huge presence of A there, numerous volunteers, lots of people handing out pamphlets, etc; however there was hardly any presence of B there! I didn't see any volunteers, no pamphlets, barely any signs, not even a B representative trying to butter up the crowd. And this bothered me.

I'm one of the imbeciles who believes that polling centres should be completely unbiased in these regards, yes allow the parties to have their banners, signs, and their pamphlets hander outers, but there should be a limit or at least one party should not be allowed to dominate an area. The fact that the majority of polling centres are held in PUBLIC SCHOOLS, concerns me more than anything. We pay through our taxes to maintain the public school system, so for me that automatically means that no one particular party should be allowed to even advertise there at all, but I suppose ultimately there isn’t any choice in the matter. The fact that one party feels that it’s their right to be so vigorous is cause enough for concern, but knowing that this is not only allowed but no one seemed to be bothered by it worries me.
 
I suppose because we have been in an uncertain political climate for so long, and that both sides just seem to spend most of the time being complete dicks to each other, it becomes hard to gauge who should be the one that ultimately leads us. I’m dreading that this country has decided it wants to move towards a more intolerant and backwards society that soon enough we’ll be walking with our fists dragging on the ground and grunting, whilst clobbering women over the heads to drag them back to our caves to watch Fox News. A gross exaggeration, but it made me giggle.

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