Yesterday was election day, with everyone voting for the mayoral and city council candidates across the country. The streets have been full of electioneering for the last few weeks, with dozens of billboards of smiling corrupters on every street corner, and people constantly trying to thrust flyers at you. They all have this weird technique of flicking their wrist, as if about to throw a frisbee at you, then flicking it again to proffer the flyer. The streets were completely lined with discarded paper yesterday.
A couple of interesting things: firstly it’s mandatory to vote here. If you don’t, there’s a negligible fine of about a pound, but in principle I guess it’s a good idea. Plus you need to be able to show that you’ve voted if you want to do certain things such as apply for a job, make a terrible similie involving a kettle, apply for university courses, etc.
All the voting is done electronically, so there’s no faffing about with paper votes and taking 2 days to get the results. You just go to your voting place, show your ID, and then go to a private voting booth with a big 80s style computer to tap in your candidate number and push the big green button. You get a receipt, and that’s it. Seemed like a pretty good system to me.
And finally this, which is COMPLETELY MENTAL: voters can’t be arrested for 5 days before, or 2 days after, the election. Apart from some exceptions, such as being caught red-handed! What the fuck? So if you’re planning that jewel heist then I suppose the next round of elections in October would be the best time for it.
In other news, I’ve got a few more classes with the new school, so my timetable’s filling up rather nicely, like a kettle.
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