Happy Mothers Day to anyone who qualifies.
Marilyn and I voted yesterday in the Tasmanian Upper House poll. It was easy; nothing like the rigmarole which goes on in Federal elections. There were no long queues and no short tempers, straight in, write down a couple of numbers and then out to find a coffee shop.
The key is pre-organisation. Each of us received a bar code in the mail, we handed that in and the young woman on the desk handed us our voting slips. Easy! There was no searching through pages and pages of names to see whether we were listed; after we had taken our voting slips, the young woman scanned in the info to her computer and we were electronically ticked off.
For years, Tasmania has had its electoral roll on computer. Each person on the desk has a laptop; when somebody fronts up, they are asked their name, the official types in the first four letter and then selects the right person from the names that appear. No rulers and pencils to cross out the voter.
At the last Federal election, I was in charge of a supposedly small booth in Launceston. I only had two electoral roll books so only two people could tick off names at the one time. We were inundated by customers, with lines stretching for hundreds of metres. And nothing could be done because we were hampered by 18th century technology.
It will be the same when we vote in a couple of weeks time. Long queues, short tempers and lack of patience, It's not surprising that people might decide not to bother and it doesn't have to be like that.
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