I worked at a polling booth in the Banks electorate on Saturday 7 September 2013 for the Federal Election. I was a polling officer, which meant I marked people's names off, or marshalled people in or out of the polling booth. Then after 6pm, I helped count votes.
It was a long day, beginning at 7.30pm and ending after 9.30pm, but I have to say i enjoyed every minute.
Most people are friendly and polite, although some people take exception to the compulsory aspect of voting, or the fact that the Electoral Office still hadn't updated their address despite them alerting the office a few weeks before the election (it's a bit late by then, my friends).
It was never too busy at the booth I was at, and people generally didn't have to wait too long to vote.
Counting was the hardest part of the day. It has to be done quickly and being after already doing about 10 hours work, meant concentration was a bit more difficult. The ballot papers had to be unfolded and sorted into first preferences, and the big senate paper was the most difficult.
I'm not suggesting it's rocket surgery, and it's not overly physically difficult. It's just tiring.
Some of the counters were not really concentrating 100%, as evident by poor counts of bundles (in one bundle of 50 I counted 52). And what one person thought were informal votes were actually acceptable. We were supposed to check on the green paper that all numbers, 1 to 7 with allowance for the eighth box to be wrong, were listed, but people were simply looking for the number 1 and putting the ballot with that pile. I'm sure a re-count would prove many people were a bit lazy.
I enjoy being part of the electoral and democratic process of our country.
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