Today is the day we all get to vote on who will govern the country for the next 4 years. Well the UK anyway, Wales is fixed so Labour always win, and votes of no confidence and petitions from the public are equally ignored. But we should all do our civic duty and vote.
So this morning I popped along to vote.
I should point out that if I leave my house and turn left, I can drive for a couple of hundred yards and reach a pub that acts as a polling station. In fact it is only about a 5 minute walk from my house. But I do not get to vote there! No I have to turn right, travel an equal distance to a junction, turn again, a couple of hundred yards and turn again onto a narrow mountain road, travel a few miles up that to a small hall in the middle of nowhere and vote there. I guess that makes sense, because while I live 5 miles outside the largest city in North Wales, the powers that be decided that the MP for that city is not the best to cover me, so they moved my area to a MP based in mid Wales, and has the largest area now in Wales. It does mean none of the candidates have campaigned in my area because they do not know it, and its a few hours drive to get here. Also all their policies are for their town so no good to me.
So I get to the mountain hut, and there is just enough space to safely park 2 cars outside it, but alas both spaces are taken which amazed me because in all the years I have been voting there I have only ever seen 1 car there when I accidently went at a busy period. It turned out that the two people who have been running the polling station for the last century are no longer there, and 4 younger people have taken over. Probably for efficiency or some such thing. Also while the previous people would walk or get a lift there to leave parking for the people coming to vote, these had driven and used all the spaces making it unsafe for voters to park.
So I wandered up and gave my name and address, which is all the old people needed to work with, but 4 younger people could not work out the lists or find my name (and all 4 tried at the same time). Eventually they found my name, and I could vote.
Our voting system will probably shock the rest of the developed world.
Firstly it is not anonymous even thought lots believe it is. When they hand you the voting form, they copy the number from the form and write it next to your name so it can be noted who you voted for.
Secondly it is not secure, we are given a pencil to make an X on the form, so our votes can be changed with a simple pencil with an eraser on the end.
But I voted, now to go home, open a bottle of whiskey and wait for the world to start burning!
Fornit some Fornus