Except I knew perfectly well nobody had counted the referendum votes. No-one's counted the referendum votes, people.

They've counted yours!

Devise several frighteningly feasible ways to carry out small-scale voter fraud.

I worked on a couple of elections in the '90s and this was also something I did when there were quiet moments. Easiest way: if you knew for sure that someone wasn't going to vote, you could basically just?

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter

But equally:

It has?

Voting for arse – that might increase turnout!

Hence the popular phrase "playing the arse card".

Easiest way for mild scale: rock along to the student villages the day the EasyVote cards are posted out.

This. So. Many.?

My friend who works for the Ministry of [Redacted] and I were once asked to leave a bank because we were standing in the middle of it,?

At one point, while I was on my break, I texted Megan and said, "Have to stop perving at voters. Stupid hot voters."

Tricky. Our polling place manager was getting extremely flustered when the sausage sizzle outside kept setting off the smoke alarms?

Yes, we had an information officer at the door, which mitigated this but didn't stop it. My second most frequently?

I love it when people tell me that instead of inventing a whole new technological paradigm we should just change people's behavior. To which my response is "you go try that and we'll see who is more successful"

Did you say "blah blah blah nuclear bomb"

Heh.

I have real trouble not doing that at airports. A check-in?

I always try to make it worth the time of the bored people there by asking a few silly questions that I could surely work out myself?

They looked at my easy vote card, which has not just my name, but also the page and line number of my?

She triple checked everything and I did wonder if she was going to ask for my passport as well... but I gave her the benefit of doubt and?

No. Oddly enough, that's really not what's supposed to happen.

which makes it trebly sad that so many of us felt so indifferent – or?

I think it was indifference. "Why bother. It's just middle aged white men in suits* making decisions for us. We can't stop them doing?

Yep, it?s?

I'd say exactly the same about science funding in NZ.

A friend said her friends decided not to vote because none of the parties were exactly what they were looking for.

Thing is, we've got?

I'd love to hear what your perfect party would look like. Might even vote for it.

Universal Basic Income would help there – some people could use it to give themselves time off to create stuff.

A Czech Communist Party candidate once brought out topless models to get people out and vote.

Or there was that candidate for the Polish parliament whose TV ad involved her stripping. (No link, sorry, it was on a TV news segment about All Those Shocking Overseas Electoral Ads With *Sex*?

I think it's this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xHIkB_6vzU

Thank you. Your link has duly been stolen and given a wider audience. ;)

Already my evil empire is growing.

Mwa ha ha ha!

No, wait ... you want to know what my policies are before you vote for me? Damn you foiled again.

At least two of the very competent poll workers at the booth I scrutineered in were currently unemployed. One had been laid?

It is after all the only suit I own.

I would if I'd been brought up in the South! As it was, I was raised in ChChCh & Otago, although still reguard Colac Bay one of the family places...)

incidentally, for the 'more info than you really want' department:?

The Southern Maori prounciation?

She certainly is.

All debates in the chamber must be in the nude, not hidden clauses.

My walk around the hall missed the "intro person" 'cos she was txting, I was stopped before I got to the three vacant tables 'cos I looked lost I presume, Handed over the cheat card, the man at the roll voiced my name and address and gave me?

Most of the procedures (particularly those for the count) are obviously precision-honed from intelligent practice. Which makes me wonder why nobody has noticed that the signage isn't working.

The signs behind the?

If only more people in charge of sign placement noticed that. People also look where their hands are about to go – like door handles.

might skew voting

Oh dude, it's better than being too late.

I...yeah. I'm going to take that as a sign I should go to bed.

You do have to wonder how much Maori has been changed and/or ossified by the transition to written language. Give it another couple of centuries?

reminds me of a guy I knew with a collection of "shoplifters will be prosecuted" signs #meta

My knowledge of Te Reo is not great but I?

Good point Lucy – and how does the process of translating an oral language into writing do that? My ancestors come from Scotland ( Hebrides) North England and London where the?

(English didn't really get its spelling standardised until the 18th/19th century. Before then, spelling was a matter of personal and local preference).

People also look where their hands are about to go

But...Nicky Hager has an interesting analysis of the election result.

If it wasn't so unsubtle I'd be voting for that as Emma's next ink.

And yes Hager's analysis is interesting. We don't quite have the minority government I'd like to see – where compromise and cooperation between parties is required for legislation to pass. But it is close.?

I?m sure someone has, but there comes a point where no matter where you can't make people pay attention without going all?

I think most of the problems Emma relates came from being on or close to a boundary – voting papers for one district getting stuffed in the wrong district box.

Although I do wonder how many orange papers ended up in the?

Having a colour-blind son, I do actually worry about colour-blind voters. I mean, I assume the buff/orange/purple shades are toned so colour-blind people can tell them apart,?

Quite – I live in North Shore, and just inside the East Coast Bays boundary and a short drive from?

Yeah, cos that's the problem. (the unsubtlety, I mean)

I find the ?you may not speak with the voters? one particularly fun in terms of its consequences. There?s always gonna be at least one?

It does ? and after the tumult and the shouting of the campaign dies away, it?s rather sweet that election day itself is conducted with a degree of seriousness that doesn?t tip over into po-faced, poker-up-arse absurdity. Only ever seen one scrutineer who?

I walked to the polling station too, even though I had nothing to mull over and it would have been more convenient to?

I think it's part of the induction for ACS staff to have their sense of humour surgically removed.