I am nuts

Polling Day

Cast my vote for the 1st time in my life today. After all the hype and emotional tug of war, it was a surprising underwhelming experience.

Lessons was not cancelled for my class today despite it supposingly being a bloody public holiday. So anyway, I only went to vote after I came back from class which was around 1pm. Accordingly to my parents, the queue was very long in the morning, apparently all the aunties and uncles are sibei kiasu and have nothing better to do so early morning go queue up and cast vote. Singaporeans really like to queue... -.-"

When I reached there at 1pm, I almost had trouble finding the place if it was not for the police cordon of the area. Place was pratically deserted save for a bored looking policeman and a couple of tables and chairs and the people manning them. I just handed over my polling card, and after checking my IC, asked me to proceed to counter 3. I was abit kaypoh and asked the uncle why must go until counter 3 when the rest of the counters are empty anyway(being the lazy bugger, I'll do anything to save walking a few steps :P) I was informed that my name list is under counter 3 so I have to get my ballot ticket there. At the counter, handed over my IC again and this time, a woman checked my IC against a list, crossed out my name, and passed it to the guy next to her. The guy then wrote my polling notification ticket number onto half of the ballet sheet, and tore the other half out for me. Before passing it to me though, he shouted across the table to another guy the serial number on my ballot sheet and my polling ticket who duly took down the information. Guess this is why many rumours abound that the ruling party can actually check your votes so that they know who voted against them etc. I guess it is really theoritically quite possible and easy if the party really wants to trace the party you vote, but then again, I dun see them wasting their resources on it while it reaps no direct benefits. After collecting the ballot ticket, I walked a couple of steps to the oddly shaped table to select the party of my choice, and walked back a couple of steps to drop the ticket into a flimsy looking cardboard box sitting on a chair, and that was it. The whole process took me less than 5 minutes.

Personal thoughts: I must say that the first time I saw the ballot box, I was rather shocked at its flimsy look. I've seen shopping centers with bigger and nicer boxes for lucky draws and they come with a lock. The boxes for the deciding the fate of a country looks like something you packed your tv set in, complete with the masking tape and all. Kinda wonder what would happen if it rains later when they transport the boxes to the counting station... those boxes sure doesnt look waterproof to me... another point of note is that, once I got the ballot paper, I was kinda left on my own. I supposed that was to allow me to mantain the secrecy of the vote, but somehow, I could have simply walked out without casting my vote. Wondered if they had security cameras there that could have seen me splashed all over the headline news though.. :D

Job done for the day, now we can only sit back and wait for the results. Hope I had made a difference today. :)

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posted by Nutcracker @ 3:42 pm