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The last stand
The final week of this election campaign for me is basically gearing up for the big day itself. This is because I have volunteered for the role of booth captain.
A booth captain is basically the person who foregoes sleep for 24 hours to help the party on election day. The booth captain is with his/her booth from set up to poll close.
This involves setting up all party materials the night before. During election day itself the Booth Captain is the one coo-coordinating the volunteers and making sure everything is being done right.
It is role performed by many; the electorate I’m working in has 42 booths, which means a lot of booth captains. Each captain will have a raft of volunteers throughout the day. The logistics of organising all of these people on election day is almost incomprehensible. So much so that I suspect those responsible may be inadvertently shaving years off their lives.
The work by volunteers mainly involves handing out how to vote cards to constituents. This sort of work is especially important for minor parties whose preferences can play a big part in deciding close contests.
The other task assigned to me is that of Scrutineer. Scrutineers are political party representatives who observe the counting of ballots after the polls close.
The Australian Electoral Commission is possibly the least corrupt organisation in the world so stopping a rort is really not high on the agenda for scrutineers. The main task is to call attention to any irregularities that might happen during the counting process or to spot informal - read invalid - votes.
The booth I’m observing is quite large so the Liberal Party is fronting up four people for the scrutineering.
At the end of it all I expect to collapse in a heap and to be dead to the world for at least the next few days.
However, I’m looking forward to the experience. It is not something that one gets to do often so I will dive into it head first.
Whatever the outcome of the election I’ll be happy with the experience. It has been a lot of fun.
Zackary McLennan is studying journalism at The University of South Australia. He is an active member of the Liberal Party and will be sharing his campaign experiences with electiontracker.
