Tuesday 25 April 2017

You can vote in Perth too....

The election in France doesn't really make top news in Perth.  Among the hot topics here are the Roe 8 project and why the West Coast Eagles can't win at the MCG.  Its the flip side of the coin - in Australia we think Le Pen is something the French write with and Macron is a sort of cake; similarly maybe the French think a West Coast Eagle is...well a bird that prefers to hang around the côté ouest and Roe 8 is a keen enthusiast of open boat oarsmen!

Donc. As it's the election Michelle had the opportunity to vote.  Oui, although to see and hear my wife, she sounds completely English but can turn on the French lingo at the drop of a hat.  I am really jealous, especially when she laughs at my more amusing faux pas with the language. I will persevere however!!!  Just keep the gender of cats away from any topic discussed in public.  Anyway.. it turns out the the local Alliance Francaise here in Perth had a booth set up for the Presidential election. It was very popular too. I never knew so many ex pat French lived in Perth, but then again,  pourquoi pas!?   The weird thing though is the process is completely different from anything I had seen before.  They have all the candidates names, face up, on cards to choose from.  Now here comes the sneaky bit. You have to choose at least two of these in clear view of the officials and take them with you to your booth.  I suppose you could take them all if you wanted absolute privacy! Then you discard the one(s) you don't want, putting your single selection in a little brown envelope.  Seems a bit of a waste of paper to me, but who I am to question nearly 150 years of democracy!


But I have to say I do like the simplicity  of just voting for one person. At the recent State election here in Western Australia we had 58 different candidates to choose from.  In theory this would mean I would have to mark them down in preference from 1 to 58. I have enough trouble finding something laudable in my first choice candidate.  To work out the pros and cons of the 58th on the list would be a full time job!  I tried to take a photo, but would need telescopic hands to fold out the concertina form.





No comments:

Post a Comment