I went to vote prepared – cup of hot chocolate in one hand, book in the other and my purse tucked under my arm. Was quite pleasant really – reading, sipping, listening to the conversations around me whilst the queue moved at a reasonable pace. Took me an hour and twenty minutes from start to finish, not too bad – ‘course Wouter spent 3 and a half minutes in his queue, which is a tad annoying really. When we got to the voting station a very pleasant lady was checking ID books, got to me saw I didn’t have a voters registration sticker so went off to get me one… the gentleman behind me asks if I’d registered, I said no. The gentleman behind him looks at me with one of those my crumbs you stupid woman and says sanctimoniously ‘all you had to do was sms to register’. Nice lady looks at his ID book and asks if he registered and then takes his book off to make sure. I say quite clearly ‘guess it wasn’t just me then’ and continued reading. Silly git. The whole process was painless and even with the wait a pleasant experience.
There was one thing though that kind of took my breath away for a moment… whilst waiting in line I saw a sign on the church ‘Baby safe’ – I figured it was perhaps a place where voters could leave their kids whilst voting – you know someone would look after them. Well turns out that wasn’t a very bright thought, it’s a cubicle in the wall – where one can deposit a baby, the baby’s vital signs are taken, a picture of the mother (or whoever) is taken as they put the baby in and sms’s are sent out to a number of people within close proximity who come and fetch the baby. Amazing really, on the one hand it is wonderful that there is this type of facility, on the other – you’re left with a gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach. Sad, very sad.