I went to vote in Victoria along with almost 30,000 others. It took me just under an hour and a half at Margaret Jenkins School to finally place my ballot into the one, yes one, not two, not three, not four computer vote-counters. One!
Living as we do in a technologically advanced city and society, forgive me if I was left to wonder if I had somehow been transported to a banana republic attempting its first democratic election. The City of Victoria has proudly tweeted that 29,707聽ballots were cast for a total of 43.5 per cent turnout.
Long lineups were the order of the day, so I had lots of time to observe that the single vote-counting machine was capable of counting only between three and four ballots per minute. So with one vote counter at each of the 12 voting places, the city had the capacity to count a maximum of 34,500 votes and, more realistically, just over 30,000.
The machines and the staff worked to capacity, and voters were good-natured and patient. But for next time, can we invest in some technology and get some more vote-counting machines?
Jonathan Purdie
Victoria
