Seems world wide, election season is going on. Malaysia, Spain, Russia, Pakistan and of course, US presidential nominations... We also had election last December where I got my favorite black line...
The reason I am writing is a blog I read today here... It goes like:
"The moment I walking toward the registration booth, the BN and DAP people were there shouting asking us to vote for them. I got my number and went to the respective room.. waited for my turn and they checked my IC and then gave me two pieces of coupons to cross for the DUN & Parliament party. After doing that at a semi-closed booth, I put in the coupons in the respective bin."
If I understand correctly, it was a "manual" voting and the voter dropped his/her ballet into ballet box as the blogger mentioned above. Another unusual thing I noticed is that the election campaign went on even during voting time... Here in India, election campaign ends a day before voting day and no slogan shoutings or any campaign inside 100m radius of the election booth. Even at the counters set up by various parties out side this limit, one can not do ANY campaigning activities... This does not seem to be the case as the blogger said. One thing missing here is the "black line/dot" process. Each voter in India gets black marking on left index finger so that he/she can not vote second time on any fake IC. Sissie told me few days back that this "black marking" step was scrapped by that govt this time even though millions of money was spent to procure black ink.
The blogger then continues:
"That night while having dinner with my parents, my dad's friend was there saying that DAP won a lot.. in Malacca as well as other states. He was truly excited. After that, we went to Giant to buy some neccessities and quickly went back to check out the results. The three of us sat down in front of the TV watching Astro Ch 501 as they announce the result one by one. We watched till about 1am and went to sleep although the results were not all out yet. But we were satisfied with the results. The DUN party which the 3 of us voted for won. =)"
If it was a manual voting, how come results starts coming so soon??? How do the counting happens??? Its really amazing... just because, here in India, election for even a single state like Gujarat was spanned on three different days and after third voting day, results did not start appearing so soon even though we used electronic voting machines... After the voting ends, all voting machines are brought to a secured place/building and the counting begins not before next day in the presence of the agents of all parties contesting this election. So, its interesting to know that results start appearing so soon there. I noticed that the blogger mentioned about the party she voted for... I would never explicitly name the party I voted for though I can leave enough hints if needed. Its just not something you should openly reveal... For me, my vote is confidential and it should remain confidential.
Anyway, I understand from other sources that the ruling party did not get 2/3rd majority and opposition parties claim to have dented its armor if not broken now. The same thing has happened in Pakistan where the ruling party lost miserably. While American presidential election is due next year, presidential nomination caucuses and primaries have stunned the world about their outcomes... While Obama was rated as an underdog before these primaries, he has emerged as the top on the list with highest delegates and highest fund raising. Hillary was by large expected for this position but somehow, majority Democrats seem not to prefer a woman president. History suggests that whenever there was so close fight in Democrats, it had lost the final election. So, lets see what happens this time.
PS: I know what you are thinking.Just dont be negative, ok?