Normally I enter the gauntlet at the polling booth with a dramatic announcement: “I vote from a no paper platform.” I abhor the mounds of paper handed out to voters on election day. I know who is who, I know how to preference and I don’t need a piece of paper to show me what to do. So I felt like a hypocrite when the Greens asked me to hand out How To Vote cards and I said yes.
The good news was that the Greens actually had to recycle their HTV, not just out of the goodness of their hearts, but because in my electorate, funding didn’t cover the amount of cards that would be needed to begin with. So we had recycling boxes set up specifically for greens HTV, and we implored people to bring them back to us directly, which probably 1/3 people did. What was most entertaining about this was that those who did bring them back to us also brought back Liberal and Labor HTV at the same time – to the somewhat baffled amusement of their representatives.
I learnt a lot of things about voters by doing HTV. Some of them like to make a big show of taking one parties cards, and not the others. A lot of people refuse to take any cards, and those that do take them will most often take all of them. Some come back and tell you that they “want you to win” and some come back and tell you to “fuck off and hug a tree.” Some are downright rude to certain parties HTVers. Which, in general, is just plain funny, because as soon as they’re gone, the opposition HTVers will come over and check you’re okay. Because at the end of the day, the HTVers are probably closer than most people can imagine – handing out cards and being involved in democracy is a very unifying process.
At one booth I worked at, the three of us had it down to a system. The Labor lady stopped the punters and asked if they were going to vote. If they said yes, she’d say “Well look, we have a variety of info you might be interested in. I have info for Julia…” then the Lib chick would say “and I have info on Tony…” and I’d follow up with “and I have the info on Bob, and our handout is smaller.” It’s amazing the amount of appeal a smaller flyer had to some voters. But the end point is that the three of us, the Lab, the Lib and the Green all got along like great mates. They shared their party funded lunches, I confessed I’d never voted Green before. The Lab admitted she only ever votes Green in the Senate. The Lib confessed she hates Tony Abbott’s guts. Doing HTV is about as committed as selling tickets in a chook raffle – you’re by no means the poster child for your party.
Not only that, but there is a lot of common ground on election day. In fact, the young Lib I talked too and I had so much common ground that we were left a bit confused as to why we didn’t actually vote for the same parties – that bit was left unsaid, but we both knew it was out there. It wasn’t just individuals with common ground, in my electorate, the Libs and the Greens both agreed that Labor was 2nd preference on the HTV. Naturally, we all wished our voters were smart enough not to actually need the cards.
PS.
And a site that explains HTV although it's too late now. The last mock HTV card is quite entertaining.
