With the freedom of being an out-of-work student, I decided to do something I had never done before and signed up to work for the Australian Electoral Commission at the federal election.
I was one of around 100,000 temporary workers involved in what the AEC describes as Australia’s largest peacetime operation. I only worked on election day, but it gave me a much stronger sense of connection with the democratic process than I had expected.
What struck me most was how seriously the AEC treats the integrity of the result. Every procedure seemed designed around that principle. Ballot papers were initialled before being issued, spoilt papers were carefully accounted for, and once a ballot box was sealed it stayed sealed until counting began.
For all the technology surrounding modern life, the election itself was remarkably physical and old-fashioned. We worked from thick printed electoral rolls, handled piles of paper ballots, sealed things into envelopes, sorted votes by hand and even bundled ballot papers into groups of fifty with rubber bands. That last part took me straight back to my days as a bank teller.
The day started at 7am and finished close to 10pm. During voting hours I rotated through various jobs before spending most of the day issuing ballot papers and ticking names off the roll. The work itself was straightforward, and I enjoyed getting to know the other election workers as the day went on.
My favourite part came after the polls closed.
The ballot boxes were opened in front of a scrutineer and tipped out onto the tables. We then began the slow, manual process of sorting and counting the votes. There was something strangely satisfying about seeing democracy reduced to its most basic form: thousands of pieces of paper, each representing one person’s choice.
The experience also gave me a much better understanding of Australia’s preferential voting system. Seeing preferences distributed by hand made the logic much clearer. The system is not simply about which candidate receives the most first-preference votes; it is about finding the candidate who can command the broadest support once the preferences of all voters are taken into account.
I came away tired, but pleased I had done it.