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My voting in the 2010 federal election

I voted yesterday at the pre-polling booth in Ashfield. Which leaves a strange feeling of personal anti-climax this morning. Nonetheless, It's Time to Turn On The Lights, Move Forward and See It Through with my traditional "How I Voted" blog entry. (See previous posts from the 2004 and 2007 federal elections.)

For the House of Representatives seat of Grayndler, I voted thus:

I'm voting for the Greens (again)

In this federal election, I am voting for Sam Byrne of the Greens in the House of Representatives seat of Grayndler.

In the Senate, for New South Wales, I am giving my first preference to Lee Rhiannon of the Greens in a below-the-line vote which I shall explain separately.

My preferences in both houses lean towards the Labor Party ahead of the Liberals.

We have candidates.

The complete lists of candidates in all House of Representatives seats and Senate contests were released by the Australian Electoral Commission tonight.

Here are the people I will have to choose from, in order as they will appear on the respective ballots, and with hyperlinks to party and candidate pages where known. There are six candidates in Grayndler, while in the Senate there are a bewildering 84 candidates for New South Wales in what appears to be 33 groups.

Vote early, vote once. Vote out the dessicated coconut.

Today I voted in my twelfth House of Representatives election. For the first time, I have not given my first preference to a Labor candidate.

As in 2004, I'm laying my voting cards on the table in full. In the House of Representatives seat of Grayndler:

Youtubes do dia: Saeed, Kev, Johnny and Jimi

Four videos today. Saeed Khan is the Greens candidate for my local electorate of Grayndler, he did a video in August as part of the kick-off of his election campaign. On, then, to the Leaders: Rudd switching off a video of a Liberal ad saying "oh come on Howard", followed by Howard switching off a video of Rudd switching off a video of a Liberal ad and saying "grow up" to Rudd.

Newtown, the green capital of Australia?

The Australian Electoral Commission's excellent Virtual Tally Room website has a breakdown of the voting figures for Saturday's election, not just electorate by electorate, but polling booth by polling booth. I'm not going through them all - there's several thousand across the country - but I've gone searching for some interesting demographics in my electorate of Grayndler and surrounds. A good benchmark to pursue is the level of the Greens' vote. Grayndler and Sydney, covering the suburbs to the immediate south and south-west of the inner city, have historically been two of the left-wing heartlands of Australia.

OK I have voted

It seems such a waste of paper to have that huge senate ballot just so that I can do one vertical stroke in one box.

This is how I voted this morning in my eleventh House of Representatives election:

House of Representatives, Grayndler:
2 Philip Myers (Greens)
3 Sue Johnson (Socialist Alliance)
4 Jen Harrison (Democrats)
1 Anthony Albanese (Labor)
5 Stephanie Kokkolis (Liberal)

Senate, New South Wales:

Grizzled from Grayndler

Nominations closed for candidates for the federal elections on Thursday, and the Australian Electoral Commission announced them on Friday afternoon. Only five candidates in my electorate of Grayndler - that's a surprise. Not so surprising is the 78 candidates for the 12 senate vacancies in New South Wales, making up thirty different groups. That's right - the NSW senate ballot paper on October 9 will be thirty columns wide.

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