Election special

Lunchista has always regarded Democracy as a very physical thing; something that happens between people, rather than as just an abstract sytem. For that reason I would no sooner vote in absentia (including by post, by proxy or electronically) than, for example, get married in absentia.

It probably all started with the tale, early in my voting life, of the many dead people in St Ives who voted (all for the same party) in 1992. Hard on their heels came the story of the elderly WWII veteran who, having walked from his care-home to a polling station with great difficulty but even greater determination, was dismayed to find that a proxy vote had been cast on his behalf, to a party (the same one with the dead voters, in fact) that he loathed.

Nope. Really, you have to be there. Seen To Be Done, and all that.

And so Lunchista has always made an effort to vote in person, and if my address moved faster than my vote it made for a lot of travelling. Brighton to Lancashire (for my first ever vote) is the distance record so far. On another voting trip (Berkshire to Portsmouth) I was served the delightful butty whose wrapper is shown at the top of this post, and which I kept (the wrapper not the entire butty) for posterity.

In a more-recent election the powers-that-be decided it would be a good idea if everyone voted by post. Everyone, that is, except Lunchista and a bunch of other die-hards for whom our Guildhall was opened specially on the day and the proper clerks and little cubicles deployed. The postal process degenerated into farce as envelopes were lost, names were transferred in error and half the women of Bradford were rumoured to have missed out altogether. But we die-hards, our votes were counted properly!

As a passionate supporter of one of the political parties, Lunchista takes part in much more of the election-related activities than just the voting. In one notorious case I blagged my way into a national election vote-count as a party scrutineer watching the tellers sort the ballot slips. I saved 51 votes for my party from going into the wrong tray. In a more recent, local, election, the count went on into the small hours as it was twice declared too close to call. Being June, it was already getting light when we emerged. It was quite surreal. As a scrutineer you get to see what people have written on the "spoiled" papers: "None of the above" is quite common, as are religious comments (of both the sacred and profane variety). I have also seen my own vote being counted: not everybody can recognise their own cross.

If you're not at a count in person, coming home just after close of polls to sit down with your fellow supporters (and some beer and snacks) to watch the results come in live is all part of the fun. There are a few constituencies who take it upon themselves to get their results declared first, giving their local tourist-board the chance of a bit of free publicity. Torbay came in first one time, another time Chris Mullin's constituency in the North East came in first, and he pointed out, in his victory interview, that he could, in theory at least, nip down to Westminster and take advantage of the 20 minutes or so for which he was the country's only MP to pass laws he'd always wanted but knew wouldn't otherwise get through. I would expect no less from the author of the tale "A Very British Coup"! And does anyone else remember the Junior Doctors' Party (in protest at their too-long working hours) "Struck Off And Die", with their peach-tin logo? In one particular count I could swear that there was a character (probably Loony Party, bless 'em) whose very long nom-de-guerre included the word "biscuit-barrel".

It goes without saying that Lunchista was "Up for Portillo".

It is common for party enthusiasts to wait at polling-stations and collect the voter numbers of the people coming in. In case you wonder why we do it, it means we can nip round to the addresses of people who've promised us their vote but not turned up: we can offer them a lift to the polling station. Although a little OTT, this is considered perfectly fair.

And so I spent yesterday (apart from the time it took to cast my own vote) sporting a rosette standing outside polling stations smiling and saying "hello" to people on their way in to vote. No counting-them-in was happening though: we can't send cars picking up stray voters all over Yorkshire! So it was really a bit like the Japanese practice of shops hiring nice-looking people to greet their customers (not sure about the "nice-looking" bit, mind!). It sometimes fell to me to explain the Euros' unfamiliar voting system (along with the fact that it gives our little party, for once, the chance of a seat).

The most memorable thing was the temperature: I'd seen a weather forecast earlier and there was wind coming straight down from the Arctic. Canadian coat and Russian thermals it was, then! The most annoying thing about the Euros, in contrast to the other types of election in which no other country is involved, is that because most of the Continent traditionally cast their vote on a Sunday, we have to hang about for three days before we get to find out what's happened. What with that and the arctic conditions, I suppose we must all suffer for our beliefs.

So I think the physical side of voting, and democracy, is crucial. Without these little reminders of what it's all about, and that affirm our sense of fairness, it would become completely meaningless. And if you think about it, voting and getting married could be said to have rather a lot in common. Both involve parties, for a start. Both have a public and a very private side. In both cases tradition has it that you are presented with (or present someone else with) an idea of how you'd like the future to pan out, and then a choice is made about whether to accept this or look for one that's more to your taste. Promises are made. If you find out later that you didn't like what was on offer, or it turns out to have been a pack of lies, you throw them out and have another go.

What would really add to all this would be, if the Boards of the world's largest companies, whose turnovers and influence are larger than those of many countries (democratic and otherwise), were to go through the same process. As a shareholder, Lunchista often has the chance to vote for or against their appointment, or their "benefits package". But these "votes" are just shots in the dark, because unlike, say, my City Councillors or my local MP, these shadows of people have no public life whatsoever.