Democracy in action

Phew!  What a few hours that was! Today I went voting. 

The Australian electoral system, which I love and staunchly believe is one of the best in the world, demands a lot of the voter, and I spent quite a while this morning going through the dozens of candidates for the Senate in my state. 
The House of Reps is easier, just a handful to sort through, and not too tactical a vote needed, but for the Senate I printed out the lot, and checked them all out - parties and policies and past associations - and then sorted them into three lots:
 - those who were never, ever going to get any kind of vote from me, and
- those whom I really wanted to get in, who were getting a high-ranking preference vote that will actual count, and
- those who were pretty much getting a preference just to make up the numbers. 
(For the Senate, those who vote "below the line", that is to say deciding not to let a party preference deal decide how the vote falls, must vote for at least twelve candidates - hence I needed to vote for some to make up the numbers, even if I didn't think they'd be brilliant members of the Senate.) 

And then I took myself and my carefully annotated form guide to the Embassy, and voted.  Job done!  :)

***
This person's not in my electorate, and as an Independent his chance of getting in is vanishingly small, but I was very taken indeed by his campaign video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO-TleNQCfM  (just under a minute, and worth a look, if you enjoy politics!)