the registration

As many of you will know, i am slightly obsessed with politics. Every morning, it is a joy for me to read the wrap up of daily political news while the country sleeps half a world away. I read the analysis pages from both conservative and left-wing newspapers, laugh at the cartoons of whoever is being lampooned that day (i must admit my favourite is of Alexander Downer in fishnet stockings), and read the blogs of people lampooning each other. You conservatives are about to be annihilated, they say. You left-wing greenie tree huggers will be over-run by the unions, they shout.

I sit in my office in Westminster, forlorn in the fact that as a civil servant, I must be impartial to political sides.

In the United Kingdom that is. Which gives me free rein to pooh-pooh our current crop of politicians back home, despite having worked as a hack in a previous life. Is that my karma poking me again? (nah, false alarm. it's just my facebook).

I am one of the few people who can't wait to vote. And who enjoys lining up to cast my ballot, deciding whether to eat now at the primary school's sausage sizzle, or to eat later (i always eat later so that my greasy, tomato-sauce covered hands don't stain my ballots). And who actually likes staying in on election night to watch and clap enthusiastically at the swing at Eden-Monaro, and the fact that the national swing hasn't been replicated in Western Australia, and that the honourable member for Menzies is in a shit-fight. Not one of my contemporaries will even bat an eyelid while they drink their vodka and lime in some bar, while I sit in my pyjamas, clutching a cup of tea for dear life, smug in the knowledge that I am seeing history fall into place. Or at least my least favourite pollies being re-elected for their third election in a row.

So, with a gentle email reminder from the Department of Foreign Affairs, I went to the Electoral Commission website to fill out a form to register as an overseas elector (and I'll bet that not one other Aussie in London gives a fig enough to register). I filled in my form, only to realise that you can't submit the damn form online. You have to print it out and send it by post. There was a fax option, but I can't fax out of my offices in a central government department. I could post it, but shouldn't there be an easier way to do this?

I gave up and resigned myself to a postal vote when the election is called - though for me, this would be going against my own religion.

Damn, there goes my karma again.

(if you are confused with all the karma speak, read my previous posts. That will learn you for not reading my blog in its entirity!)