Δημοτικές εκλογές
Jun. 3rd, 2019 02:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yannisSo yeah, let's talk about politics, and more precisely about local, I mean Greek, municipal elections.
Well, as it is already obvious, the clear winner of those elections is abstinence - less than half of registered voters showed up, and in some regions as little as one third of registered voters have voted.
Yeah, in fact, the new record of abstinence was set up for Greece. Nobody here gives a fuck, obviously.
It was a warm sunny day in Greece, with comfortable air temperature about 25C, not so cold but not very hot yet either, and the water temperature was about 20C.
Why would anybody in these conditions go to the ballot box instead of going to the beach?
As for me, I did it of pure curiosity.
So, at about 10am I arrived at my polling station, a school located at the foot of Acropolis.
There were a few policemen sitting here and there, in the schoolyard and on the benches in the building itself, staring at their smartphones.
A few elderly people in their 60s and 70s were also present.
I had found the classes where I was supposed to vote, they were next doors (I had to vote two times, first for the governor of Attica and then for the mayor of Athens), waited a little bit in a short line consisting of two old women, and then I presented my ID, so they could find my data in a thick notebook and cross out my name. Yeah, I didn't have to sign anything.
It was about 10am, as I mentioned earlier, and the elections had started at 7am, and as the ballot box was made of transparent plastic, I could count all the envelopes inside. There were about ten of them. So, during the first three hours just about ten people had voted! Wow!
So yeah, speaking about the envelopes. As I presented my ID, they kept it and gave me an envelope, two ballots and a small piece of blank paper instead.
With all these papers I had to go to the voting booth, put one ballot in the envelope and the other one in the garbage bag hanging inside the booth, seal the envelope, exit the voting booth and put the sealed envelope into the ballot box. I have no idea what I was supposed to do with a smaller piece of blank paper left, maybe it was supposed that I could use it to try my pen if I needed it? I dunno.
Yeah, certainly, nobody knows what you are doing in the voting booth, you can throw both the ballots in the garbage bag and then put an empty envelope in the ballot box, or, vice versa, put both ballots in the envelope, or anything else that will come to your mind, like putting in the envelope things you brought with yourself, just remember that your actions will make your vote invalid when they will be counting them.
By the way, the hole on the top of the ballot box was closed with a book, which was moved by a lady sitting nearby every time a voter was approaching the ballot box to throw an envelope. I guess they did so to prevend anybody from throwing multiple envelopes or something else while nobody was watching. As the lady moved the book, she was watching carefully at what was happening.
After I threw my envelope, they gave me my ID back and I went to the next class where the process repeated in absolutely the same way as that in the first one, expect for this time I had to mark a maximum of three candidates with crosses (?). I didn't get why should I do it and who were these candidates, since I thought I'm voting just for the mayor, but maybe these were members of their teams, so I put crosses next to the top three names lol.
So yeah, and here are some pictures.
Well, as it is already obvious, the clear winner of those elections is abstinence - less than half of registered voters showed up, and in some regions as little as one third of registered voters have voted.
Yeah, in fact, the new record of abstinence was set up for Greece. Nobody here gives a fuck, obviously.
It was a warm sunny day in Greece, with comfortable air temperature about 25C, not so cold but not very hot yet either, and the water temperature was about 20C.
Why would anybody in these conditions go to the ballot box instead of going to the beach?
As for me, I did it of pure curiosity.
So, at about 10am I arrived at my polling station, a school located at the foot of Acropolis.
There were a few policemen sitting here and there, in the schoolyard and on the benches in the building itself, staring at their smartphones.
A few elderly people in their 60s and 70s were also present.
I had found the classes where I was supposed to vote, they were next doors (I had to vote two times, first for the governor of Attica and then for the mayor of Athens), waited a little bit in a short line consisting of two old women, and then I presented my ID, so they could find my data in a thick notebook and cross out my name. Yeah, I didn't have to sign anything.
It was about 10am, as I mentioned earlier, and the elections had started at 7am, and as the ballot box was made of transparent plastic, I could count all the envelopes inside. There were about ten of them. So, during the first three hours just about ten people had voted! Wow!
So yeah, speaking about the envelopes. As I presented my ID, they kept it and gave me an envelope, two ballots and a small piece of blank paper instead.
With all these papers I had to go to the voting booth, put one ballot in the envelope and the other one in the garbage bag hanging inside the booth, seal the envelope, exit the voting booth and put the sealed envelope into the ballot box. I have no idea what I was supposed to do with a smaller piece of blank paper left, maybe it was supposed that I could use it to try my pen if I needed it? I dunno.
Yeah, certainly, nobody knows what you are doing in the voting booth, you can throw both the ballots in the garbage bag and then put an empty envelope in the ballot box, or, vice versa, put both ballots in the envelope, or anything else that will come to your mind, like putting in the envelope things you brought with yourself, just remember that your actions will make your vote invalid when they will be counting them.
By the way, the hole on the top of the ballot box was closed with a book, which was moved by a lady sitting nearby every time a voter was approaching the ballot box to throw an envelope. I guess they did so to prevend anybody from throwing multiple envelopes or something else while nobody was watching. As the lady moved the book, she was watching carefully at what was happening.
After I threw my envelope, they gave me my ID back and I went to the next class where the process repeated in absolutely the same way as that in the first one, expect for this time I had to mark a maximum of three candidates with crosses (?). I didn't get why should I do it and who were these candidates, since I thought I'm voting just for the mayor, but maybe these were members of their teams, so I put crosses next to the top three names lol.
So yeah, and here are some pictures.
