Voting Day Habits/Rituals - Strictly for the Anoraks

[d7bohs]

Can't relax till I've voted, so I'm usually in and out before 8am - my daughter's the same: living away from home since September, but still registered here - we met in town and I walked up with her. She says she worries that if she doesn't get it over something terrible will happen and she won't be able to.

[JandK]

I get all my other work out of the way as best I can, and get ready to sit down and watch the count with my laptop. I have a new ritual now of getting map templates in order to fill in as the results are known.

EDIT: I re-read the title and saw "Voting Day", not "election" as I imagined. It's just one of those days...

[80sEmigrant]

When I was younger my Da used to bring me around on polling day. We'd visit at least 3 pollings stations and Da would pretend to be a different person at each of them. During one election Da was talking to a Guard for a long time. The Guard was very angry. I still don't know why. Anyway, i've kept on the family tradition. I've voted for Martin McGuinness twice already today. I'll do it once more before tea.

Which actually reminds me, in all seriousness, my parents used to get two voting cards each because the border between the registration areas (if that is the correct term) ran right through our house. I hasten to add that being honest law-abiding people, they always threw one of each of their cards in the fire and only voted once each.

[ergo2]

Used to bring my children to vote, and show them the ballot paper, register, and ballot box. Explained importance of vote. Sometimes they would be at the count day after.

Used to be crowds of supporters at stations. This was intimidating for some, but for others added to the gaiety of the occasion.

Pubs busy during the day and after close of poll. Bets beng made on result,

[Odyessus]

Do you not have to queue sometimes if there are lots of other people there?
I've never voted in Ireland (I was underage when I left the country) so I'm not familiar with how it works...

Queues to vote in Ireland, unlike some other countries, are virtually unknown, even when there is a very high voter turnout. I think it must be because we have more polling stations per head than other countries.

A few years ago some polling stations in England closed while many people were still queuing to cast their votes. If this happened in Ireland, there would have been a national outcry, rather than the relatively minor grumbling there was in England.

I can't understand why they don't simply have more polling stations.

[cunningstunt]

We always took our children with us to vote in the evening after work and they always insisted on reading our ballot papers to see how we voted.

It was a most memorabe day when all of our children were of age and all of us voted together for the first time.

They have beeb instilled with the ethos of voting and am glad to say they and their friends vote in all elections, but we do not ask any more how did you vote!

[eskrimador]

Voting in parts of NI is very easy.

The shinners at the front tell you who to vote for.

(I'm joking BTW. Just playing on the ignorant perceptions I've seen on here)

[comet]

I always vote first thing in the morning,, and twice in the afternoon.