democracy sausage and other things

It's become more clear to me as the US election comes closer that mandatory voting is less about forcing people to vote and more about forcing governments to enable people to vote easily and without undue hardship. It's about enabling democracy to happen, which doesn't tend to happen when the people in power are allowed to control how democracy works.

Standing 9 hours in line to cast a ballot on a working day would be undue hardship to quite a few people in Australia.

The longest I've ever waited to vote is maybe 30 minutes. I bitched after 5 minutes, though - as did we all! Made jokes about tablecloths (the voting paper for the senate), whined about the lovely smell of 'democracy sausage' that was being BBQ'd a dozen metres away, and commenting that we hoped all the good cakes wouldn't be gone from the cake stall by the time we got out.

And it was on a Saturday. The people who had to work retail cast their vote at 8am before they went in, or would do so after their shift finished. The polls are open until 6pm.

( my polling station experience )

neighbour

Our neighbours down the road - the one I play hockey with and who I'm pretty friendly with (call up and drop-in friendly) - are putting up their house for sale and moving away.

I am sad by this news. In part because they're one of the few families I've really had a chance to befriend. And in part because it's a bit of a sign of how things are going to play out around here over the next ten years.

The house one up from across the road from us, and the house two down are all owned by people who've been here for fifty years - maybe more. The couple one up across the road are elderly - maybe their 70s - and their daughter was living in a granny flat out the back. The guy across the road from us grew up in that house and when his parents died he and his wife moved back in. The woman two down the road also grew up in that house, her parents were living there until mid 2018 when her father died and early 2019 when her mother died. She's pretty much there by herself now, but the house belongs to her and her 7 siblings, and one of the in-laws comes around to help with maintenance.

Still, I can see those houses going on the market at some point. And probably getting knocked down to build some kind of McMansion monstrosity.

A lot of the places around here are youngish families - people my own age, but with the marriage and two kids. Suburbanites. They're here for the school and the suburb. But when their kids grow up and move out...who knows? Things are changing; the shape of families and suburban sprawl are changing.

I know that people will move in and move out, neighbours will come and go, and some will be friendly and possibly even friends, while others will never say so much as a word if they can possibly help it. (The neighbours one down across the road have never even addressed us; they have young kids and there's a lot of coming and going from their house.)

I'll probably see them at hockey (if she still plays), and I can text her or visit her, but it's a situational friendship and when the situation is gone, the friendship will likely dissolve too. I know it's the way of things, but I'm still kind of sad.