How I Voted. Or What Happens When Page 12 Goes Missing.

Catherine and I showed up at the polling station at Holland College right on the stroke of 8:30 a.m. this morning, voter cards in hand, ready to exercise our franchise.

Unfortunately things didn’t go according to plan.

One of the pages in the register of electors — by chance the one containing the Rs and Ss — was missing. As a result, even though I had my card, and I appeared in the duplicate copies of the lists that the party representatives had on hand, I was forced to re-register as if I was a new elector.

I fear that my R and S brethren in poll 60 will suffer the same fate.

So I waited in a new line, waited while the registrar filled in a new form, and then picked up where I left off.

Which just goes to show that you can invest millions in a National Register of Elections, but if one link in the chain falls out, it’s all for nought.

The rest of the process went as planned; indeed I think, for the first time in my life, I voted with feeling.