Yesterday Robbie Swan and I attended the ballot draw for Bradfield and Higgins respectively.
The ballot draws decide the order that the candidates appear on the voting form.
It is quite an event and process. The returning officer gives a speech that sounded like it needed a bell and a hear yee hear yee at the beginning. A double random system is used. Australia is apparently the only country that does this.

First a staff member is blindfolded and she pulls out numbers from a bingo ball cage. Each candidate is issued a number. The balls are then put back in the cage and drawn again and that decides the order. In Higgins I was given number 8 in the first and 8 was the second ball drawn in the second draw so I am number 2 on the Higgins voting sheet. An independent called John Murphy is 1st and the Liberal Keely O'Dwyer is 3rd. There are 10 candidates in all.
In Bradfield there are over 20 candidates and Zahra is number 10 on the ticket Fred Nile is running 9 candidates and one of the them drew the first spot.

Most of the candidates attended the event and most were very freindly. The 72 year old Hungarian immigrant who is standing for one nation couldn't stop giggling when I told him where I was from. Clive Hamilton from the Greens tried to avoid me but I caught him. There was a bit of media there and we brought cupcakes which at first totally confused the Electoral Commission but in the end they all thought it was hilarious and most people had one.

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Freddyp   |210.9.139.xxx |2009-11-21 07:22:21 The cupcakes were a great idea. It's always good to disarm people with t hings like that.

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