ok, i did it! got my ass into the voting line (except there wasn’t one!) and cast my vote. time from my car and back – 7 minutes! i know there’s been a bit of controversy about choosing not to vote also being a valid choice, but my vote is precious to me. i waited long enough before i had the right to make my X and yet i’ve only had the opportunity to vote twice before now. once in 1994 when i lived in l.a., after which i lost my vote – yet again. then i got to vote again in our last elections here in johannesburg.
so, i went and i made my vote count. i hope you did too.
p.s. unless you want to walk around with a black stripe down your nail for the next month, do what i did – put on some clear nail polish and some remover will take it right off!
Cyber Sass - My Whorl 
I don’t think failing to vote is a good option, personally. You are basically abdicating any right to comment on the government you get, because you didn’t take part in the process to elect it – even if you didn’t like any of the candidates/parties.
Personally, I think we should be obliged to vote (as in Australia and Switzerland if I recall correctly) BUT if this is the case, there should be an “abstention” option, ie “none of the above”. Thus you could make that expression clear and countable. Simply not turning up doesn’t get that across.
I don’t know what kind of voting system SA has. In the UK it’s “first past the post” or “winner takes all”. There’s little relationship between the votes a party receives and the number of seats it gets. We’re often obliged to vote tactically to stop a least-favoured candidate getting in. If we had a proportional system where each party gets a number of seats corresponding to the number of votes they receive. A system like that makes it much more encouraging to vote.
i *wish* we had a proportional system. makes much more sense to me than winner takes all. that way, people would actually feel that their votes counted for something.
Good gravy! A stripe!??! Each time I’ve voted thus far I have only had dots but on half on my skin and half on my nail.
And this year my knucklehead voted for the first time too!
I think choosing not to vote is the dumbest thing I ever heard of. If one person votes, the government is based on that person’s choice. They had an influence, you have none. If you don’t vote your choice is not reflected in the government. How is that valid? There are no perfect parties that perfectly represent anyone, you have to go with the one that overall suits you. Sheesh, people fought in SA for so long to have a true democracy, and then don’t vote! I would pop a blood vessel if I was there 😉
I wish I heard of your trick before voting yesterday and the last national one. With the national one, it was days before our wedding and in photos of the day you can see this giant black blob on my thumb. This year it’s a bit better 🙂
i learnt the hard way! 🙂