Election day: ‘Millions of Australians have voted early, but here’s why I’ll always cast my ballot on election day’

More than 7 million Australians have already voted ahead of the federal election on May 3, avoiding the long queues by casting their ballot early.

This is more than 40 per cent of the people enrolled to vote.

While I understand how important early voting is as an option, I’ve come to use election day as a poignant reminder for my children.

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I’ve found over the years that the day reminds them of the importance of democracy, and it’s become a bit of a fun adventure we share together.

My children are now 21, 17 and 15, and they have accompanied me to each and every voting location for every election since they were born. (It helped that for many years we lived on a street that hosted a polling place.)

My curious children would watch cars pull up and park, see families walking together down the street with prams and pets ready to exercise their voting rights.

Treating ourselves to a famous democracy sausage or something from the bake sale was a fitting end to each adventure.

Just this morning I reminded my eldest we would vote tomorrow and, of course, get a sausage sizzle.

And so the annual tradition continues.

I did make it a point not to vote at my children’s schools. One of my colleagues recalled hating election day because he’d have to visit his school on the weekend!

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“As a kid, I hated it. Our local polling station was at my primary school. Going to school on a weekend, even if it was just to play on the playground while mum and dad voted. Yuck,” he said.

“Then when I got to high school, we started going to that polling station (I don’t remember if it moved, or mum and dad just liked taking me to my school) – it was inescapable!”

Another discovered a personal connection to the election in her university days.

“It was fun to vote in the electorates outside of my hometown and learn more about politics and figure out an identity outside of my parents’ voting compass,” she explained.

Of course, the democracy sausage got a mention, too.

“Also always get a sausage sizzle and love to walk to the polling station if it’s a lovely day,” she added.

My children’s own interest in politics has grown as they’ve gotten older.

They weren’t so interested in who won each election during their younger years, but as the years have gone by they have become more invested in the outcome.

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Still, their political views could use some polish.

Take my 21-year-old, who this week said: “Mum, who are we voting for on Saturday?”

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His preferred method of research turned out to be asking me, my partner and his dad for our thoughts.

“Democracy doesn’t work that way,” I told him.

“You need to vote for who you think is best.”

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What we do agree on is that we love walking to the polling place together, chatting along the way about who we think will make the best leader of our nation and our thoughts on the state of the country.

We agree we live in one of the best countries in the world, as demonstrated by the fact we can walk safely and freely to the polling booth, exercise our right to vote, grab a democracy sausage and then walk back to our home.

Early voting is a brilliant option, but I think we’ll will be sticking to our annual adventure for now.

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