Tales from the homeland. As there is some minor kerfuffle about voting going on out there in the colonies. If you are unfamiliar with NornIron politics, please peruse the Election wiki. And if you are familiar, please peruse and add to the Election wiki.
When someone worked the electoral boothes on the Garvaghy Rd, John Joe the Sinn Fein candidate arrived with a bus full of old dolls from the Old People’s Home. He was going behind the booths showing them where to tick. When they tried to get him to leave and he kept on saying they need help and holding their arms. (Just llike cough the ‘RA, who couldn’t hold their arms too, right? cough)
Just to show it isn’t all those scummy Republican lefties, here is one about scummy Unionist lefties:
There was once an election officer, a woman who lost her husband to an IRA bomb. He was a peeler. Then, at 9.50pm, with ten mins to go, she started trawling through the lists of who hadn’t voted yet. Hands the election officer a stack of ballot papers stamped with the credentials and tells him to fill them out DUP 1/2/3. After the refusual, she called the young lad a “Yellow Belly”, and generally derided him and made him feel guilty for her own bitterness. Of course, it would be wrong to think this would have happened in the open. No, she requested the papers be taken to the toilet for ticking.
Then there is the niaviety of another:
One guy arrives to vote, hands over an Irish passport, getting the response “Sorry you need a British passport to vote”. Oh, the japery! John Joe arrived five minutes later fuming and shouting. Still, our innocent abroad got seventy-five quid for his effort.
Pushing the legal boundries now (both in the story and mine):
There is some law which prevents candidates being within a certain distance of the election officers. Brendan McKenna insisted on being exactly that distance and trying to read who still had to vote. He set his table up and kept shifting ever closer, at which point they had to get the peelers to come in and push him back. (Surely this would make a great comedy sketch?)
Vote early. Vote often. Vote if you are alive or dead:
Bellaghy, God love it, always makes sure its population votes. Even the citizens of the Chapel graveyard. Even the citizens of the Chapel graveyard whose names on the electrol roll are different from those on their headstone.
Northern Ireland. It would be a great place to live if not for the people. I am with bewoulf, in that we should plant more trees there and release more bears.
