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Secret 60 behind trapdoors
How to vote leaflets flutter like
discarded betting slips in polling
booth bins. Rudely opened schools
and halls relax. The ballot box cargo
is raided.
In the national tally room in Can
berra, hundreds of people —journal
ists, political minders, politicians and
voters — are dwarfed by an Omo
white board.
As they stare up at it, the board
blinks its numbers at them — the
results are coming through.
-Mysteriously, little trapdoors open
and new numbers are hung. Occa
sionally there is the flash of a hand
or the glimpse of a face but mostly
what went on behind the board was
a secret.
If the board had been transparent
the national tally room would have
seen another world.
Behind the facade a tangled scaf
fold. It was built about two weeks ago
By DEBBIE CAMERON
by the Department of Housing and
Construction. Alarmingly skinny lad
ders and narrow gangways were an
chored to the back.
The scorers skate up, down and
across them — a mad parody of the
stock exchange.
The .hi-tech wizardary that gives
football fans lightning fast scores and
instant replays on acre-wide screens is
a far-cry from this arena.
Here, the wizards snare the latest
voting figures by dangling a dog-clip
on a string from the uppermost level
of the scaffold. Every telling vote is
registered by hand.
Sixty people employed by the Aus
tralian Electoral Commission were
behind the board. Their supervisor
was more like a stage manager dircct
Jng stunt-men across a set.
He said the national tally room and
its big board was "a circus for the
people... very theatrical".
And no-one on the other side of the
board could have doubted him. There
was expectation, even nervousness in
the audience's reaction to the first
figures and the plot had its element
of surprise when the pool of invalid
votes started growing.
Labor Party politicians and
minders looked stunned. They hud
dled together at a table near the board
and compared notes. Fingers dashed
across calculators and frantic
scratchings were made on notepads.
They wriggled in their seats like
worried movie-goers and tried to pick
which way the plot would turn.
The play went into its final act
about midnight. Most of the results
were known and the end of counting
signalled by an *F under the vote.
Behind the board the secret-60 took
a break.
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