The " secret ballot" is

there for a purpose. It is intended to allow us to vote the way we want to vote. Most people are able to go into the privacy of one of those little cardboard shelters and mark their ballot papers the way they wish. 

Despite that we have people intent on conducting "opinion" polls. They try to predict the outcome of an election or some other campaign or gauge the mood of the population.

So, currently we have "Nelson". Nelson is a Kombi van. He has been hauled into service because "Daisy" (another Kombi van) refused to participate. She said she was too old and simply refused to move. 

I don't blame her. Nelson cannot possibly do the job either. He has been to some places where many people simply won't talk about their voting intentions. It would be unwise to do so. 

If you live in a small community people may well be able to guess your voting intentions. Intentions will be under discussion but that does not mean you want to share them with a couple of strangers from the big smoke. Nelson's minders are from the big smoke and they are asking the questions. 

They started out in a small town, barely a blip on the map, which was apparently chosen because it is "halfway across the continent". Conveniently it also happens to be the place where the nuclear waste dump was intended to be. The proposal to use a site out of town failed because an Aboriginal group protested. I know someone who lived most of her life there before moving to the city to be near her children. She doubted the locals would say too much to a couple of strangers. They didn't.

They moved on to a very "union" oriented town. People there are not going to speak their mind either...and they didn't. In the third place they must not have asked for names because none are mentioned. People were a little more forthcoming but not a lot.

Now Nelson is struggling back to the city. He is supposed to wait like a weary horse while his two riders ask more people about their voting intentions. I doubt they will get much in the way of worthwhile information. 

It's a publicity stunt of course but it does raise questions about the real value of polls. There have sometimes been phone calls from polling companies on the old "land line" here. The Senior Cat and I always refused (and I still refuse) to answer. We just politely say, "We don't answer that sort of question over the phone." It is not private. They can match the number with a name.  

I wonder how many other people refuse. Those "undecided" people in the current polling might well have made a decision. They simply don't want everyone to know.