Participate in your democracy

One of the constant themes of this blog is encouraging people to participate in the democratic process, by lobbying politicians, submitting on legislation, and of course voting. But there's another way you can participate as well: by helping with the election itself. ElectionsNZ needs sixteen thousand people to man the booths and count the ballots on polling day. It pays - tax free, even - and its certainly a job you can feel good about doing. If you're interested, you can download an application pack here.

I've wanted to do this for some time, but I was too disorganised last time, and the absolute requirement for the appearance of neutrality would almost certainly preclude me from doing it now (it's not that I wouldn't be neutral, it's that given what I say here, people might think that I wasn't, which is enough). But I think it is something worth doing, and certainly something worth ecouraging.

Update: OK, so it's not tax-free, but its still worth doing.