SIMON WALKER: Democracy is fatiguing me

Here we go again, the fourth election in how many months?

Talk about fatigue.

Certainly no excuses for not knowing where the booths are.

All I can say is I hope we get our votes in on time this time, otherwise we'll cop a fine, like last time.

And what were we voting for last time?

Oh that's right, a byelection to replace Nuatali Nelmes on council, after she became mayor after another election after Jeff McCloy stood down, after Tim Crakanthorp and Jodie Harrison won another election to replace Tim Owen and Andrew Cornwell who stood down after their associations with McCloy after ...

Yep, it's been busy.

And we may still get fined. The local council brown bombers are pretty ferocious and they've started realising people don't just congregate at farmers markets, sporting events and local pools on hot days.

There's elections too. Or is that four.

Given how many we've had, a friend recently wondered out loud whether or not it might be possible to vote to ban elections.

At least in the Hunter, for all the good they seems to achieve.

And based on what's gone down in the last couple of years, there may be a case.

I reckon voting to ban brown bombers may have a better chance of getting up though.

Of course that would mean we would never get a park in town.

But that's OK, we can never get a park in town these days anyhow, so no great loss.

Council could always make up the lost revenue by jacking up rates.

Hang on, council is already making up lost revenue by jacking up rates, 46 per cent. Nearly as much as Mike Baird is selling/leasing off the power poles in NSW.

Some suggest the fact we can't get a park in town is due to the fact the Libs have pulled the railway out of the CBD and now everyone's driving to work.

This is hard to verify, but parking in King Edward as I do each day, I can confirm it's becoming a bigger and bigger hill climb to find a space as the parking snake winds its way ever upward.

Other people suggest the difficulty in getting a park in town is due to all those tradies inundating the place working hard on the privatisation, I mean revitalisation, of the CBD.

All in all, the debate gets a bit repetitive, unpalatable if you like, and hard to stomach. (Cue segue).

Speaking of palates, I noticed one innovative local church polling booth is holding an election day cake stall today.

And what an electric initiative that will be.

Hopefully no stale offerings.

Other than election promises, of course.

In the spirit of political cooking puns, I'm sure one candidate will rise to the challenge.

Affirming in their acceptance speech, no doubt, that the proof was in his/her pudding.

Consequently leaving someone else to take the 'humble pie' division.

The icing on the cake would be if whoever didn't end up with egg on their face actually followed through on their promises. So, go the Sex Party.

Not that I believe that a vote for them will deliver more than a vote for any other.

They are a political party after all.

But you live in hope.

Mainly that there's no more elections for a while.

It seems like only four years ago I was pondering whether to vote for Kristina Kenneally on the sound political basis that she had a good basketball jump shot.

Such was the state of state politics.

Labor was on the nose courtesy of Eddie Obeid et al.

And a bloke called Barry O'Farrell simply had to turn up to win for the Libs.

This time round what's changed.

He who must be Obeid is gone.

Kristina got bounced out of the top job to run Basketball Australia, which seemed like a nice fit, and Baz got bowled over by a bottle of Grange.

Cue young Mike Baird, thrust to glory for damage control.

There's been no shortage of it in the Hunter as the Libs squandered miles of political capital in the space of one lord mayor term.

A heady couple of years, or beheady, given how many suffered the chop.

The vibe heading into today's poll, as far as I can tell, is that Mikey Baird will win based solely on his ability to read Tweets.

Luke Foley has done nothing nerdy that way so Baird has won the social media war.

Reading Tweets makes Mike look hip, groovy and above all, able to work a smart phone.

Young voters don't understand much, but they understand that.

Mike's minders must think it's important Mike show he is aware of all his critics on social media, and ignoring them.

Said critics might say it's a bit like how he treats the electorate. Novocastrians are certainly used to being ignored by Macquarie Street. Some say that's why they may vote Labor back in. Time will tell.

For the disillusioned, it's hard to work out which way to go, but if the major promise today is that this will be the last election for a while, then I'll vote for that.