John Roughan: Two ticks are all it takes in the quiet of the booth

I love this day, love the enforced silence of it. You wake up and the tumult has gone. It's as though a rowdy discussion has stopped suddenly and you realise everyone has turned to you, expectantly.

Me? Make a decision? It's one thing to talk politics, another to act. Thank God for the silence. The hoardings are down, real life is back in the headlines. You would hardly know an election was on if it wasn't for the cars of those party people with their balloons and streamers.

They are the only ones allowed to show their colours today as they ferry suspected supporters to the polling stations. Funny how often that Parliament, when taking a chip out of a liberty, finds good reason to make an exception for its own.

Banish such thoughts. We have power for a day and a decision to make.

So who to vote for? A few days ago I was fairly sure, but a few weeks before I had all but made a different decision. Leave it, read the paper, savour the morning.

The thing about voting is, no matter how much your mind is made up, you know from long experience you will have a dilemma in the booth.

You always do. Something important happens when you get in there, alone with the pencil and the names on the paper. One tick - or two ticks now, but the party one matters much more than the other - and it will be done, the die cast, the country's course decided.

You know your vote is one in a million but right then it will not feel like it.

Somebody should make a study of the psychology of voting. In all the academic research on politics and voting behaviour there is none, as far as I know, on the difference between intention and action.

It's the difference between answering an opinion poll and marking a ballot, between a non-binding referendum and the real thing. Some places, notably Switzerland, routinely make major national decisions by binding referendums.

The decisions they make are surprisingly responsible, surprising at least to the political class in countries such as this where it is believed affairs are best left to an election.

Real power is sobering. You pick up your ballot paper, go behind the screen and pick up the pencil. The mind may seem resolute but the hand hesitates. From somewhere down in the dull, practical instincts of the right arm a powerful message comes in. "This is not conversation," it says, "this is real."

As you go to make a mark, the voice gets more insistent. "I know what you think. At least, I know what you've said you think, the positions you've taken in the pub. That doesn't matter now.

"This is private; nobody else need know. This is the opinion that matters. Are you sure?"

So you tackle the electorate vote first, it's easier. You like the sitting MP well enough, or you don't. You have read the candidates' profiles in the paper, or liked the look of their face on the billboards, or maybe even calculated who was going to make it on a party list anyway.

We haven't yet used the two votes as we could. We could elect all sorts of interesting independent oddballs as electorate MPs and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to the number of seats the various parties will win. I love the separate votes for people and parties.

But I'm day dreaming. Pick the name you would prefer for a local MP. Tick the box. Notice how that pencil leaves a fearsomely heavy mark.

Now for the big one.

I don't know about you, but the country is never more vivid to me than it is at this moment. Faced with familiar names in stark, unfamiliar print, all sorts of base beliefs bubble to the surface.

The arguments that seemed important yesterday sound like so many passing fancies. You suddenly know what you think the country needs. It is what you usually think it needs.

Tactical considerations are forgotten. You realise yet again you're tribal. Your vote is elementally you, partly inherited, partly where you have come to stand in the social landscape.

But it is the country that grips you. The pleasant little place too far from anywhere, underpopulated, living on green grass and compassion.

You pause, cast your eye again over the other contenders and give one or two of them another thought, just to make sure.

Then you do it. And the head spins.

"Did I do that?" The moment of clarity has passed. Doubts crowd in.

Too bad; it's done now. You back out of the booth a little startled, head for the ballot box like a communicant with the host and, noticing people waiting to vote, feed your paper through the slot with nonchalance. 'Tis done, and it's just one of so many.

If anybody asks who you voted for, you'd rather not say. What happened in there suddenly seems deeply private and they wouldn't understand.

They do, though, which is the reason they generally don't ask. They're chatting happily about anything else. Everyone feels good, having taken the trouble. We realise we all care.

That's the other thing I love about election day: It's a unifying rite. When the booths have closed and people gather around to watch the result, there are not that many who take it personally.

The losers can rescue themselves with grace and expressions of goodwill to the winner for the country's sake. Just about everyone respects the decision.

Sometime tonight a decent political leader will remind us there is more that unites us than divides us.

Civilised democracy. I love it.

Results coverage begins 7pm Saturday on nzherald.co.nz