Sausagocracy: The real burning issue of Saturday’s trip to the polls

LET’S cut right to the heart of the burning issue in this election: the polling day sausage sizzle. Here’s where you’ll find them.

Vote with your stomach: Maps and websites abound for voters to seek out a sausage on polling day. Picture: Supplied

THAT smell of onions and barbecued meat wrapped in bread? That’s the sweet smell of sausagocracy.

And as polling day looms on Saturday, the great Aussie tradition of grabbing a snag in bread when you cast your vote is the burning issue of election day.

Fears of sausage wars have been averted, with several sausage sizzle websites and Facebook pages joining forces, sharing resources, and even skirting possible battle lines between Google, Twitter by ... just sharing.

Smells a lot like how democracy should work, laughs the man credited with putting the Aussie tradition of the sausage firmly at the forefront of social media, Snagvotes creator Grant Turner.

“There’s no partisan politics in sausage sizzles,” he says.

“And while you can only vote once, but you can have as many sausages as you like.”

Turner, a Queensland-based IT dude by day, and a sausage sizzle hero by night, is the man who turned a chat among mates in 2010 about where to vote and grab a sausage on election day into an internet reality when he whipped up the Snagvotes website.

I'm considering early voting, conflicted because it will remove my democratic right to a snag on election day. #onlyinaustralia #snagvotes

— Susan Bradford (@aussuze) June 29, 2016

By the time the 2013 Federal Election rolled around, the site electionsausagesizzle.com.au mapping which polling booths have sausage sizzles was a total hit.

Schools and volunteers groups registering their details and manning the barbecues loved it, and once punters added their ratings, it took on a social media life of its own. A Facebook page was added. Cake stalls started getting a mention.

Election day sausage sizzle verdicts and #snagvotes and #democracysausage trended on Twitter. Polling booths which were sausage-less abysses were named and shamed on social media.

At one stage, on election day, the website crashed.

Fast forward to 2016 and the election sausage sizzle has gone global — with four Australian embassies firing up the barbecues for pre-poll votes. There’s also an iPhone app, and what could be classed as rival websites — such as democracysausage.org — (except they’ve broken bread — single slice, white, no butter, onions optional) all work together in the pursuit of just one thing — ensuring equal access for all to a snag on election day.

And that includes vegetarian options. And bacon and egg rolls. Maybe even a deconstructed soy chai latte to wash it down in some hipster suburb.

@ticky @HughRundle @mistydemeo The #snagvotes map lets you filter by vegetarian options https://t.co/dMLi53N05A pic.twitter.com/ZcVkB11wQc

— Election Snag Sizzle (@SausageSizzles) June 27, 2016

Internet companies have entered the sausagocracy 2016 with a vengeance.

Twitter joined the race to identify the Australia’s best election day sausage sizzle or cake by teaming up with Australian start-up Proxima to deliver information based on users’ locations.

Google is creating its own map of polling booths with vital sausage and cake stall information.

Turner is unfazed. Sausagocracy, it seems, belongs to all.

“We’re just sharing the resources,” says Turner.

“Unlike the NBN, we’ll have pretty much all of Australia covered.”

Do you get a lunch break? Is there a polling place nearby? We endorse visiting polling places just for sausage. https://t.co/cetZPBg3To

— Democracy Sausage (@DemSausage) June 28, 2016

Turner never imagined SnagVotes would become quite so big.

“I knew it was a good idea, and I had a look around on social media and there was a bit of interest,” he said of those humble beginnings around the equivalent of a single-burner barbecue in 2010.

It went beyond four-burner barbecue status to mega-Weber mammoth in 2013, when 1470 sizzles registered by election day.

Today, Snagvotes had 1055 sizzles registered for Saturday, and is bracing for a late registration rush — just like last time around.

Turner says there’s an simple charm about the sausage sizzle.

More #snagvotes #democracysausage details at https://t.co/5ttVe7FdVE #ausvotes @auspolling

— KylieSturgess (@kyliesturgess) June 28, 2016

“There is humour involved, people tweet their pictures, give reviews via social media, and most importantly for a lot of these volunteers doing the cooking it’s their biggest fundraising venture of the year.”

He’s been bowled over by the “impressive amount of forward sausage research” which seems to have gone into finding the perfect polling say sausage sizzle this time around.

“I read in the UK, people were googling ‘what is the EU’ after the Brexit vote,” he said.

“I think there are more Aussies Googling ‘where can I get a sausage on election day’ before the event than there were Poms Googling Brexit.”

He’s proud to see sizzles are a global phenomenon, with Australian embassy sizzle venues including The Netherlands, Cambodia and Sri Lanka, but was a bit taken aback by the sausage sizzle listing on the Australian Embassy’s Netherlands website.

“Just under their sausage sizzle post listing was a job vacancy for a chef,” Turner laughs.

“I thought they were taking their sizzle pretty seriously.”