And by “informal” I don’t mean people voting in thongs. Political has-been and occasional Dilbert lookalike Mark Latham publicly implored people to vote informally as a way of thumbing their noses at the two major parties (although that’s what I thought voting Greens was for?) but what I want to know is: would everyone have taken this whole voting thing more seriously if we’d been forced to do it nude?

Let me explain: my favourite story from the most recent US presidential election wasn’t about Barack Obama’s inspirational rise to power, it was about the nudist resort in Florida that requested a naked polling booth. And no, “polling booth” is not a euphemism.

Florida is chock-full of old people. I don’t know this because I’ve been to Florida, I know this because I’ve watched American sitcoms that have made jokes about old people living in Florida.

Seeing something repeatedly joked about in an American sitcom is like reading a quote from “a source close to the couple/star” in New Weekly – it must be true. Therefore, I’m assuming that the Floridian nudist resort that wanted the nude polling booth was chock-full of old people. Some old people simply must be stopped.

To be specifi c, what these aged flashers actually requested was a “clothing-optional” polling booth but they may as well have called it a naked one because who’d go in there clothed? If you went in clothed it would be obvious that you were not a nudist and you’d clearly only rocked up for the perve. And if you’re perving on nude pensioners you should probably take a good look at yourself (naked, after you’ve spent too long in the bath – it’ll make your skin all wrinkly so you can fulfi l your own sick fantasies).

Anyway, the request for the starkers polling booth in Florida was turned down, probably because nude voting is fraught with inaccuracies – you wouldn’t believe the number of times people tick the wrong box.