From bowling clubs to boxing gyms, the joy of voting is quintessentially British

Another dreadful day in the worst Hebridean summer anyone can remember.

It was damp and cold, with slanting rain falling repeatedly. Taking the dogs for a walk this morning was physically painful, even though I usually just drag them along helplessly behind me.

But it reminded me strongly of a summer's day I spent many years ago on the west side of the Isle of Lewis.

It was June 1979. The weather was, if anything, bad, and my mother had to take my grandmother, who was approaching 80 and frail and rarely left the house, on a mission of comparable scale to Hannibal's crossing of the Alps.

But these were the first direct elections for the European Parliament, and the old lady was determined to vote.

After all, having been born in 1899, she was old enough to remember a time when she wasn't allowed to do so.

Women were granted the right to vote in 1918, and only if they were over 30. It wasn't until 1929 that all adults in the country gained equal voting rights, but 40 years later the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.

I have never forgotten my grandmother's example, and since my first vote 40 years ago I have only missed two elections – once because of a recent affair, and once in 2010, when I was unexpectedly deployed to report on the count for Gordon Brown in Kirkcaldy on the day I should have been rushing back to the Isle of Lewis to fulfil my democratic duty.

There is something mundane and reassuring about the final days of an election on these islands: the kindly police officers, the patient dogs leashed to the fences, the party activists (“poll workers”) keeping watch outside beside the brightly colored A-boards.

My voting place today happens to be the local bowling club, but given the size of this country, people will be invited to vote in church halls, rundown pubs, farm shops, boxing gyms, even the odd stable – anywhere that's considered convenient, especially in remote rural areas.

On this occasion, you will need to show a photo ID (previously you were asked to state your name, and someone in line could immediately shout “I'm impersonating you…”).

Then my name is solemnly underlined on the list and I am ushered into a small booth where I find a short pencil attached with cellophane tape to a simple string.

After making the sign of the cross, he slips the folded ballot into the box, pats the box, gives a faint half-smile and walks away.

It sounds simple enough, but the Comprehensive Representation of the People Act is full of detailed rules.

You are not allowed to take any photos inside the polling station, and you are definitely not allowed to take snapshots of your completed ballot. Oddly, from what I can find, this does not apply to postal votes.

You may not campaign in your constituency in any way, and if you begin to speak at length about the merits of a particular candidate or party, you will be strictly instructed to stop.

And while it's perfectly legal to be registered to vote at two different addresses (I've done so for the past five years), voting more than twice in the same election is a serious offense.

Charlie Haughey's Electoral Commission was accused of doing just that in the 1982 Irish general election, and was later relieved to be cleared of any wrongdoing.

However, later in life he was mischievously called “Pat O'Connor Pat O'Connor”.

And while you can, of course, take your kids with you (my parents didn't; polling stations are as much temples of adult mystery as banks), you can't let them mark their ballots.

Overall, there is a sense of participating in something vast, communal, almost sacramental.

The prime minister may have 10 Downing Street, a fine country mansion, a luxury car with bulletproof windows and feet-thick doors, an aide who rushes in from time to time with the latest death warrant, a sealed copy of Trident's orders, weekly love affairs with the king and a hotline to the White House.

But today, he got the same number of votes as you.

And your vote matters. Sometimes, it matters a lot.

In 2017, veteran SNP MP Pete Wishart escaped defeat in Perth and North Perthshire by just 21 votes – and the same vote would have given his colleague Stephen Gethins a landslide victory in North East Fife, with his majority being just two votes.

Scotland is unusual not just in having so many close contests but also in having a surprising number of three-way contests. By breakfast on Friday, Dumfries and Galloway might be blue again. Or it might be red. Or it might be yellow.

It has bounced around between three different parties since 2010. Aberdeen South is another example.

And all the signs are clear that this battle in Scotland will be extremely close, with the SNP winning 24 seats to 10 in the final polls, and the Scottish Conservatives sweating over their recent near-death experience.

So why has so much of this country stopped working, given the failure of postal voting? Outraged voters, and even candidates, may be taking it to court next week.

Most people will forget all about it after they've achieved fame, until they're listening to the radio over their morning cornflakes.

Some of you will spend your nights sitting in front of the TV until the crack of dawn watching Jeremy Vine's over-the-top graphics and waiting for the latest Portillo's moment.

Others throw parties: in 1992 I heard a story about an Edinburgh media nut who kept his fridge stocked with champagne and enthusiastically promised his guests that every time a sleazy Scottish Conservative MP lost his seat, he'd pop in a chilled bottle of the finest Pol Roger.

In the end, they all hung on to the last Forsyth and actually got their seats, and the event ended in a hazy mood with warm French red wine.

Or, of course, you can actually participate in the tally.

These can be bewildering to the uninitiated, and take much longer these days because there are more candidates than ever before, but it is a meticulous, careful process with checks at every turn against election fraud.

And if the result is extremely close, as I remember seeing the blood drain from Ian Gray's face when his vote collapsed in Haddington, East Lothian, in 2011, you can slice the air with an axe.

In the end, his majority was 151 votes, and we crowded around the table to watch the final bundle be clicked into place.

The final act before the proclamations and handshakes is the review of spoiled votes. Imagine losing your job on live television with at least half the room cheering.

A few years ago I went to watch the results of the Argyll and Bute election in a huge school playground at Lochgilphead, where there were seven candidates to choose from and someone had scrawled “TOSSERS” in black ink on every ballot box, starting from the bottom up.

Despite the tension, candidates, deputies and officials burst into helpless laughter.

They then agreed that the ballots would be declared “invalid due to uncertainty.”

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