Going to the polls back then

First pray, then vote!

Serious expressions, stately gestures: in the past, at least in the countryside, people still went to vote in a suit and tie - but only after mass, of course!(Bild: Vorarlberger Landesbibliothek/Sammlung Spang)

On the occasion of the National Council elections, Vorarlberg writer Robert Schneider remembers the time of his childhood, when going to the polls was still an almost solemn act.

As a boy, I always had strange memories of election Sundays. Regardless of whether it was local council, state parliament, national council or federal presidential elections. On those Sundays, there was a strangely subdued atmosphere in our village. You could see this from the fact that the men who gathered in front of the church portal for mass didn't greet each other with raunchy remarks or jokes as they usually did, but shuffled straight into the pews with deadpan faces and sat down in silence. The women did anyway. But they did, even if it wasn't election Sunday. It seemed to me that everyone was carrying around a big secret that they didn't want to reveal under any circumstances. And it was certainly not allowed to be seen. There was something incredibly important in the air, something devious I might say, but I didn't know what.