An election to replace Prince Philip...

I just voted in the UK!! I'm not a citizen, don't have Indefinite Leave to Remain, and don't pay taxes... but I got to vote!!
Prince Philip is resigning as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (because he's 90!). So the university leaders nominate a successor and then there's an election, and Cambridge Fellows and everyone with a Cambridge masters degree gets to vote. (The Fellows get a quicker queue... special treatment even at an election?!)
But then this election got interesting - for the first time in 147 years, people contested the nominee! It turned into the California election for governor that Arnold won... in the end there were FOUR people running for the Chancellorship, and they were all straight out of a parody:

Nominee: Lord Sainsbury. Bajillionaire whose family owns a very major grocery store... so in Chicago it'd be like electing Lord Jewel, or Lord Dominick's, or maybe even Lord Target. Despite being rich and powerful, he's also given a lot of money to Cambridge, including - as an HPS historian of botany told me - a huge grant to preserve rare books belonging to the Plant Sciences Department. Cambridge alum.

Guy who contested the nominee: Abdul Arain, who owns a super great independent grocery store on Mill Road in Cambridge, which is a very hip and independent-minded neighborhood. Sainsbury's is planning to open their gajillionth branch right across the street from Arain's store, and Arain is running for Chancellor to protest the out-competition of independent stores by Sainsbury's. Crucially, not a Cambridge alum.

Guy then nominated by Cambridge alumni to cause a fuss: Brian Blessed, comedian and Shakespearean actor. Super famous goofball. Cambridge alum.

Other guy who then joined in: Michael Mansfield, a lawyer who fights for controversial causes and is very opposed to the new rise in university tuition fees. Not a Cambridge alum, but no one seems to care.

What a circus. On top of the candidates, Cambridge's traditions just added to the shake-your-head-in-disbelief factor. For example, you have to wear a gown to vote. Of course. So I showed up at Senate House at 10:30am on a Saturday morning in my red leather jacket and sneakers - with a borrowed gown on top. Totally fine. We queued for a while in glorious sunshine, with tons of porters in formalwear around to marshal us, with toilets and water stations all along the queue. We were given booklets of the rules and statutes about voting, and a little pin with the Cambridge crest. The porters told us to stop into the Common Room in Senate House for tea and cake after we'd voted. !! This was really an event.

They checked my name off an enormous list of everyone who had gotten a Cambridge masters since 1990 (not since 1209, thank goodness - imagine that pile of paper). Then I voted - a hand-written list of the candidates in order of preference, "continuing until you are indifferent", according to the statutes. I folded my vote and put it in a wooden box surrounded by porters and everyone thanked me a lot. Then on the way out I got exit-polled by a London newspaper... Then I ran into a professor in our department's tea room who asked me who I voted for. So much for secret ballot, but man, what an experience! 

For more info (and maybe tomorrow's results!):
http://www.cambridgefirst.co.uk/home/special_report_chancellor_election_challenging_history_1_1088838