A listener sent us a message on Facebook yesterday.

Why is it that there is only ever a Pencil in the polling booth in order to make your mark?, he asked.

"I refuse to use the Pencil, it can be erased and My Vote remade to suit the powers that be! I am voting with a biro or marker!Make yours count!"

For our daily election round-up, we asked Today FM's political correspondent Gavan Reilly to find out why our polling stations favour the pencil. It's n case the ballot paper gets wet, apparently.

More about that, Alan Shatter's poetic tendencies, scruffy TDs and Booby Sands in our politics podcast.