My childhood home has moved through three different districts over five elections.

In 1997, it was in the Joo Chiat ward of East Coast GRC, before becoming part of Joo Chiat SMC in 2001, and finally being absorbed into Marine Parade GRC in 2015. It’s still there for now, but where it’ll be next is anyone’s guess.

One of my colleagues, meanwhile, has gone from being in Yio Chu Kang SMC to Ang Mo Kio GRC to Yio Chu Kang again.

If this were any other country, it would be ridiculous. Imagine a Brit belonging to Nottingham one year, Leicester the next, and Northampton the year after. The whole thing beggars belief.

But this is Singapore, and this is the game we have come to expect from how our electoral boundaries are drawn up.

The top-secret delineation process is carried out by the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC). For everyone outside the black box in which they operate, it remains an absolute mystery. Each time a new report is released, we can only scratch our heads as districts are repeatedly carved up, subsumed, created, and reformed.

The changes are unpredictable, but seen over a longer period of time, they look meaningless. GRCs go from 4 seats to 5 and back to 4 again, while SMCs disappear in one election and reappear in the next. Wards begin life as GRC seats, get carved out into SMCs, and then complete the circle by getting re-absorbed into GRCs.

We are never told exactly why.

To anyone on the ground, it makes no sense whatsoever. And after year upon year of switcheroo, it all starts to seem not only incomprehensible, but arbitrary. We don’t so much stop being baffled as expect to be baffled.

As my dad put it, “I never bother reading the boundary announcements. The lines keep changing anyway.”