Move over sausage, the democracy souvlaki has arrived

Sausage. White bread. Sauce. Maybe onion. It's a simple recipe stamped on the collective consciousness of Australia, but this federal election many polling booths are taking the democracy sausage to new levels.

Gourmet butcher sausages are big polling booth business across Sydney, where voters can tuck into snags from Top Gun Butcher at Marrickville's Ferncourt Public and locally made bangers at Toongabbie Public School, which is also offering farm-fresh corn on the cob.

Hatted Hartsyard chef Gregory Llewellyn will be on the grill at Orange Grove Public and in a year where vegan products are as common as Clive Palmer billboards, public schools such as St Peters and Woollahra are providing plant-based snags to raise money for items such as smart boards, art supplies and playground equipment.

Erskineville Public School is even offering democracy souvlaki.

"Sitting deep in the hipster and gourmet inner-west heartland, we feel our polling booth voters demand that little bit extra," said Melanie Smith, a food coordinator for Erskineville Public's election day barbecue.

"This year we are offering democracy souvlaki - chicken souvlaki with fresh Greek salad and handmade tzatziki. We experienced huge demand for our souvlaki at the biennial Erko Berzerko school fair and thought it would be rude not to revive it for our voting community."

Smith said the school also plans to sizzle 800 snags today (with onion "optional and always on top") and will offer a range of sauces from classic tomato to spicy sriracha.

Hazelbrook Public School in the Blue Mountains is taking its democracy sauce selection a few dance steps further by "celebrating the shared date of two great contests with a Eurovision-inspired sausage sizzle". Voters can choose a sizzle condiment inspired by participating Eurovision countries, such as remoulade, hummus, dijon mustard or garlic aioli.

More than 1500 polling places across the country have registered their sizzle intentions with demoracysausage.org, a map-based website that uses Australian Electoral Commission data to identify polling places and invites fundraising stallholders to promote their sausage and cake offerings.

"Democracy sausages have definitely become fancier since we started the website in 2013," said Kimberley Seats, who co-runs the website out of Western Australia with five friends.

The Australian National Dictionary Centre's 2016 Word of the Year was "democracy sausage" (a term which reportedly came into circulation in 2012) and from there "things just snowballed" said Ms Seats.

Twitter created a sausage-on-bread icon for "AusPol" related posts at the last federal election, and the ritual was featured by the BBC on Monday in a field piece titled "How sausages get Australians out to vote".

"In the last few years there has also been a lot more social media use which has contributed to the popularity of democracy sausages," said Ms Seats.

"People are very big on posting a photo of their democracy sausage on Instagram, and the more fancy the sausage, the more social media 'likes' it receives."

Social media attention may draw more voters to the local school, church or community group the sausage was sourced, thus increasing the funds raised for that polling place's cause.

Seats and her team will be following the "democracysausage" hashtag across social media and updating the website in real time with information about which stalls have the fanciest bangers and if any have sold out.

"We've even had people contact us and say they plan on taking a democracy sausage tour of different offerings in their electorate," said Ms Seats. "For want of a better term, it's become a cultural phenomenon."

Five polling places raising the democracy sausage bar

Erskineville Public School

Democracy sausages, democracy souvlaki and democracy haloumi rolls along with homemade lemonade and "Bill Shortenbread" at the cake stall.

Willoughby Uniting Church

Sausage sizzle and cake stall with a free individually wrapped gerbera for the first 100 keen voters.

Stanmore Public School

Egg and bacon rolls, democracy sausages and hamburgers. Homemade democracy relish will also be for sale with the school's own cookbook.

Hazelbrook Public School

Eurovision-inspired sizzle with a cornucopia of international sauces and photo booth featuring a replica of Kate Miller-Heidke's crown.

Toongabbie Public School

Local butcher snags and bacon, local bakery fresh bread, free-range eggs and pesticide-free corn on the cob.