Hard News: The sole party of government
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Robyn Gallagher, in reply to
Who’s to say that your dominant male isn’t already collecting the entire family’s EasyVote cards and tripping around a few polling booths with his mates?
Dominant Male parks his ute down a side street and walks around the corner to the school hall.
Dominant Male is uncomfortable in the size 12 skinny jeans and One Direction hoodie and the $2 shop blonde party wig is starting to itch.
Dominant Male walks into the hall, goes up to a table and slaps down his daughter’s Easy Vote card.
Dominant Male says: “Yeah, gidday. I’d like to vote. Uh, I mean… Hi. I wanna vote. Yolo?”
Doris the deputy returning officer looks down at the electoral roll, then looks up at Dominant Male.
Doris the deputy returning officer laughs until there are tears streaming down her face. -
Steve Barnes, in reply to
Dominant Male says: "Yeah, gidday. I'd like to vote. Uh, I mean... Hi. I want to vote. Yolo?"
Doris the deputy returning officer looks down at the electoral roll, then looks up at Dominant Male.
Doris the deputy returning officer laughs until there are tears streaming down her face."More votes for National" she thinks as she spies the 6 foot three, muscular, Grandmother behind him.
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Richard Grevers, in reply to
A few thoughts as to why the left didn’t get traction during the last few weeks. To the general newspaper reading voter the perception is:1. Oravida – she was ‘hounded’ for supporting a NZ company2. Dirty Politics – a left wing conspiracy theory. Both sides do it.3. Kim Dotcom – he’s trying to buy his way into politics so he can stay in the country.4. GCSB – look at what has just happened in Australia. I don’t mind being spied on if it means we don’t have beheadings in the street.
I'm mystified why the left didn't make more of #5 - The Minister of Justice knew of a plan to subvert a significant justice institution but did nothing. That isn't simply unfit to be a minister, but unfit to be an MP, and should lead to criminal charges.
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Alfie, in reply to
Also, if the norm for voting is in-person at a polling booth, then it's close to mandatory privacy, which you can't opt out of.
That little barcode on your voting form already has your name and address. The entire form is machine readable including which boxes you ticked. While scanning 2m+ forms would take a while, that information could still be extracted by an evil government, if they so wished.
I can't find any figures on how many kiwis have had their online bank accounts drained by scammers but I've yet to meet anyone who has suffered that fate. I'd look upon the security of online voting in exactly the same way. And of course we'd rely on the integrity of the Electoral Commission with digital votes as we do with our paper-based system.
I do see online voting as being inevitable one day, even if I appear to be in the minority.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
You don't seem particularly interested in reading any of the objections raised. For example, Emma wrote:
On Saturday, I had a guy moved away from standing over his wife while she voted.
If we had online voting, that all would've happened at home and nobody would've been able to stop that guy standing over his wife and doing whatever it was he intended to do. Which could've been purely innocent, but quite likely wasn't.
And maybe you're right about the inevitablity of online voting, but it's something I will fight and I will not give up fighting it because I can only see it as a major step backwards for our democracy and our society.
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Online voting is a mindbogglingly terrible idea. Electronic voting in general is a terrible idea, because it's entirely unverifiable. Doing it online only makes it worse.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Reap, then pillage…
Who should benefit from advances gained by our ancestors, our forefathers, our family?.
You’ve not been paying attention Steve…
The Nice Mr Key© has told you before, that it’s ‘Mum & Dad investors’ who should benefit, them and other fey rich white people… -
Katharine Moody, in reply to
Or not.
Not in anything other than a press release, that is.
And of course, his dear sweet mum has asked;
"If you find out anything let me know."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11312047
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I've found that Cunliffe has grown on me during the campaign. Seemed a lot more statesman-like than Key during the debates although I can see why people don't like him.
I think the left were always going to struggle to win this election with the economy going strongly. A government won't often lose an election in the midst of an economic boom (even if I think it might end any day now).
The CGT and increase in the top rate of tax just weren't going to work with the current electorate either. The apparent "steady and stable management" of the economy by National had brought the economy back into surplus and it was not made obvious why the taxes need to go up. John Key's line of "5 new taxes" was a killer.
I expect over the next term in government, the economy is going to go south, and public services are going to be eroded by budget cuts. Then it will be obvious why taxes need to go up but we're not there yet.
Also, I think Dirty Politics was a big deal in the election but National still got through it for two reasons.
Firstly, Judith Collins was pretty heavily implicated and was cut loose. Polling showed that she needed to go and she was duly removed as a minister. Everyone else in the National Party was only really tainted by association. There was no hard evidence of anything else it was all hearsay. An email from John Key would've done it but emails from Judith Collins and Cam Slater weren't enough. I still think the Goff OIA thing looks pretty dodgy but nothing was proven sufficiently to really taint Key.
Also, if a voter decided to abandon the National Party because of Dirty Politics, where else were they going to go? They weren't going to come to Labour. I expect that a good part of the bump in NZ First and the Conservatives might have come because of Dirty Politics.
I certainly struggled with that thought myself. Labour tried to compete with National by taking a jump to the left with the Greens (although many here might disagree with that). That leaves a gaping hole to the left of National.... and many people want the stability of the status quo rather than "5 new taxes".
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Johnny Alpha...
But there are the odd ambitious 'Dominant Males' about who can work the angles on a scam, who'd be smart enough to check the variables.people are strange...
Just because it seems unlikely, foolhardy, unwieldy and doomed - doesn't mean someone isn't trying it on, or even getting away with it...
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Richard Grevers, in reply to
What’s your take on why they lost it Steve, or why they didn’t win? Currently 5,566 people have signed this petition declaring they think the election was rigged.
Given our robust system for accounting for and securing votes, I think the result of a rigged election would be quite different:
It's somewhat inaccurate to compare figures since the 2011 data is final and 2014 is still missing special votes, but National has a few thousand more votes than last time, while Labour has shed 100,000.I can't see any way in which you could 'lose' votes for the opposition under our system - only that you could give some people extra forged easyvote cards (gambling on who you don't think will vote?) to increase the numbers for the winning party. And if you did this on a large enough scale, you'd end up with a high turnout not a low one.
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DexterX, in reply to
Tze Ming Mok, A day ago
Web Twitter
I was surprised to be deprived even of the schadenfreude of National being forced to deal with Winston.
I feel your pain - it is my regret that we don't see Key attempt to swallow that rat whole, alive and kicking.
Winston moderating the Nats was the best outcome "we" could expect.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
it’s ‘Mum & Dad investors’
There used to be a lot more of them before the GFC. GFC, so similar to JFK, phonically enough and I don't mean John Fitzgerald...
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Emma Hart, in reply to
That little barcode on your voting form already has your name and address.
Sure, because we knew exactly when and where you were going to come in, and exactly which ballot paper you were going to use, and pre-printed it that way.It's eerie.
Your ballot paper has a number, under the black sticker. That number matches the stub, which has your page and line number written on it by your issuing officer - in biro. With that ballot paper, and the stub, and a copy of the electoral roll, you could find out who cast a particular vote. You'd have to find the ballot paper you wanted first, of course, and then separately find the pad with the stub, and then corrupt the Electoral Commission...
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
I've found that Cunliffe has grown on me during the campaign. Seemed a lot more statesman-like than Key
Just think how much Shearer would have grown on you by now.
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Michael Meyers, in reply to
Your ballot paper has a number, under the black sticker. That number matches the stub, which has your page and line number written on it by your issuing officer – in biro.
I had seen the number under the black sticker but hadn't looked at the stub before I was handed the ballot paper. There was discussion in my household about what would happen if I were to vote twice. Obviously it would be caught but I wondered how they would find the appropriate ballot paper if that were the case.
It did also make me wonder how secret the secret ballot really is, although it would take a lot of work to match all the ballot paper with all voters. Lots of black stickers to peel off.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Hang on, let me sort that out. It’s a ministerial car not a ute.
Under Tom Semmens's dictatorship of the Waitakere Man proletariat it'd be a ministerial ute.
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Alfie, in reply to
Your tone makes me assume that for you, abuse is something very abstract, something it's okay to play thought-experiment hypotheticals with.
Whoa! I'm not condoning domestic abuse and I'm sorry if I gave you that impression Emma. To be truthful I was thinking more about voting fraud and hadn't even considered that angle. To be clear -- I find domestic abuse abhorent.
On Saturday, I had a guy moved away from standing over his wife while she voted.
I've voted in more than ten elections now and I've never observed the type of behaviour you describe. When my daughter and I voted on Saturday -- it was her first election -- we were chatting and joking with the electoral staff. Maybe I've always lived in nice neighbourhoods, but the process of voting has always been a pleasant experience for me.
I accept your point that online voting would make that type of influence easier for an abuser. But don't the males you're describing already exert a high level of psychological control over their victims? Intimidation is a powerful thing and I'm sure that "She votes the way I tell her" already happens within our current system.
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Alfie, in reply to
You don't seem particularly interested in reading any of the objections raised. For example, Emma wrote...
Give me time, Chris. I've been outside dealing with overflowing water tanks.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Right as rain...
...overflowing water tanks
I'd be hanging on to that surplus water, John and the Boys will be wanting to privatise or charge for that quick smart (except the free dairy irrigation water of course).
It'll cost an RMA and a leg in the future... -
Joe Wylie, in reply to
He’s going to need penis instruction from here then
What a goldmine of studliness, really I had no idea.
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tussock, in reply to
I think the "internet voting will raise turnout" idea assumes that
assumes that people will be stupid enough to let a few computer hackers decide the election results. It is completely insane. Not to mention the million people in the US with top secret clearance who just saw who you voted for and had to think about if they really liked that, and if it could be used against you.
People aren't turning out because there's no one they want to vote for and no one they want to vote against. It's just that fucking simple.
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Steven, that was truly awful. Blubber everywhere... yuk..
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
The Nice Mr Key© has told you before, that it’s ‘Mum & Dad investors’ who should benefit, them and other fey rich white people
That Mr Key has definitely put me in a fey mood </df joke>
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Emma Hart, in reply to
I’ve voted in more than ten elections now and I’ve never observed the type of behaviour you describe.
So let's be generous and say, over all that time, about three hours in a voting place? So, about 1/3 of one voting day?
Maybe I’ve always lived in nice neighbourhoods
Because abuse never happens in nice neighbourhoods.
I accept your point that online voting would make that type of influence easier for an abuser.
I really wish you'd stop there. Because that point is inarguable. Easier. Not suddenly possibly for the first time, but far, far easier. So now the question you have to ask isn't "But what about *hypothetical*?" It's "Do I consider a possible theoretical rise in voter turnout worth chucking those women under the electronic voting bus?" It's a pretty simple question.
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