Posts by bmk
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Ianmac,
Of course it is not because they see David as a threat is it? How about you?
I doubt they are saying it because they see him and his 24-25 % a threat. I'm saying it because I can't see him winning and I want a Labour government.
-
Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Max,
More data would be fantastic, but we got to work with what we got. I talked to 1000s of voters during this election. The mind-numbing consistency of the feedback I received from votes - that they didn't like Cunliffe - weighs heavily on my mind.
I agree with this totally. I've traditionally been a Labour voter as have most of the people at my workplace. I even supported Cunliffe when he became leader but as I got to know him, I got to detest him. It's just the sight of his smug, smarmy, fake face that made it that there was no way I could bring myself to vote for him.
And everyone I talked to said the same thing. I would make sure not to proffer my opinion till I heard theirs and I always heard the same thing "I used to vote Labour but I can't vote for Cunliffe". Instead I heard people saying they were going to vote Key or Winston. This is a workplace that would have unanimously voted Labour under Clark but can't bring themselves to vote for Labour under Cunliffe.
To put it in real perspective; every single member of my team is in a union. Not one of us voted for Labour. When you take 9 members of a union and none of them will vote for the Labour party ... well then you have a problem. And when everyone says the reason is Cunliffe - well that starts to become more than anecdata.
I truly believe there is no way Labour can win until Cunliffe is gone, I know I won't be voting for them until he is.
-
Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Dismal Soyanz,
I assume you mean benefit to the individual. The benefit to society as a whole is pretty obvious.
I meant both. Society won't benefit either if you force people to vote. You'll simply have more informals, more donkey voting, more voting for recognised names solely on the basis of name recognition.
The sole benefit I would see is that it would make people feel better that everyone is contributing. Instead if we want everyone to contribute, we need to make it so they want to. Far harder admittedly but a much better end result.
-
Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Moz,
To get a driver's license I have to go the the issuing centre. To get out of jury duty I need to turn up to court and look dodgy. To enter the country I need to turn up to customs when they can be bothered attending. The legal issue exists even without compulsory voting
All of those though are voluntary - you are choosing to do them - other than the jury duty. People hate jury duty - compelling people to vote will only make them feel about it like they do about jury duty. The compulsion needs to have a clear benefit which I just don't see.
If you want more people to vote, make them want to vote. Forcing people to do it isn't really solving anything - it's just making people feel better that everyone is being involved.
-
Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Moz,
There's a huge difference between laws preventing people from going somewhere or doing something to laws that force people to go somewhere or do something. To say that because the state can prevent you from doing x therefore the state can force you to do x doesn't sound right to me.
I think any law that compels an action from someone needs to have really strong benefits to outweigh the loss of freedom and with voting I just can't see it.
-
On the compulsory voting thing - I'm strongly opposed. Why should we compel people to be somewhere they don't want to be? It seems to go against basic principles of freedom. The census at least doesn't require leaving your house. The census too is an element of compulsion albeit one I can support; but compulsory voting is just going too far imo.
-
Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Emma Hart,
I spent a couple of weeks before the election telling people stuff they didn’t know – like an Ezivote card isn’t voter ID. You don’t need it. I don’t know how many people didn’t vote because they didn’t have it, but I do know many came down on the off-chance that maybe they could vote anyone, even though they thought they couldn’t. The Electoral Commission does its best, but we fail massively at educating voters on our basic systems, before they’re old enough to vote.
I wonder if the Ezivote card actually reduces turnout. Despite enrolling really early both my partner and I never got an Ezivote card. She thought this meant we couldn't vote - luckily I work in a library and so checked on the Electoral Roll and could confirm that we both were enrolled and our card must have just gotten lost in the mail (which seems somewhat unlikely I must admit).
Also there seemed to be far less public education about how to vote, that you only need to turn up, that you can vote early etc. I too think the Electoral Commission do a great job, but I wish they'd had a bit more money to promote the voting process a bit better.
-
Hard News: Five further thoughts, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
So you don't believe that there was a Winston National and Labour effort 2 days out? Winston did call for Maori to back Davis which goes against his never backing other Parties but Was there a deal done with National and Labour or not?
As far as I'm aware of there was no deal done between National and Labour and besides I think any previous Hone voters who National told to vote for Kelvin would probably only reinforce their vote for Hone. The part about Winston is true and had a huge impact, probably the decisive one. In all the Northland electorates NZ First got a huge vote - often nearly equal to the Labour party. I think the number of voters who voted party NZ First and candidate Kelvin Davis will probably make the difference.
But I see nothing nefarious in this. Winston knows Northland and knows Kelvin Davis and in his opinion (whether you agree with it or not) he would honestly believe that Kelvin Davis would do more to help the region and be the better person for the job.
-
Living in the north I got no impression of a deal between Labour and National. What I heard was a lot of respect for Kelvin Davis and a huge amount of dis-illusionment with Hone.
Hone can't claim he was outspent either. For every Kelvin billboard I saw, there were at least two for Hone. Plus big internet mana leaflet drops.
-
On the talk of a moratorium on public polling prior to an election. I personally hate the idea.
I think the more freedom in terms of what the press can report the better. I enjoy and find the polling interesting.
But lastly and most importantly it helps people make informed decisions about who to vote for. If there are no published polls and you want to vote for a party that isn't one of the main two you may well be too scared to vote in case your vote is wasted by your party not making the threshold. I know I wouldn't vote for a small party if I didn't know they were going to clear the 5% threshold.
I think if the left is going to do well again it needs to stop blaming the media, the polls etc and find out what people actually want.
That's what I found most infuriating about Cunliffe's speech. It came across as a victory speech. No acknowledgement that they were wrong, that the public had spoken, that they would listen, that they would learn. Instead we got more of the same and the idea that people want a change despite a million voting for National and another million not voting at all.