and they are still "promising" and they are still saying they will spend our money.
I know. The system is supposed to be "democratic". There is a regular commentator and columnist in this state who is considered to be knowledgeable about politics - after all he did teach politics at university. His view is that "first past the post" is the simplest but least democratic form of democracy. Perhaps he is right.
I need to explain to those of you in Upover that we have "preferential" voting here. You number the ballot paper with a "one" for the candidate you want and then go on to the next candidate you want if that one doesn't get enough votes and so on. That's considered to be "more democratic". You have a choice and a second chance.
The problem with this, and it is a big problem, is that it is compulsory to make your preferences if you want your first choice to count. You cannot just mark "one" and leave it.
I have mentioned this elsewhere. I don't object to the notion of preferential voting. In a sense the run-off polls to elect a President in many countries are the same sort of thing.
What I do object to - and object to strongly - is the compulsory nature of this process. It is simply wrong. Nobody should have to assist the election of someone whose policies they disagree with just in order to have their first preference count at the start.
The Senior Cat and I were reviewing the candidates yesterday. He has been eligible to vote for 74 years and done so many, many times. He still takes an intelligent interest in policy issues and votes according to his beliefs, not party politics. He has brought all of us up to do the same.
This time there are two candidates he is not at all happy with and he was still debating which to put last. He would prefer not have to number their boxes at all. I don't know what he has decided and I won't inquire as to how he has voted although I can guess. He won't ask me either. If either of us are asked at an exit poll then we will politely say we prefer not to answer the question. Both of us though will leave feeling irritated that we need to number all those boxes.
Unless there is an unexpected landslide in one of three directions then we may not know the results as soon as we usually do - late Saturday night or early on Sunday - and part of the problem is those compulsory preferences which mean it can take so much longer.
I think it is time we changed the system but it won't happen because the major parties see it as being in their favour to retain it.
Now, is that actually democratic?
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4 comments:
I once put 116 candidates in some sort of order, starting from the bottom with the many I did not want a bar of! The "top" choices were difficult, too, as I was not keen on them either. The polling-booth staff lent me a rubber so I could fine tune the selection.
I, too, "voted" for people I would prefer never got near a parliamentary seat.
People can get into parliament with less than 1% of the vote, which seems very wrong to me - surely not very representative. (Some, however, turn out better than expected, like Ricky Muir.)
Due to the transference of preferences from one losing candidate to another (arranged by secret deals, I suspect), it is hard to find out where you vote goes.
On the other hand, first part the post has disadvantages too. No system seems to be perfect.
And politicians and political seem to have no firm policies let alone principles.
Fingers crossed that you get a good new parliament.
LMcC
All I can say is roll on to the day we get a new parliament - whatever it looks like. I am so fed up with all this nonsense. Mr X is a b......nuisance - nothing democratic about trying to set yourself up to have all the power and none of the responsibility. Ros
I have major concerns about the "first past the post" idea... I don't like it when people begin extrapolating the election outcome based on the initial stages of vote counting; i.e. before declaration votes (absentee, pre-poll & postal)are counted; because these declaration votes may represent a section of society that has a differing viewpoint or different priorities to other voters who turn up to vote in person on election day.
It worries me when front-running candidates are pestered to announce a win or concede a loss when the declaration votes have barely been half counted. It has been said that the vote percentages to various parties in postal votes statistically should mirror those of the personal votes but I am not so sure that this is always the case.
Unfortunately, I am not a mathematician or political analyst but I find it offensive for people to be judging the election outcome before the declaration votes have been properly counted.
I was extremely offended the other day by someone who nonchalantly stated "I don't care about the election. Politics doesn't affect me."
!!!!
How privileged (or naive) this person must be to feel that the course of their life is totally removed from the political structures that frame the very society they live in.
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