Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: Reviewing the Election

101 Responses

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  • Hilary Stace, in reply to Heather Gaye,

    It would be worth lowering the voting age to 12. After all our 12 year olds have access to all the knowledge and wisdom of the world at their fingertips, and most schools have some election focus at general election time. School students are also accustomed to the concept of voting - such as for reality TV and class representatives. I think a greatly lowered voting age would make political system voting a much more entrenched part of our culture.

    After all it wasn't so long ago that women, various indigenous groups and others did not have the franchise on the same false premise that we now put on under 18 year olds - that they didn't have the maturity. And suffrage used to be at 25 in some countries. So from 18 to 12 is only 6 years and nothing really considering it is the 21st century and voting needs all the encouragement it can get.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    All of those apply as equally to the 18-25 age group and can be backed up with studies of brain development.

    Studies of brain development don't make 14 year olds have the same responsibilities as adults. Our laws and customs do. The brains of 18-25 may be less developed than older people, but they are more developed on average than 14-17 year olds. They have more knowledge on average, more experience, better judgment. Is this even controversial?

    Personally my experience of 14-18 yr olds is that they are far less cynical and actually more engaged than the 18-25s. my guess is that it is precisely because they have less knowledge that they take it more seriously.

    Personally my experience is the exact opposite. Well, perhaps they take their lesser knowledge more seriously, that could be true, since children tend to see in black and white. But this isn't one of the good things about the idea of letting them vote.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Moz,

    Great. Now please identify that age.

    16-18 in NZ.

    But this is my opinion and not the point I'm trying to make, which is that maturity does actually matter. If you can convince me that it's irrelevant, then the correct age is "as soon as they can mark the sheet", which is somewhere around 1-2 years of age. After we've got that out of the way then it's just about what kind of maturity. I'd say mental and social are the most important. Physical maturity is not really the focus here, although it might be correlated with the other two - but if so, then they will do. We draw a line in the sand about where that is. I don't really think it should be people who have not finished schooling nor can they be trusted to drive a vehicle, or have sex. Just my opinion there. There are exceptions, of course - in both directions.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to izogi,

    Is there evidence that it does more than add noise to the result?

    I'm not sure what you're asking. For it to be only noise, the people who would not have voted otherwise would have to vote randomly. If they don't, if there is a pattern to the way they vote at all, then it's certainly adding more than noise.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to izogi,

    what about in some kind of segregated parliamentary system that’s tied to the real one?

    It's an interesting idea. It's also a massive and major political change to how we operate. That level of change has only happened once in my life, the switch to MMP. I don't think I'd want to be squandering the next one on this. Purely selfishly, I'd like it to be something that I could see myself feeling really sure that it was actually better.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    If you think that the line is driving, sex, and leaving school, the voting age should be 16.

    (PS hear hear Hilary!)

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Telfar Barnard,

    There's a strong campaign in the UK to lower the voting age to 16. I'm all for it. From my side of the 18 entry age of voting, the main advantage to lowering it to 16 is that because most 16-year-olds are still in school, it's easy to deliver voting to them (during school time if necessary); and if they've voted while young, apparently they're more likely to do so again.

    (I'd also love being able to test that. With a 3-year term, it would be a simple thing to compare the voting habits of those who had their first vote while in school, to those whose first vote came after they left school. In fact, now I think about it, it would be an interesting thing to test likelihood of voting by age at first eligible-to-vote election. Presumably someone's done that already, but it's not on the first page of google results.)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 585 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Keir Leslie,

    If you think that the line is driving, sex, and leaving school, the voting age should be 16.

    is that also the age at which someone can be tried as an adult in the courts?
    No prosecution without representation...

    is 16 also the age at which the state stops paying for their support?
    should be a seamless transition - why is there a buffer zone...?

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    is that also the age at which someone can be tried as an adult in the courts?
    No prosecution without representation…

    According to the Juries Act of 1981, eligibility for jury service is "Every person who is currently registered as an elector". Presumably that's everyone of voting age. Listed among those who cannot be a juror is "anyone with an intellectual disability (as defined in law)". Yet as far as I'm aware there isn't a similar restriction on being eligible to vote.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • nzlemming, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    Yet as far as I’m aware there isn’t a similar restriction on being eligible to vote.

    Or to be voted for.

    Waikanae • Since Nov 2006 • 2937 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    The age of criminal responsibility in NZ is 10 years old. 10 and 11 year olds can be charged with murder or manslaughter, but the idea of letting them participate in the democratic system is not even considered. Says something about our attitude to children and young people.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Dropping the voting age, whether it is righteous or not, isn't going to do really address Emma's main point about declining turnout. Even if the dream scenario that 16 year old kids have entirely higher levels of political participation than kids 2 year older than them, something we have no evidence for at all, we will get a momentary bounce in participation, or it could even just flatline for one electoral cycle, then our trend of the last 40 years will continue, as the bulk of the population who aren't aged 16 or 17 continue to do as they have done before. It could even be worse, as Graeme suggests, and they turn out to be even more apathetic or disinterested or plain lazy.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Hilary Stace,

    Says something about our attitude to children and young people.

    I guess. But it also says something about our attitude to murder and manslaughter. They're extremely serious crimes. Judges have discretion in sentencing and a premeditated murder by a young person is something that there should be very serious consequences for. Their ongoing danger to society is very real. But there is no discretion in dropping the voting age. Either everyone gets it, or no one does. Not all young killers are tried as adults, that's quite an exceptional circumstance. And the reason for that is because we consider them to be not really fully responsible at such a young age. I think the same thing about voting.

    After all it wasn’t so long ago that women, various indigenous groups and others did not have the franchise on the same false premise that we now put on under 18 year olds – that they didn’t have the maturity.

    I don't think this really works as an argument. It is false that adult women and other races are immature, but it is not false that immature people are immature.

    Furthermore, you can't change your race, or your sex (not easily anyway, and being transgender is hardly likely to lead to less discrimination), but everyone who doesn't die young gets to have their turn at being old enough to vote. So it's not unfair like those others are.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    This is a tricky one. On one hand I like the idea of 12 yo's having the vote because that other "Coming of age" ritual, for many, is going down the Pub. What is the first rule of Pub?
    You don't mention Politics or Religion.

    But. Until the age of independence, leaving home, going to Uni, the influence of Parents is bound to affect their judgement and may form voting patterns based on Parental opinion rather than understanding the issues.

    On the other hand, perhaps lowering the age would reignite the political wisdom of the Parents and make Them more likely to participate in what little Democracy we have left.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    Except that it's a well known result in political science that voting/not-voting is a habit so it is likely that it wouldn't be a momentary bounce, it'd be a long term shift in voting propensity amongst the affected cohorts.

    Further, yes, it won't fix the ongoing decline in voter turnout. No thing on it's own will fix that, not even those things which when put together will.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Keir Leslie,

    Except that it's a well known result in political science that voting/not-voting is a habit so it is likely that it wouldn't be a momentary bounce, it'd be a long term shift in voting propensity amongst the affected cohorts.

    If you think it's all good to make extrapolations beyond the data, then you kind of have to also make the extrapolation on the very clear trend that the younger people are, the less likely to vote, so therefore adding this group would only lower the average participation.

    You can fiddle around with the idea that perhaps if voting is during school hours then the huge pressure that schools can bring on kids might force them to vote in higher numbers than 18 year olds. Or we could stop tinkering with piecemeal coercion and just make it compulsory for everyone. Then instead of hypothetical dent based on dubious projections of data beyond what we have collected, we'd get a real and very significant dent based on actual examples that do exist in the real world today, and could have the debate about whether the voting age could drop completely separately. Because it has a whole lot of very different considerations.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • tussock,

    So if non-voting comes down to not voting when you're young, why did young people vote in the 80's, 70's, 60's, and 50's?

    I couldn't get to a booth in '93, so first voted in '96. Youf then didn't vote because Labour was the crazy right wing party being voted for by the people who liked unions, while National was the crazy right wing party being voted for by people who didn't like unions, so it was pretty crazy. Everyone voted for the Alliance, and kept voting for them until Jim trotted them off to war.

    The 80's was modernism and an end to the command economy, or not.
    The 70's was, oil crisis, future energy, that retirement stuff. Boomers.
    The 60's was, uh, people born during WWII, might have valued democracy.
    The 50's was the just-missed-the-war crowd. Wool boom. Baby boom.

    Are they bigger than what we have now? Bigger direction changes, bigger inspirations? We're kinda getting our butts kicked economically by China with it's slavery and authoritarian 50-year-plan, while we languish in cutting public services to promote neo-liberalism with it's "invisible hand" metaphors for God solving all our future problems for us, like the looming oil crash and water supply issues and climate fuckery and so on that no one even talks about.


    In the 30's, the 50's, the 70's and 80's, people did vote to radically reshape NZ society. In '99 Clark got in on being a less-cruel version of National, and in '08 Key got in on being just like Auntie Helen only with a smaller government. What are people even voting for there?

    <spoiler>To some extent you're voting to remove all the cabinet ministers every 9 years because it's gotten pretty obvious this lot are also corrupt and self-serving.</spoiler>

    Because what we could be voting for is, say, switching to renewable energy and going all-electric (or hydrogen, or ethanol) on our transport networks, full employment for twenty years building the associated infrastructure. Instead of casually off-shoring our capacity to grow.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    I am in two minds about overseas voting. On the one hand, the vote is a fundamental human right of every New Zealand citizen. On the other, why should a student loan defaulter who has skipped the country to get away from their obligations get a vote? Why should someone who came here for the minimum period to become qualified as a NZ resident as a back door to getting into Australia (a particularly popular tactic in 1990s/2000s with Brits and Indians, and the main reason Australia introduced it's racist anti-New Zealander laws) have a vote? Why should someone who hasn't lived here for 20 years have a say in how we are governed? I guess to my mind it is reasonable to say that in order to qualify to vote in an NZ election you must be a citizen, and have resided in New Zealand for at least twelve months in the preceding three years, or if a native born New Zealander at least six months.

    This whole discussion so far has gone along the usual path of such discussions in New Zealand. Everyone is talking about method, as if lowering the voting age and allowing children to vote and introducing compulsory voting would dramtically arrest the sliding participation rate. For the record, I would like to see civics classes, I would like people to be paid to vote - $10, or if you vote ACT and loath the idea of getting any government money in sums less than seven figures, you can mark it as a donation to a political party of your choice - I would like the election date to be fixed and made a paid (with proof of voting, in other words if you don't vote, you employer doesn't have to pay you for your day off) public holiday like Xmas. However, I think giving children (anyone under 18) the vote is a ridiculous idea. At that age they are simply to young to be able to form proper opinions to make the informed decisions casting a vote should require.

    But really, decline in voting participation is a symptom of the wider ailments of western democracies. After all, voting in New Zealand is already incredibly easy compared to many other democracies. When you see images of people waiting for hours to vote in third world democracies like the USA then you can only look in askance at people who complain it is to hard here. The vote in NZ isn't dropping due to any lack in our electoral methods; it is declining due to want of an informed and informing corporate media and due to a sense of powerlessness in the face of the growing power of corporations - the unelected and authoritarian new imperialists of our age. It is declining because political parties in the West, all founded in the great social and political upheavels of a century ago, are now ideologically exhausted, but retain the power of inertia and incumbency. Political parties are nothing but elite cadres, captured by careerists and easily swayed by lobbyists.

    Increasing participation means making politics -and most vitally, the change agent political parties - relevant again. It means reform of our political parties, their funding and governance. It is bizarre that our electoral laws recognise political parties, but they are subject to no constitutional constraints or requirements. It means making democracy fashionable again by passing laws that reintroduce it into the workplace via workers councils, and encouraging membership and participation in civics organisations (political parties, brass bands, Guides, anything really) with tax rebates for participation. If voters felt they were part of a community, that politics was part of their lives, that they had real choices, and felt they had reasons to vote they would return to the polls.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    I'm going to keep on promoting the lowering of the voting age to 12 or even 10. I would also have been a women's suffrage advocate in the decades before 1993 had I been around then. What seems unthinkable historically often becomes the norm.
    Just imagine how much more we would put children at the centre of policy if they had a vote. For a start, we would have stopped legally beating them much earlier than we did.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Tom Semmens,

    This whole discussion so far has gone along the usual path of such discussions in New Zealand. Everyone is talking about method...

    ...and then you go on to discuss another method. Quite a costly one. Perhaps it could work in tandem with compulsory voting which would collect fines to offset the 30-40 million extra you're talking about outlaying for the election. Then we'd get both carrot and stick. Could even top the Australian figures!

    On the overseas voters, I don't think it's really that much of a problem. People who have lost interest in NZ affairs mostly don't vote by their own choice. It's pretty normal to just lose interest in local affairs when they're long ago and far away. An ongoing interest is quite likely coupled with strong possibility of return, probably through the presence of family here. Here we are in a thread about the problem of it being hard enough to get people to vote as it is. I don't see large scale disenfranchisement as the answer, any more than child enfranchisement.

    Increasing participation means making politics -and most vitally, the change agent political parties – relevant again.

    That would be soooo much easier than just making people vote. We just have to change the entire world, how it works, and everyone in it.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    Really you're not supposed to vote if you've been overseas for more than 3 years - in fact you're allowed to if you come back for a visit every 3 years - when I moved to the US in the mid 80s it was as if NZ fell off the face of the map - I voted in the SF consulate to oust Muldoon, then they closed the consulate down

    I didn't vote for 20 years (anywhere, not even in California for dog catcher or school board) even though I came back to visit every few years, I couldn't have made an informed decision anyway (besides as a lefty voter in NZ's most right wing electorate, under FPP my vote was useless, roll on MMP)

    Things are certainly different now, I'd argue that thanks to the 'net things have changed and one could keep up to date with what's going on (so long as there are still actual journalists doing real cutting political reporting)

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Moz, in reply to izogi,

    Maybe it's totally appropriate to let kids vote directly into the current system. That's another issue again, and it can work then great. But if it isn't then I think there's merit in at least having something.

    My point is that if we're going to look at the arbitrary exclusion of young people from democracy, we should use evidence rather than just dropping another random number onto the stack. We have scientific evidence about when and how people are capable of making decisions, and we could no doubt benefit from more of it and an evidence-based iterative approach to designing the voting system.

    Sydney, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 1233 posts Report Reply

  • Moz, in reply to Hilary Stace,

    Just imagine how much more we would put children at the centre of policy if they had a vote.

    I keep hoping we'd have more concern for the future> As someone above said, young people have to live with it for longer. Kids also tend to go through a rabid conservationist phase at school because that makes perfect sense, it's not until they've been exposed to "money is the measure" for a few years that they stop valuing things of themselves and switch to a more money-centric system. In some ways I think four would be the ideal voting age, since that's when the "it's not fair" sense is strongest. And I don't mean "four and older", I mean "if you're four you get to vote" :)

    As far as overseas voting goes, I'm not sure whether it's pure self-interest but I think anyone who can be bothered should be allowed to.

    I'm also opposed to any differentiation between the "we grew here, you flew here" cohorts. Strongly, and not politely. One of the best things about NZ is that permanent residents get to vote. I think it's grossly unreasonable that other countries don't do that, and as usual the USA is exceptional in their "no taxation without representation" doesn't mean all tax-payers get to vote, or even no tax for non-citizens. Or, for that matter, the huge range of "guilty of being poor" demancipation laws don't have that effect either.

    On that note, if we have incarcerated enough people to materially effect an election when we let them vote, we have done something horribly wrong and we should fix it. Hiding the problem by denying them the vote is not a solution.

    Sydney, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 1233 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    That would be soooo much easier than just making people vote. We just have to change the entire world, how it works, and everyone in it.

    Our grandparents managed it, and the neoliberals did it as well. Systemic change is possible. You sound like a defeatist.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Tom Semmens,

    You sound like a defeatist.

    No, I just think solving a problem the hard way is some puritanical shit. Upping political interest could work or it could continue to fail as it has done for nearly half a century. My efforts will do diddly squat for that even if I single-mindedly devoted my life to it. But if we perceive that the problem of non-participation is genuine (and I'm not entirely sure that you really do, since your post began with a diatribe about too many people having the vote), then the solution is sitting right there on the other side of losing a lifetime's indoctrination about the sanctity of our optional voting system. It's this arbitrary liberal thing we're brainwashed into thinking is awesome, right alongside railing daily against neoliberalism.

    You're one for all sorts of compulsory measures. Military service for teens? Compulsory civics education? Huge tax increases for the wealthy? Practically every time you post there's some new idea for a massive compulsion to levy on the population. But the idea of demanding 20 minutes every 3 years from every citizen (even if it is just to say that they don't want to vote)? Nay!

    I don't have any problem with any number of ideas that could increase participation, but I don't see why they're blockers to the one idea that would really actually work, with very little effort. It's like the house has a leaky roof so instead of fixing the roof you insist on a complete rebuild from the foundations up. Well hell I even might want a rebuild, but for now we can fix the bloody roof and get out of the rain.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

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