Posts by simon g
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Michael
Do you mean votes cast, or votes counted?
It is almost impossible for National to miss out if they get 50% of votes cast.
"Votes counted" brings up the issue of wasted votes, as previously mentioned. That must be more undemocratic, surely.
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The phoney electorate battles are much worse than the overhang.
Knowing that Richard Worth is meant to lose, and that he knows, his opponents know, everyone knows, but in Epsom they still go through the charade of an election, in which every party except ACT wants you to vote for somebody else's candidate!
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If any party ends up with over 50% of the vote but can't form the govt due to the overhang I am going to be extremely pissed off.
What if part of the overhang wants to help form the government - i.e. Peter Dunne? Should he resign his seat if he doesn't get enough party votes? Or just say "Sorry, I can't be part of any majority, I've got no right to be here, please ignore me".
I so want that pompous preacher to be an overhang. That would just be brilliant.
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For both the Herald and TV3 polls, the polling period covered the slow strip tease of the latest Wishart story, which a week ago was set to Bring Down The Government, according to ... the usual suspects.
So in both polls, the gap closed.
Make of that what you will.
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Worth-less (arf) predictions, but all true, I promise:
ACT will hold Epsom, and have at least three MPs (which means Roger). NZ First will be out. The Maori Party won't sweep the board and their party vote will keep the overhang to only 3 seats (including Anderton).
A couple of points for election night, in the inevitable row about proportionality/overhang ("not fair, not fair"):
- there's a strong possibility that NZ First will get more votes than four parties in Parliament (ACT, UF, Maori and Progressives), but not be there
- there's a less strong, but utterly wonderful, possibility that Peter Dunne will not get enough party votes for one seat, and will promptly announce his own resignation, as he hates the idea of overhang so much
- there is only a faint possibility of commentators mentioning these two things, when they go on about the Maori seats and the "unfairness" of the result.
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From the Herald:
Mr Key said the announcement was "an interesting idea" and his party would announce its student loan policy in the coming weeks.
"We will indicate a more generous scheme but it won't be universal at this time," he told reporters.
And Bill English on Checkpoint was equally un-scathing.
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Well, I don't have much to say on this debate thing, that's all a bunch of boring old Washington insider talk. I'm just here to give a big shout out to all you PA readers at elementary school. Y'all get extra credit for reading this thread tonight! Now, gosh darn it, it is waay past your bedtime!
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he couldn't have ... addressed him by name once?
That's Plan B, if the polls get worse.
"My opponent here, Barack Hussein Obama - hey, I'm just sayin' ..."
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Your disdain for Ian Wishart and all his works is on the record, Craig.
Clearly, John Key does not share your sentiments. If you don't like that, I suggest you direct your displeasure at him, not us.
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there are much more important things on which to base a voting decision than this.
One would be: not having a Prime Minister who's happy to legitimise Wishart's rag (see current issue).