Posts by Moz
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Legal Beagle: Coalition of Losers, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
(to summarise GE's point: if you have any preference at all in the lower orders, vote accordingly)
The Australian experience with multi-member electorates and large numbers of candidates is that numbering every candidate is beyond the capacity of much of the electorate. I've scrutineered and seen that in action (perhaps only 1% or 2% invalid votes, but people get elected with a primary vote around the same level). So you get political parties publishing "how to vote" cards, and above the line voting.
But I think that even without that, preference flows can move in very odd directions. A party that is widely despised can attract enough lower preferences to avouid exclusion and overtake more preferred parties through successive rounds of exclusion. The take home lesson is that voting for people you don't want elected is dangerous.
In your example, by voting for Key over Chapman I might ensure that Key is elected instead of a Green member. Not directly, certainly, the mathematics of the voting syetm remains pure and unsullied. But by advocating that people "vote all thew way down" I am ensuring that people who don't know and don't care vote for candidates they know nothing about. Worse, they will probably follow the how to vote card of their preferred party, complete with silly preference deals. So by a combination of random voting and party tactics we get extremists elected despite having a primary vote of around 1% (and multiple parties haiving higher primary votes). Where do the votes come from? Preference deals with major parties that give surplus votes disproportionately to the extremists. In the overhang distribution a party with 1% can gain another 1% or more, and right there overtake candidates that have a higher proportion of the primary vote.
While it makes the maths easier if everyone votes all the way down, I think it's more reasonable to only vote for candidates you know and approve of. I suspect in that case we would still get extreme microparties elected on residual votes in the first few elections, but I expect that the steady state would not favour that outcome. But the analysis is much harder because it requires looking at how people interact with their electoral system rather than just the mechanics of the system.
In practice MMP (or PR) are so much simpler and demonstratably more fair that IMO it's hard to argue for STV. The electorate at large are not voting system geeks and the extra impost of STV is unjustifiable unless it demonstratably produces better outcomes. I haven't seen it do that. But I have seen a religous extremist elected with 1% of the primary vote, and I can't imagine that happening under MMP (and yes, I do know about the electoral problems in Israel but regard them as an artefact of the gerrymander rather than the voting system).
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While you're talking about what you're going to write about, you made a comment about STV that I still don't understand:
But some of my vote could still go to someone I’m not a fan of?
, on two counts. First, I'm not aware of an STV system actually used where lower preferences count less than higher ones, so "some of my vote" doesn't go anywhere, the whole thing filters down the list; and the entire point of optional preferences is that your vote can never go to someone you don't like. The idea that I should prefer Density Chruch over Family Fist (or vice versa) seems foolish, if for no other reason than that time spent thinking about the issue is time wasted. I would rather not vote than vote for either of them.
If you could explain how only part of my vote goes to candidates down my list, and also why I should vote for someone I believe should not be elected I'd appreciate it. -
What about those members whom the electorate would gladly pay if only they would absent themselves from the house?
Excuse me if I'm unusually cynical right now, I live in Australia where the media thinks they're the chorus in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and keep singing "where are the clowns, there ought to be clowns..." and the parties are playing along.
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Having your head in the hole for bloody ages never gets old. I didn't like it the first time, I don't like it now.
What got me was their demand that I took my earplugs out. You think I looked around for some special conductive earplugs just to feel my ears burn? You think I'm going to hear your mumbling over the noise of the machine?
Worst experience: coming out only to have them say "can we do that again only this time hold this special ridiculously uncomfortable position for 20 minutes while we try to get a clear scan". No, actually, I can't hold still with my spine flat, one shoulder up and one forward, why do you ask?
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to drag it back to ID... have you thought of getting a gun license? They're also photo ID issued by the government and are widely accepted. Accepted with raised eyebrows. but accepted :)
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There was a brilliant response to the school-measuring proposal in the West Island: the testing is obviously so that next year the struggling children can be moved to the best-performing schools where the brilliant teachers can turn them into top students.
Similarly, in NZ the standardised testing can show which schools are over-performing and thus can have their excess funding reallocated to the schools with an excess of poorly performing students.
The lucky schools can afford to see how much teaching to the test hurts students. The unlucky ones can't afford to do anything but TTTT.
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I’m open to suggestions. (Of course I am, you know what those bloody bisexuals are like.)
And baby do I have a suggestion for you...
I'm with the generic and ambiguous terms myself. Even for people I suspect are straight white christians. Especially for them. f**k'em if they need the constant reassurance that all the nice people are straight white christians just like them.
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I'm considering hiring myself out as a bodyguard to protect women from other women. I suspect I'd hardly ever have to actually say anything
No, because the sight of you winding up to say something would freeze a polar bear's blood. Heaven forfend you actually get to the point of sarcasm. Although the idea of hiring you as a bodyguard does have its attractions...
Jackie, I have one friend who says her breasts didn't so much grow out as down. They droop to waist height now, and she could just about breast feed her babies when they were on her back :) And she is not shy about wandering round more or less naked (does a towel over your arm mean you're not naked?)
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Fun for me is going to job interviews and saying "I've got a BA in Feminist Studies" and seeing who is horrified. If only I'd actually finished it... instead I have an ME. In retrospect I should have switched universities for the masters so I could write "Moz, BE ME" for extra cool points. But I didn't think of that at the time, more's the pity.
I'm a fan of varied studies, hence the "most of a BA" stuff. As are many engineers, and the drinking reputation is a classic "the behaviour of the visible 90% give the rest a bad name".
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Paul, I decided a few years ago that I am not going to store giant plastic proof of ownership tokens for anyone. When I moved to Oz it cost me ~$400 to ship them over here and every time I've moved packing them up then unpacking has been more of a hassle than last time. Plus needing storage space in my house and furniture to put them on. It's just not worth the hassle. So once I'd finished the lossless ripping and 300dpi scanning, I destroyed them (length of threaded rod, circular saw) and went about my business. For comparison, a similar value of software that I own can be validated using copies of emails that fit on a free USB key, or in the worst case domain ownership records. With music it's just more data... why the huge dongle for such a cheap collection of it?
I've decided that if the PTB want to prosecute me I'll just have to live with it.