Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Hey, Keir, for all you know they were having the meetings on how to steal our rightful Labour votes back from those crazy Greens when we were out of the room. It’s possible, right?
It's probably a moot point, because here's where Burns is putting the blame now:
The exodus of thousands of eligible voters following the September, February and June earthquakes had played a part in the result but he was hopeful of winning the seat on special votes.
"We have, by my calculation, 4586 fewer voters this election compared with in 2008."
He said the loss of those voters had affected his preliminary tally more than Wagner's, because they were likely to have come from Labour heartland areas such as Richmond, Shirley, and the inner city east from Barbadoes St across.
Wow. Even if he's right (and I don't know if that's the case), one might think it's a little tone deaf to be talking about red flight. (One could also note with some asperity that Lianne Dalziel & Ruth Dyson are taking their still-healthy-but-reduced majorities well. Also would have picked Megan Woods' majority in Wigram being larger than it turned out, but still.)
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Kracklite,
Craig, a former National supporter
Oh, I still am but, I'd like to think, just not a mindless elect-bot. I don't want anyone, even the right people, having unbound power. I've also said more than once, that as a citizen rather than a partisan I also need a strong opposition no matter what tint the government is - our democracy works best when the government of the day is most strongly checked and balanced.
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I’m annoyed that more Green party voters didn’t give their electorate vote to Jacinda Ardern, because I think that getting rid of Nikki Kaye would have sent a really important message to National
That it would have, Joshua – I totally get and respect that Auckland public transport, and the CBD Rail Loop in particular, is a really big issue for you. And totally sincere non-bitchy “on ya!” to you for it.
But you want to know a little secret – you want Nikki, and a lot more people like her, in the National caucus. Srsly. (And just as a side bar, for the term of the next Parliament could the Herald please try really hard to remember that Kaye, Adern & Roche are not “babes” but adult women. Thanks.)
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Sacha,
In that electorate and given the widely-publicised consequences, yes it is. The right seem to have no such problem holding their noses.
And nobody in Epsom was obliged to make spite-fucking ACT their electoral mission. Just as people who voted for Green candidates in Auckland Central, Christchurch Central, Waitakere, Waimakariri or any other marginal "stole" votes from Labour.
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Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to Andrew Geddis,
So it does take some time to get this absolutely right.
Yup - and it's also worth remembering that New Zealand does things like this because our electoral system is internationally respected and the results taken seriously. Getting the basics of a credible election result done right rather than done right now is important in ways far beyond the obvious.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Steve Parks,
So they vote for a candidate they know won't win that seat (and who will go into parliament anyway) and therefore insure that that attempt to game the system actually works.
Well, it's a giant ball of "who the hell knows?" as long as we have a secret ballot. Our legislation and social customs also tiresomely frown on waterboarding as a methodology for studying voter behavior.
Ultimately I think we can be so damn clever about voting "strategically" or "tactically", we end up being very very stupid. Yes, thousands of people might just have voted for Parker and Hay because they thought they were the best candidates. Cray-crazy, isn't it?
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to TracyMac,
I would endorse a cross-party consensus to urgently fund the eradication of the noxious pest known as Waitakere Man (WARNING: Link may cause projectile vomiting, blunt force head trauma, hair loss and homicidal mood swings.)
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Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to Phil Lyth,
Always has been. I am disappointed that we still have to wait at least 10 days for a result. In 2011, you’d think that specials could be got to returning officers a lot faster.
Are we really such an ADHD culture that we can't wait? Yeah, I'm sure there a few anxious people in marginals - always has been, always will be - but widdums. We have a caretaker government and perfectly serviceable constitutional norms to prevent the country collapsing into anarchy and old night.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Steve Parks,
Well, the 3,093 folks who voted for David Parker might well have shared Goff's totally sincere shock and outrage at undemocratic attempt to game the system and manipulate voters. Stranger things have happened at sea. :)
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Kracklite,
Craig, remember this?:
Yup – and I really wish I’d been wrong.
Apart from being obnoxious and genuinely anti-democratic, it’s dumb politics. Most obvious example: At number eleven on the Greens list, Auckland Central candidate Denise Roche is going to be in Parliament. Labour might want a relationship with her not skanked up by public tantrums about her supposedly “stealing” Auckland Central from Jacinda Adern. Something, I must stress Jacinda is too fucking classy and reality-based to indulge in herself.
ETA: And for the record, would Labour folks bitching Roche and Green electorate candidate voters in key marginals like Waimakariri, Christchurch Central, Waitakare etc. answer this question.
Shall we blame Labour in general, and David Parker in particular, for the survival of ACT - and let's be honest, the party becoming even more authoritarian and less 'classical liberal' under Banks' presumed leadership?
Banks’ provisional majority: 2,485.
POTENTIAL HIPSTERS FOR GOLDSMITH
David Parker (Labour): 3,093
David Hay (Green): 1,670
All other candidates: 502{sarcasm} Thanks for abso-fucking-loutely nothing Labour! What kind of loser goes and votes for a candidate they might actually have thought was the best on offer? {/sarcasm}
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