Posts by Lucy Telfar Barnard
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Could you cast an invalid vote?
I have a fair idea how you feel though. I didn't vote in the UK when I was there, even though I'm a citizen and entitled to, because I didn't think it would be ethical: I didn't have a real sense of what the issues were, and more importantly, since I wasn't there for the long term, the outcome wasn't going to affect me at all. Ditto the European Union Elections which I could have voted in from New Zealand because I'd been living in the UK within the requisite period.
'Course, if I'd been legally required to vote I would have, but I'm glad I wasn't. -
Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to BenWilson,
Yes, good. And it doesn't come across as a put-down, it is a put-down. So I'm glad you'll find a more diplomatic way of saying it! Like "Fair enough, there's nothing in it for you - but might there be anything in there for your mum/brother/grandparents/other relative they like..."?
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A young woman at my work said she’s holding a breakfast for her friends on election Saturday morning – and afterwards she’s frog-marching them down to the polling booth to make sure they vote – because a bunch of them have been sounding pretty apathetic about it and she’s sure that they wouldn’t vote unless someone pushes them. She doesn’t care who they vote for, just cares whether they vote or not.
Ben, if you have an email list for them, you could point out to your student friends that they can vote now, already, they don’t have to wait until election Saturday.
As for why their lives would be improved by swapping National for Labour.. if they’re students and want better housing, voting Labour (or anything leftish) will be a vote for a rental Warrant of Fitness. But you could also point out that it’s not actually all about them: we don’t just vote for what we want for ourselves, we vote for what we want for our friends and families and society in general too. I already own a house, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care whether or not buying a house is affordable for other people.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to BenWilson,
Don’t Maori and Asians have a demographic bulge at the low end – Maori because of poor mortality stats, and high birthrates, and Asians because of the massive student population?
Yes to all the above - though the Asian student population would presumably mostly be here on student visas and therefore not be eligible to vote - though possibly included in the NZ resident population that forms the baseline for assessing non-voting population? But the Asian resident (i.e. non-student) population is also young, due to recent migration patterns.
The Pacific Peoples population is also youth heavy, for the same reasons as Maori - high birthrates, lower life expectancy. -
Also, in case anyone else is as interested in these things, StatsNZ have provided s fascinating summary of the reasons non-voters gave for not voting, at http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/Well-being/civic-human-rights/non-voters-2008-2011-gen-elections.aspx
There's a huge sampling error range in there, so caution as ever - and in particular, worth remembering that people who didn't respond to the social survey possibly mostly didn't vote either, but haven't given their reasons for not doing so.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to izogi,
I’m not certain of the data source or its reliability. Even if I maximise possible voters (3,233,492) by including the estimated unregistered people of voting age and minimise counted votes by only including valid party votes (2,237,464), I can still only get the non-voters up to 30.8% rather than 34%, but the gist of the chart still tells a story.
That was where I got to as well. There are various versions of that pie graph around. I sent this one through to Martyn Bradbury back in June, (he previously had the image you'd linked to). There's also this version, which might have been a later one I did, I can't remember now, but the important point in each one is that the non-voting/informal vote is a little lower than in the original, but still certainly big enough to swing the outcome wildly in any sort of direction.
In 2011, "enrolled but didn't vote" was 25.8% of the enrolled population, and then there was a percentage of those who did vote who voted informally or blank. So it depends on how many you think weren't enrolled how big the dark grey slice of the pie is.
At the time, I went and had a look at the 2012 NZ Social Survey. They only had 20% of people admitting to not voting in the 2011 election, though it's clear from the enrolment figures and turnout that that should be at least 25%. But their compliance with the survey was 80%, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a correlation between not voting and not participating in the Social Survey. It would have to be an almost perfect correlation for the 34% non-voter figure to be correct, and I think that's not so likely. I think I then went to the 2013 census and looked at how many people NZ residents there were of voting age, and that takes you to that 30-point-something percent figure. But if I were doing it again now, I'd want to chop the dark grey up further into "not enrolled" and "enrolled but didn't vote".
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I've been thinking about that this morning. I've had an email from a political party (I won't shame them by saying which one) inviting me to participate in some of their pre-election activities. I look at what they're doing, and none of it is actually stuff I want to spend time doing. It's all so sad and lame. I'm not going to write back and say "no, I'm not going to participate in 90% of what you've got here because it's sad and lame", because I don't believe in criticising without suggesting solutions. For now, I've got no solutions. But I'm sure there should be some.
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Part of the problem is that the unthinking voters don't go to political meetings. If you go to a meeting, then you're thinking about things and interested either in hearing the range of candidates' opinions, or in seeing "your" candidate out-perform the others. So you're either interested in the content, or the game - but you're interested.
So when you go to a political meeting, and look around, the question isn't who they appear to be supporting, but who isn't there. -
Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to nzlemming,
Yes, I saw the page you've taken a copy of, with her current practicing certificate still on it.
Very curious. -
Whaledump2 appears to be the bona fide follow on account to Whaledump.