Posts by Rich of Observationz
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No judicial recounts
What about the 1997 Winchester election where a rerun was ordered after an electoral petition?
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Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to Ben Austin,
I wouldn't rule out Banks taking another spin of the revolving door and becoming a National MP (again).
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Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to izogi,
The Electoral Commission already hears from NZ Post and possibly LTA and Immigration when people move, etc. And travel data goes to IRD and WINZ.
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How many double votes get found in a typical election? And do the miscreants get prosecuted (I've never seen such a case reported)? (Although I guess it would be hard to distinguish between someone voting twice in their own name or someone using a false name).
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Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to Phil Lyth,
I've been thinking about this and I reckon we could have a system where traditional enrolling to vote is optional.
If you enrol to vote in advance, you get sent a voting card and can go along, show it at any polling station in NZ and vote. If you don't enrol, or don't have the card, then you go along, show some ID and vote.
In the backend, there's an (unpublished, but auditable) database of eligible voters, based on driving license, IRD and Internal Affairs records. That allows anyones eligibility to be determined instantly. The polling stations can print any out-of-area ballot paper as well as having copies of their own. There's no need for a verification process of "special votes" anymore, so the count can proceed quickly, even for out-of-area votes..
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nor would I be in favour of a government monopoly where you could only get your electricity from one supplier
You do already, more or less.
To start with there is (and can only be) one distribution network. At any given time, there is an optimal set of power stations that should be in use. That varys depending on whether one is trying to minimise cost or carbon emissions (and fuel use) but it's a calculable value. Power generation is a mature technology where there is limited scope for operational innovation, so one operator of the same asset would have the same costs as another.
The current system of pricing is a pseudo-market with an artificial, fluctuating price and a system of middle men. (Powershop is an example of what's wrong with 21st century capitalism - a completely unproductive and useless business).
The best way to deliver electricity would be to choose power stations with a carbon-emission optimising model and price the electricity on a fair and transparent cost+margin basis.
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to izogi,
I'm thinking that a lot of the list positions are reward for supporting Goff. If another one of the old guard gets in as leader (or they wierdly decide to stick with Goff) then the same thing will be perpetuated.
The only hope for them is to break the cycle and get a leader that actually cares about more than maintaining their position.
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to David Hood,
Polling here. FPP is ahead, the polls differ on the tailender. SM or PV, anyway - toss a coin for which..
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to TracyMac,
The point of PV is to produce a distorted result which favours the major parties (as is the point of all the other systems including STV). If you want the number of MPs to be guaranteed* to reflect the number of votes, choose MMP.
* Apart from thresholds and overhangs. But these pale into insignificance beyond the distortions you get with STV, which (given the stated 3-7 MP electorates) favours parties with local support and under-represents smaller parties with uniform votes across the country. Unless people vote tactically, or parties horse-trade their preferences to get their chosen support partners in. Etc.
I'm voting for SM in the referendum, in the hope of balancing the numbers for each
"alternative" out so that none gets enough support to create a bandwagon. -
I would have voted Green, if they removed all the equivocation from this page and just said that they will not support National on confidence and supply during the next parliament and will consider any legislation against their policy and principles.
As it stands, I'm party voting Mana and electorate voting for Grant Robertson, as he's one of the better Labour MPs and deserves to survive a wipeout on the list.