Posts by Emma Hart
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Up Front: The Surprisingly Sincere Up…, in reply to Michael Homer,
The requirement is to "verbally give or verbally confirm his or her
name". Before 2014 it just said "give any particulars that are necessary for finding the elector’s name on the rolls.", but this version was there for the last election too. I suppose someone complained about what "confirm" means.So last election, our script was to find them on the roll and then say, "Can you confirm you name is [name]?"
This time around, we find them on the roll and then say, "Can you please state your name?" and they have to say it. If they're Deaf or can't speak, they can point or otherwise indicate it, but this is our default script.
Can I say my name in any official NZ language? (i have a sign name). How do Deaf people do this?
Is your sign name your legal name?
If you finger-spell your legal name, I will understand it, but most Issuing Officers won't.
And yeah, my son, who will be voting for the first time this election, is both deaf and trans, so I very much understand the difficulties.
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Up Front: The Surprisingly Sincere Up…, in reply to linger,
Have to admit, the "EasyVote card" reference is strange to me. How long has that been a thing? I don't remember getting one last time, and certainly won't receive one before voting this time. (I will be casting an advance vote before returning to Japan.) If it isn't actually needed for voting, what is its purpose?
I can't remember, but at the very least they've been around the last three elections.
Its purpose is that it makes voting faster. It has the page and line number of the roll on it, so we can go straight to your name. Also it has your named spelled correctly, so we don't have to to ask.
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Up Front: The Surprisingly Sincere Up…, in reply to Andrew Stevenson,
No additional messages when I hover over the links?
Those are some of the best bits in your columns (and that's a high bar)Aw, thanks Andrew. Tbh, I started laying off them because so many people are reading them on Devices, and so don't get mouse-over text.
Thank you for this, Emma. I hope you're staying well.
I have just had the 'doing okay for now' on my brain tumor. And it's spring, so I'll be getting better otherwise.
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Up Front: The Surprisingly Sincere Up…, in reply to Scott A,
So, what was this legal challenge that resulted in the "name must be said aloud" practice?
I asked, and they were quite cagey about it, so... It was voter-eligibility related.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
That's the thing that attracted me about TOP - their UBI policy gets rid of all that (it basically removes unemployment as a concept) and reversing it would become a big hurdle for a future government.
I love the concept of a UBI. TOP's UBI is impossible to live on, and would be up to a 30% income cut for some beneficiaries.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to ,
Needing to commit benefit fraud to “feed a baby”, is complete bullshit. It might however be the case today, but it wasn’t back then.
I was on a benefit with children in the nineties, and I can remember standing in the kitchen of our tiny ex-state-house rental crying because Plunket was on our case over our baby not gaining weight and I was already spending $20 a week on baby rice and steaming veggies to feed him and it was half our food budget.
We had a panel heater in the bedroom our two kids shared that had a thermostat. I had it set to 12 degrees, because that was as warm as I could afford to run it, and yes it turned on, because the house was so cold. That's not warm enough to keep kids healthy.
We didn't commit benefit fraud, but it wasn't out of ethics, it was out of pure fear. And we did not have enough money to keep our kids healthy.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Henry Barnard,
I wonder, too, if the folk who drafted this clause didn't have precisely these sorts of issues in mind but/and, more particularly, to allow people who might never have resided (in the ordinary sense of the word) in a place but whose turangawaewae might be elsewhere to declare that place as their home and, hence, their place of residence.
The thing about the underlying ethos of the Electoral Commission is that they want to make it as easy as possible for people to vote. They have zero interest in making life difficult for people whose living situations are fluid or difficult or unusual, and if that means also not bothering chasing up a handful of people who've maybe registered in the electorate next door because it's marginal and their isn't, or the thousands of students still registered in their parents' electorates, they don't care.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I just assumed you'd have to vote in the electorate of residence and I guess that's wrong.
https://twitter.com/philiplyth/status/893203423243497472
"NZ law is fairly flexible around *where* people enrol. As long as they only enrol, vote once, all is good."
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to izogi,
The electoral fraud stuff probably came completely unexpected
So I totally understand why people have Issues with this, but it's not electoral fraud. Not according to the Twitters of the Electoral Commission and Phil Lyth of the Electoral Commission, who is my go-to on this stuff. As long as you're only registered to vote in one electorate and you only vote once, they're good. Remember, even homeless people can vote. Nobody cares that they're not actually living at the address they give.
A note for some of the rest of this stuff. My son is a beneficiary, and he lives with his mum. Who is also a beneficiary. It's so not an issue that even WINZ don't care, and yet somehow this is a Thing? Really?
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Yeah, there was a time in the early nineties when my partner, who also had a student loan, explained to his W&I guy that, if he worked another hour a week in his part-time job, he would lose money: his real tax rate would pass 100%. The guy said, that can't be right, did the maths there at his desk, discovered it was right, and was furious.
How do they not know? How do they not already know?
Benefit levels were quite deliberately set below subsistence level. Someone did something immoral, and it wasn't Turei.