what if i don't want to vote

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#550410 26-Nov-2011 20:16

networkn: Because it gives them a proportion of the votes, so they can't LEAD, but they can CONTRIBUTE and perhaps provide some balance to a particularly left or right leading party.. It allows minority views to still be heard.

Yes, they are heard, it doesn't mean that they actually do what they say.

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#550414 26-Nov-2011 20:22

Well actually heard isn't the extent of it either. More MP's in parliament means more votes for whatever policies they propose or support. Proportional representation is just that. If you want your views heard, vote for the people who represent those views, it's pretty straightforward.

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#550415 26-Nov-2011 20:23

The average parliamentarian makes a bigger contribution than used to be the case under FPP. The select committee process seems a bit more genuine investigation of the issues and less of a performance theatre (in every sense) with a pre-determined outcome.

Power was more concentrated in the internal cabinet process under FPP, leaving a lot of MP's with nothing to do except clown around until selected for a cabinet post or campaign for the next election.

There are MP's who contribute crap all, but my feeling is these tend to be secure electorate MP's rather than list MP's.

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#550416 26-Nov-2011 20:25

there are 2 things going on when it comes to electing the governing parties

1) the idea and overencompassing goal of a general election is to pick a group of people to do the things that the people want done to/in the country

2) a group of people called politicians who want/need a combination job/money/fame/persue and instigating an ideology/doing good things for people whom they know/don't know.

as you can see there are already problems and deviation from the ideal.

now, an election should be fair. we won't go into that.

there are people on geekzone saying there is no point voting because it doesn't change anything. i think that is a narrow minded idea and i would ideally like to see the demographics of people who want to vote and don't want to - ie age, education level, employment status etc

you need to see the process as a whole and a sum of its parts. if you don't support party A that is 'going to win anyway' you are throwing away your right to oppose. if 100% of the government is formed by party A because every opposer did not vote then there is no opposition. if there is no opposition party A can do ANYTHING they want.

of course that won't happen, because at least half the country is mature enough to understand the above.

this is where minority parties come in. they represent an ideology and slowly implement it. it may not be in your lifetime. of course as someone said you can demonstrate/rally and get stuff done or even start using force and weapons like in egypt and libya.

now not everyone buys into this because of point (2). politicians are humans and tend to do what's best for them first and then second what's best for the overall not every individual in particular (but some individuals do get help eg refugees pleading not to be sent back who successfully gain residency etc)

but i think it's still the best we've got at the moment. that's if you have ever thought about living in china or burma or zimbabwe or malaysia as a general public.

it really depends on the 'coach' you get. some turn out to be useless, some great, and some ok.

they also have limited resources. more than can please everyone. and 20% of the people receive the benefit of 80% of resources.

i guess my bottomline is if you don't agree you have the most to gain from voting! ideally.

codyc1515

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#550417 26-Nov-2011 20:29

Personally, I don't believe that any of the parties align with my views, so why would I vote for somebody who goes against my views?

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#550419 26-Nov-2011 20:33

then if you want anything done i suggest form your own party.

otherwise feel free to distrust the system and do not influence the outcome of the governing and opposing combination. i don't see anything wrong with that.

but there will come a choke point if enough people unvote, when the system will fail and the country will become bankrupt/go into turmoil. there is no ideal. enough people have written about ideals in the past and there is no utopia.

we are stuffed but hopefully less than some neighbours.

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codyc1515

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#550420 26-Nov-2011 20:36

joker97: then if you want anything done i suggest form your own party.

otherwise feel free to distrust the system and do not influence the outcome of the governing and opposing combination. i don't see anything wrong with that.

but there will come a choke point if enough people unvote, when the system will fail and the country will become bankrupt/go into turmoil. there is no ideal. enough people have written about ideals in the past and there is no utopia.

we are stuffed but hopefully less than some neighbours.

Nope, you have to be at least 18 to start your own party, so not a valid point. As for bankrupting the country, well...

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#550421 26-Nov-2011 20:54

codyc1515: Nope, you have to be at least 18 to start your own party, so not a valid point. As for bankrupting the country, well...

You don't have to form your own party to start working on your support. I saw this happening with one other geekzoner.

As for no party being aligned to your views, remember, this wasn't your discussion to start with, but in your specific case, then ok, don't vote. You at least gave a good explanation, while the OP just wrote "I honestly cannot be bothered doing it. I don't like either parties and i don't want to turn up." which to me is very different from your point of view.

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#550436 26-Nov-2011 21:54

I realise this topic has gone in a totally different direction, but I'd just like to add something to the following statement from page 1:

alasta: You are legally obligated to be on the electoral roll, but you will not be penalised for failing to vote. However it's best to keep quiet about it so that you don't get an avalanche of moaners having a go at you for exercising your right to abstain.

A primary reason in addition to General Elections/Local Body Elections for enrolling is so that the country can collate/manage a list of potential jurors.

As a New Zealand Citizen/Perm Resident both voting and jury duty, should be seen as civic duties, for elections you are given a reasonable period of time to cast Special/Advance votes if election day and (my understanding) if you have good reason you can defer performing jury duty.

Executing your civic duties is your way to have a say in the formation of the country and protecting freedom for innocents and punishing those that are guilty of crimes. If you want to avoid performing your civic duties by not enrolling, then I don't see a reason to complain if you don't agree with something in the justice system. If you want to avoid voting, then I'll just treat your political opinions with a grain of salt, but I'll accept your right to abstain.

On the matter of avoiding jury duty, the foolproof way (without loosing the right to complain) is to live more than X km from a District/High Court (not sure on the value of X, but the Justice Dept site will tell you).

Essentially, voting is a civic duty in a democracy, but New Zealand guarrantees a right to abstain.

(For those that think we should go the Australian way, where if you don't show up & cast a vote you get fined, I wonder how many of those ballots are informal/spoiled on purpose?)

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#550439 26-Nov-2011 21:57

some people were selling votes on trademe...

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#550465 26-Nov-2011 23:33

joker97:
of course that won't happen, because at least half the country is mature enough to understand the above.

Funny you mention that, considering according to the preliminary election results, at least half the country did not vote.

So to all those people who say "it's just one vote, what difference can it make?" - combine that with the other two million people who thought the same way, then go smack your head against the wall.

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Behodar

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#550466 26-Nov-2011 23:37

To be fair, a lot of those two million wouldn't be eligible to vote (e.g. under 18). But I do understand what you're getting at, the remainder is still significant.

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#550469 26-Nov-2011 23:50

Behodar: To be fair, a lot of those two million wouldn't be eligible to vote (e.g. under 18). But I do understand what you're getting at, the remainder is still significant.

Ah yes, I did fail to factor those in. I just grabbed the figures from Stats NZ for population by age, and apparently there are 3,324,110 people 18+ in NZ as at 30 June this year. Assuming there's still about that number here now, that means 1.3 million people didn't vote. Now, some of those are disqualified (in prison, etc) but that's still 1,000,000+ which is a huge number.

nigelj

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#550472 27-Nov-2011 00:01

Kyanar:
joker97:
of course that won't happen, because at least half the country is mature enough to understand the above.

Funny you mention that, considering according to the preliminary election results, at least half the country did not vote.

So to all those people who say "it's just one vote, what difference can it make?" - combine that with the other two million people who thought the same way, then go smack your head against the wall.

NZ Herald I think claimed there were 3.1million registered voters, some may be overseas etc, which I imagine are counted as Special Votes, out-of-electorate special votes, hospital special votes, etc etc while some are counted, there is likely to be a lot more to come.

With 2,014,334 votes, that leaves 1.1 million no-shows/potential specials. Guess it'll likely be about 30% non-voters at the end of the day.

Edit: Of course, there are likely many that aren't registered, but unless a scheme is devised to hunt everyone down and force them to register, only the devil will know.

networkn

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#550479 27-Nov-2011 04:17

codyc1515: Personally, I don't believe that any of the parties align with my views, so why would I vote for somebody who goes against my views?

What are your beliefs that between the major parties and the extremists like NZF and ACT, you can't find someone to support?

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