Early voting

[420fairy]

anyone going to vote early or are you going to wait to see if there are anymore suprises?
Ive voted early!

[Pyromanik]

I might do it next week.

[Craigor]

*closes eyes and stabs pen randomly at voting paper*

hmm.. can i have a new one? it appears I accidentally drew male genitalia on mine.

[Xsannz]

my vote is to pin it up on the dartboard throw wildly and see where it lands

[Lias]

Copypasta:

HOW TO VOTE TO GET RID OF NATIONAL:
Strategic voting is how National won the last election. It's time for the Left to do the same.

Green Party supporters:
Party Vote Green.

Labour Party supporters:
Party Vote Labour.

Internet MANA supporters:
Party Vote Internet MANA.

Supporters of NZ First, and sub-threshold parties such as ALCP:
Party Vote Green, Labour, or Internet MANA.

National, ACT, Conservative, United Future supporters:
Stay at home and consider trying to be a better person.

Te Tai Tokerau electorate:
Candidate Vote MANA - Hone Harawira

Epsom electorate:
Candidate Vote National - Paul Goldsmith

East Coast Bays electorate:
Candidate Vote National - Murray McCully

Ohariu electorate:
Candidate Vote Labour - Virginia Andersen

Waiariki electorate:
Candidate Vote MANA - Annette Sykes

Other electorates:
Give your Candidate Vote to the Left candidate with the best chance of winning the seat - Usually Labour.

By voting strategically like this you are ensuring your votes are used in the most effective way to keep National out of Government:

==> Helping ensure Internet MANA get into Parliament, as they will probably be needed to form a National-beating Left coalition.

==> Helping ensure ACT, United Future, and the Crazy Conservatives do NOT get into Parliament, so National can't lean on their "buddies" and form a Government.

==> NOT helping NZ First, as they are unreliable and likely to go with National if given the chance.

==> Ensuring your votes are not wasted on sub-threshold parties who cannot win any seats.

And of course, the more people you can convince to vote Left, the stronger our chances of a smart, green, progressive future for New Zealand will become!

GOOD LUCK -- NZ'S FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS!!

EditL Just to clarify this is a copy and paste of something doing the rounds on Facebook, and not my words, although I do at least partially agree with it.

[Lias]

Also if you are not 100% sure who your voting for check out this website:

http://onthefence.co.nz/

[Speakman]

Vote conservative for daily 6 o'clock news lols

[Xsannz]

or just dont vote and don't register.

[Tiwaking!]

anyone going to vote early or are you going to wait to see if there are anymore suprises?
Ive voted early!

We had a visit from Lesley Soper and the big red Labour bus on Tuesday. She said told everyone about early voting and it was at the Menzies Building. Someone asked where the Menzies Building was. She said it was behind the clock tower on Wachner Place.

Someone yelled out "Its right by the Brothel, Elite Ladies, You cant miss it!"

[420fairy]

anyone going to vote early or are you going to wait to see if there are anymore suprises?
Ive voted early!

We had a visit from Lesley Soper and the big red Labour bus on Tuesday. She said told everyone about early voting and it was at the Menzies Building. Someone asked where the Menzies Building was. She said it was behind the clock tower on Wachner Place.

Someone yelled out "Its right by the Brothel, Elite Ladies, You cant miss it!"

hahaha thats awesome!!!

[Xsannz]

anyone going to vote early or are you going to wait to see if there are anymore suprises?
Ive voted early!

We had a visit from Lesley Soper and the big red Labour bus on Tuesday. She said told everyone about early voting and it was at the Menzies Building. Someone asked where the Menzies Building was. She said it was behind the clock tower on Wachner Place.

Someone yelled out "Its right by the Brothel, Elite Ladies, You cant miss it!"

hahaha thats awesome!!!

all i saw and read was "Labour", "Mensies" and big red

images in my head now, can't vote for them

[Pyromanik]

or just dont vote and don't register.

Or just shoot yourself in the face, same effect.

[Lias]

or just dont vote and don't register.

Or just shoot yourself in the face, same effect.

Dooo eeeeeeeet!

[Xsannz]

or just dont vote and don't register.

Or just shoot yourself in the face, same effect.

no worse than voting for any party whilst they each have some good redeeming policies each, the crux of it is that they are never held accountable or deliver on them and tend to railroad whatever they wanted to begin with.

so in honesty what is the Fecking point at least in EU or US they are accountable for failed campaign and policy promises.

[The Demon Lord]

or just dont vote and don't register.

Or just shoot yourself in the face, same effect.

no worse than voting for any party whilst they each have some good redeeming policies each, the crux of it is that they are never held accountable or deliver on them and tend to railroad whatever they wanted to begin with.

so in honesty what is the Fecking point at least in EU or US they are accountable for failed campaign and policy promises.

NZ Politics - a Bad joke with a worse punch line and a waste of fucking time until we get some accountability or a better system.

Personally - I would prefer to vote on Policies, as opposed to parties

[Pyromanik]

Personally - I would prefer to vote on Policies

Here I am thinking that's already kinda the entire point.

[The Demon Lord]

Personally - I would prefer to vote on Policies

Here I am thinking that's already kinda the entire point.

Its a popularity contest.

but what I meant by vote on Policy - is:

I would vote on the Greens for their Public Transport policies
National for their Tax and social Welfare Policies
Labour for their progressive social policies
Internet Mana for their IT/Internet policies and their ideas about updating Legislation for the digital age
etc.

[Pyromanik]

Personally - I would prefer to vote on Policies

Here I am thinking that's already kinda the entire point.

Its a popularity contest.

Yes, that's what our politicians play it as, and that's what our retarded populace buy into. It's all very unfortunate.

What matters is what is stood for, not 'allegiance' to any particular party. Although generally through consistency of policies that's sort of what happens. It's just shithouse indeed that this isn't the case any more.

It's about shit slinging and smear campaigns, smarmy cockyness and no actual talk about NZ's future in any serious manner at all. Poms have a fucking shithouse system full of just about as much of the same issues, but at least they still fucking talk about policy! (it's election time here too, as I'm sure you know as an expat).

but what I meant by vote on Policy - is:

I would vote on the Greens for their Public Transport policies
National for their Tax and social Welfare Policies
Labour for their progressive social policies
Internet Mana for their IT/Internet policies and their ideas about updating Legislation for the digital age
etc.

Wholey fuck, where did you manage to get them from!?

The last two elections I wasn't even able to obtain a policy list from the major parties.
I even emailed campaign managers asking for a breakdown. All I could find on websites was a brief bulletpoint list, usually central around a single point (with a few supporting minors tacked on to make it look more 'fleshed out').

So in that mind it puts major parties in the same league as the minors. Except that they have a better understanding of what it means to govern a whole country, rather than stand for a single point (eg legalise cannabis party).

The whole thing is very atrocious. Also very evident in that for the past three elections now the entire campagin has revolved around "don't vote for the other ones" rather than "this is what we stand for, obviously we're the best choice", followed with "because in the longer term it will mean this, and this, and this...".

NO ONE HAS A LONG TERM PLAN FOR NZ AND IT SADDENS ME. That's why we keep going around in circles, our moron voters do so on 'what are they going to do for me TODAY?' eg. when Labour blatently bought votes from studnets country wide with abolution of interest or whatever it was. Long term? Landed the country in a load of debt, with little to show for it.

[Kayne]

Also if you are not 100% sure who your voting for check out this website:

http://onthefence.co.nz/

That website actually worked for me.

I've never been much interested in politics and in all honesty, I'm still not interested (Blame the current government or something for not instilling interest in me from an early age)

But I played around on the website, and the party it told me was most inline with what I thought, actually has some decent ideas that I agree with.

[Tiwaking!]

Also if you are not 100% sure who your voting for check out this website:

http://onthefence.co.nz/

That website actually worked for me.

I've never been much interested in politics and in all honesty, I'm still not interested (Blame the current government or something for not instilling interest in me from an early age)

But I played around on the website, and the party it told me was most inline with what I thought, actually has some decent ideas that I agree with.

Interesting. Turns out I am:

What are the Greens and Maori party doing on there? :\

[Pyromanik]

Also if you are not 100% sure who your voting for check out this website:

http://onthefence.co.nz/

That website actually worked for me.

I've never been much interested in politics and in all honesty, I'm still not interested (Blame the current government or something for not instilling interest in me from an early age)

But I played around on the website, and the party it told me was most inline with what I thought, actually has some decent ideas that I agree with.

Interesting. Turns out I am:

What are the Greens and Maori party doing on there? :\

Lol, why not? I got told Labour were inline for me, and I was all LOL, NOPE.

Same thing, different opinion.

[Tiwaking!]

Also if you are not 100% sure who your voting for check out this website:

http://onthefence.co.nz/

That website actually worked for me.

I've never been much interested in politics and in all honesty, I'm still not interested (Blame the current government or something for not instilling interest in me from an early age)

But I played around on the website, and the party it told me was most inline with what I thought, actually has some decent ideas that I agree with.

Interesting. Turns out I am:
Internet-Mana
What are the Greens and Maori party doing on there? :\

Lol, why not?

I would expect Winston First to be on the list. Having taken the test I wonder what Winston First's policies really are, other than just doing nothing for three years and then trying to make a lot of noise during election year

[Pyromanik]

Winston First makes a lot of noise in palay a ment too, around certain issues. Like foreign policy.

[Tandoori]

Some criticism has been levelled at the OntheFence, and it seems that VoteCompass has been better received by the Political Science guys. One thing to note is that policy alignment is one element you should consider when voting, another element would be the realpolitik, e.g. who can actually get their policies into effect. This where the idea of strategic voting comes in.

Politics is the art of the possible

An example would be ALCP, you might really be pro Cannabis Reform and ALCP aligns well with your policy views, but their polling means they're not likely by any stretch to get into Parliament. You may then consider changing to vote for a party who is less aligned with your policy views, but whose political positioning means they're better placed to get something into effect (in this example, you might consider Green).

Working all of this stuff out is quite complex, but there's a few rules of MMP which play a major role. The thing I would stress is that not all votes are 'equal' in so far as:

]Under current MMP rules, a political party that wins at least one electorate seat OR 5% of the party vote gets a share of the seats in Parliament that is about the same as its share of the party vote.

That means if your vote goes towards the ALCP (assuming the ALCP doesn't make 5% or an electorate), then it has much less impact on the make up of Parliament.

Reading up on the system here , and checking the polls and marginal seats can help you maximise your voting power.

[Lias]

Not sure I trust anything out of TVNZ to be impartial, but went ahead and did it anyway.

Internet Party "declined to participate" and Internet-Mana isn't even listed, so clearly out of date.
Told me I should vote for NZ First, Labour, and Conservatives in that order, which seems.. unusual... given that the conservatives are a bunch of foaming extremist nutjobs.