Posts by Emma Hart
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Oh that’s easy. You just speak to them, with them and about them with the respect due to a human being and everyone will hear the capital if it is important to them.
I want to do quite unspeakable things to this comment in pure gratitude for its existence.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Any time, darling.
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Legal Beagle: Referendum '11: counting…, in reply to BenWilson,
it makes casual prying near impossible
You have to have the ballot paper. What kind of "casual prying" involves stealing ballot papers?
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Deaf refers to someone who is "culturally Deaf". Someone who is Deaf, regardless of their level of hearing impairment, is probably a user of NZS as their first language and identifies strongly as Deaf.
Someone with the same level of phyiscal impairment may also be "deaf": they have a significant hearing impairment, but don't culturally identify as Deaf, and probably use spoken English as their first language.
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Legal Beagle: Referendum '11: counting…, in reply to BenWilson,
If it is not possible to work out who I voted for
That it's not possible to work out who you voted for is one of the basic corner-stones of our electoral system. And in New Zealand, thankfully, we weight this more highly than preventing possible voter fraud.
The scrutineers (whose job should be not to check up on voters, but to examine the behaviour of Issuing Officers) get the page and line number. That's also written on the stub of the ballot paper. On the stub of the ballot paper is the serial number of the ballot paper. This is also on the ballot paper, but covered by a black sticker.
So I guess, and Rachel probably knows more than I do, if someone has a concern, the ballot papers for that voter could be tracked down by removing all the black stickers from every paper and looking for the corresponding number.
Thing is, and I mean to touch on this in the column I'm writing at the moment, it would be very, very easy to carry out small to medium scale voter fraud in New Zealand. Our biggest protection is quite simply our national mentality, to which such an action would run completely counter.
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Legal Beagle: Referendum '11: counting…, in reply to BenWilson,
The ballots get numbered, so there’s a tiny printing cost, and the scrutineers write the number down for each person that gets a ballot
Just to nit-pick, they bloody do not. They're allowed to write down the page and line number of the voter on the electoral roll. They're certainly not entitled to know the number of your ballot paper.
Did anyone cast a referendum vote without at the same time casting an election vote where the usual protections applied?
I can't think how that could have possibly happened.
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Hard News: When A City Falls, in reply to Russell Brown,
You may find the actual noise of the earthquakes disturbing.
Just as well I've already had a run at that then, because yes, that noise provokes a really visceral reaction.
But you’ll be okay, I think. You’ll cry, but you’ll be okay.
Yeah, we've met, haven't we? That is, indeed, My Thing. On the weekend we're doing the walk into the Square and the Red Zone bus tour. Which might seem a bit mad all at once, but we had to wait until after our son had finished exams, and the election was over. And I'll get through it because I have something to look forward to. Yes, I am going to Wellington again next month...
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Hard News: When A City Falls, in reply to Hannah,
We didn’t go to see this movie because it seemed like it falls into the “Once were Warriors” category – something you _should_ see, but don’t expect to enjoy. It didn’t seem to fit with our tone of it being a special date type evening.
Ah... My partner and I are considering going to see it on our anniversary on Thursday. Which would be kind of appropriate, because our first 'leaving the house' date? Was a screening of Once Were Warriors.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Hebe,
Craig didn’t know the seat any more than I know Auckland Central, so he didn’t pick it.
I don’t expect Craig to know the seat. I would have expected the media to realise Chch Central was going to be really interesting this time around. When I got home about half ten on election night, my Twitter feed was full of people talking about the tightness of the Central count. Neither One nor 3 mentioned it for another hour or so – until significantly after the drawn final count was in.
I guess I’m just disappointed that nobody* picked it out during the campaign as an electorate with an interesting story that was going to be significant, and in which it was going to be important that people voted.
*so far as I’m aware.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
but I find it odd that nobody was talking about Christchurch Central as a marginal when between 2002 and 2008 Wagner reduced Labour's majority from almost ten and a half thousand to 935.
Burns's 2008 majority was 935 votes, down from Tim Barnett's 2005 figure of 7,836.
Yes, it is odd. But. It's also slightly disingenuous to compare figures in Chch Central without noting the boundary redraw. Which co-incided with the stepping down of a long-term MP with a great deal of personal support. So no, I'm not buying "Wagner reduced".
(I should note I'm actually in Port Hills, not Central, but very much on the margin. Our booth took as many Central votes as it did PH.)