Posts by Hilary Stace
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I wish there could have been more reporting of the remits passed as there seems to be some good stuff among it all, from reports. My favourite is the decision to lower the voting age to 16, which means that those who are at intermediate school now could be voting by the time this comes in for the 2017 election. Which should hopefully also mean some more child and young people friendly policies.
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I’ve been wanting to post this for a while. It was taken by Garth Kennedy in NZ in the 1970s, and I think it is wonderful.
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PAS word-of-the-year time must be coming up soon. Cyber marae could be a late contender.
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Thank you, Russell, for remembering Finn. And for your work highlighting the injustice Arie Smith-Voorkamp suffered. In fact for the frequent focus on the autistic spectrum one way or another. So useful that I quoted PublicAddress in my thesis on autism policy. And of course for humans too which has tailed off in recent months waiting for new inspiration. The Aspie community is beginning to take charge of their own interests quite effectively these days, although we parents will continue to have ‘issues’.
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Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I would be happy to see US congresspeople at our polling booths. I would like to them show how easy it is to vote, even for those with autism etc, how party scrutineers watch all aspects of the process including the paper count after the poll has closed. And how it is all done in more or less good humour, with the best of intentions for participatory democracy.
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I think there are some NZ politicians observing eg Grant Roberston was there last week, and may still be there. Not sure what their role is and how close they get to the actual machines and lines of voters though.
It just seems amazing that there is no paper trail of voting at all to check back on.
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Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Tim Michie,
I think that being in NZ we assume a reasonably high level of electoral integrity and trust. The ticks and crosses debates (with ballots disallowed if the wrong mark was made) were sorted 20 years ago. it is relatively easy to enrol and vote. More money is probably spent on publicity about the electoral system and running the elections than party advertising. Booths running out of voting papers makes the radio news reports, and are often quickly remedied. The apparent Crosby-Textor/ big corporate influence on the right is openly talked about, and we have regular reviews of the voting system such as the latest one on MMP.
However, what is happening in the US is not about democracy, but about control. The UN should be monitoring the elections there just like they do emerging third world democracies.
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Snap, Russell. I have Facebook friends in the US reporting similar examples happening to friends and colleagues. And there is an article in stuff this morning about one of the Las Vegas casino billionaires throwing everything ($multimillions) at Romney in the last week.
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Worrying reports about barriers to voting in the swing states. Long queues for voting, laws that disenfranchise Democrat voters, as well as the Republican control of the voting machines.
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Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Richard Aston,
So why haven't we heard more about the voting machines and electronic system in the endless commentary about the election?
