voting wind-down

[hnpcc]

What if?

Voting this weekend. Fun, fun, fun.

Howar d continues to take us back to the 50s. It's good to see there's a plan. Maybe they could fund more R&D and then we really could go backwards through time...

I have a Green, a (work experience) Lib, a Lab, a Dem, an SA, a FF and a CEC standing. Man is working out preferences for that lot going to be fun and worthwhile.

Dean - who is enrolled in a marginal seat - has no Green, but otherwise the same plus three independents. My parents - also marginal - have a veritable smorgasbord of 10 candidates, covering basically everyone except the natural law mob. They even have a one notion candidate, which is less usual in Victoria.

How do Americans cope with what basically amounts to a years worth of campaigning? I'm screaming at the TV after 5 weeks, any more than 6 and I think half the country would be rioting.

Incidentally my least favourite political ad this time is the Lib one about Latham having allegedly mismanaged the council budget when he was mayor of somewhere. What really bugs me is the statement:

"And he left a yooge hole for the incoming council".

Guys. It's Huge. Not Yooge. There's a H.

If you can't even talk properly do you really expect me to vote for you?

(Yeah I'm tuning the politics out. I'm a swinging[1] voter in a non-marginal seat. Trust me, my vote doesn't count. *sigh*)

Damn Albert Langer. If ever I needed a "Put the Bastards Last" vote it would be this year.

[1]but only slightly. I know who I'm NOT putting first anyway.

Comments

[frieda.livejournal.com]

Guys. It's Huge. Not Yooge. There's a H.

Ah, and there's something that bugs me. There's an H. There's no 'h' at the start of 'aitch'. People that say 'haitch' suxx0rrzx!!11

[numbat.livejournal.com]

Ah, some of us have cunningly voted already because we find the whole polling day thing vastly irritating. In my case it's no trouble to vote beforehand and well worth it to avoid standing in line and being harrassed by people with leaflets.

Since you're in a safe seat I suggest you put most of your rage into your senate ballot. You can still have an effect there (well perhaps).

[dalmeny]

My brain's gone. What's SA and CEC?

[valamelmeo.livejournal.com]

Well, for one thing we've got fewer parties with enough money to sponsor major advertising... And for another, here in Texas there are a lot of restrictions on political ads. For instance, a lot of the ads that have had the rest of the country in an uproar over various issues have never even been shown here. We hear about them on national talk shows and such, but I haven't the faintest idea what they're referring to when they talk about certain ads, half because most of them aren't airing here, and half because I don't watch much television anyway.

I think there might also be something about the way most TV stations are run that makes it more difficult to be bombarded by the ads of local and regional politicians, but that could just be another artifact of living in Texas where ads are heavily restricted.

I believe the restrictions are relatively new, though -- something passed while I was living in Arizona from 1999-2002, because I seem to remember lots more political ads when I was younger. This may have been a result of the 2000 election year. I don't really know, though, because I wasn't here... But it's obvious that enough people here got fed up with the ads that they passed state legislation about it.

[shnetti.livejournal.com]

Oh, you beat me to it. :-)

[hnpcc]

Oh bugger off. Normally I'd put the 'an' but I was ranting and therefore not spellchecking. ;-)

Alternately, I was following The Age's lead and mangling the language for fun and profit.

[hnpcc]

SA - Socialist Alliance.

CEC - Citizen's Electoral Council.

Y'know, the one candidate who I really wish was running in my seat is the guy who stood for council a couple of years ago and began his speech:

"Citizens! I am a one issue candidate! I intend to fight the tolls on the Tullamarine Freeway! If you have other issues I suggest you turn up to council meetings!"

Surprisingly enough, he didn't get in. But he did get 6 votes... :-) And that speech has kept me giggling for about 3 years now.

[hnpcc]

You see I actually don't mind the voting act itself. I quite like turning up to the local primary school, buying a cake from the parents cake stall, standing in line with the other people and chatting a bit, ignoring the handouts, watching the kids playing on the equipment and eventually doing the actual vote. We don't get harrassed once inside the school gates, so it's only getting past the inital line and then it's quite relaxing.

It's the pander to the lowest common denominator advertising that pisses me off, and unfortunately voting early won't stop that.

Unless I leave the country, which I seriously considered. *grin*

The senate ballot will at least be interesting. At some point I should work out which order everyone's going in. Bloody Democrats imploding on me again. *sigh*

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I was just explaining why I had voted early you see, rather than suggesting anybody else do it. Take care with voting in the senate as it's more complicated than you might think. To quote Charles Richardson from Crikey:

'The Victorian Senate race is broadly similar to New South Wales. Labor and the Coalition each have a chance at 3 seats (in 2001 they both got there), and the Greens and now Family First are their main challengers for the last two places.

There are three key differences from NSW: the total left vote in Victoria has been a good deal higher in recent years; there's no Fred Nile in Victoria pulling in a strong fundamentalist Christian vote; and because the ALP's third candidate, Jacinta Collins, is herself on the hard right, she is getting preferences from the religious groups, including both the Catholic DLP and the Protestant Family First.

However, Family First have the same advantage as in NSW, that they will get preferences from a raft of small parties: the DLP, One Nation, Liberals For Forests, Meg Lees's group, and the Christian Democrats. Even if their primary vote is only 2 or 3 per cent, they are very likely to be in the last four, along with the Greens, the third Coalition candidate, Judith Troeth, and the ALP's Jacinta Collins.

None of these will have a quota on their own, so the result will depend on who gets eliminated. If Troeth goes out, her votes will elect Family First's Steve Fielding, and the Greens and ALP will fight out the last vacancy (with the Greens as favorite). Vice versa if Collins goes out: Family First again gets up, and the Greens have to beat the Liberals for the last place.

(So much for the great ALP-Greens preference deal: it only took Labor a day to rat and give key preferences to the religious fundamentalists instead of their supposed allies.)

If Family First comes fourth, their preferences will scatter (because they come from many different primary sources), but the most likely result would be election of both Labor and Greens, with Senator Troeth missing out. And if the Greens were to be eliminated, their votes would flow to Labor, and Labor's surplus would then elect either Troeth or Family First.

All those scenarios are possible, but they point to the most probable winners being 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 National Party, 1 Green, and 1 Family First (Assemblies of God).'

[hnpcc]

I re-read this this morning and remembered what it was that I was thinking when I wrote it.

Basically I was going "huuh" sound instead of saying the letter by name.

And "huuh" does not have an an in front of it.

And there is a "huuh" and it's really bugging me that more and more people seem to be following Donald Trump and pronouncing it "Why".

Bah, humbug. :_)