Election 2004 - the sad truth

:lol: *Hands phloggy five dollars*

Now run, run for your life phloggy, ill hold them off as long as I can!
 
The system is annoying. Ceydn's right...I wish there was a way you could vote separately for your local MP and the PM so you don't end up with a wankleberry running the country even though the best representative for your local area might be in the same party. I had to put Libs second for the House of Reps because all the other options were dodgy parties like Family First*.

But then like Phloggy I'm thinking how the hell would that work...you could end up with one party having a majority in the House of Reps yet the government was headed by the other party.

Actually come to think of it that's how it is with the Brisbane City Council at the moment. Labour majority of councillers, yet the mayor is a Liberal. Hmm....


Footnote:
*Funny story about the Family First party, who among other things would like to ban homosexuality. In Brisbane they gave their preferences to the Liberals except for the seat of Brisbane where the Liberal candidate was a lesbian.
 
I cant think of a more inappropriate name for those hatemongering nutwhackers than Family First.
 
It should be like council elections where you (I think) can vote for your local council dude as well as your mayor. That's how Brisbane got a Liberal mayor but has a majority of Labor councillers. :)

No, wait, Kem just mentioned that. Bah. Note to self: read all posts before responding.

Methinks I just won't bother submitting this reply.
 
phlogiston said:
That's actually a really good idea Ceydn. This time around I actually thought the Libs offered my *area* more, but I thought the ALP offered the country more. But now I think about it, I'm not sure if that would work. It's worth the thought exercise though.
Click to expand...
Actually it's not. Voting for the senate was quite easy, all people had to do was put a one or a tick in one box above the line. (as you said) But there were thousands of people who put in a few ones or numbered all the boxes, or just obviously had no clue what they were doing.

Numbering One to (whatever) in the Reps card was quite easily and most people get that right. It's not hard, but then again there are alot of old people in my area but not that much. There were a truckload of people completely unsure what to do even though it was damn easy and there were thousands of commercials telling you how to vote.

I worked as a polling official on Saturday so I got to see a fair slew of votes and basically: people are idiots. How can you not know how to vote. Plus the fact so many people came through and only voted because they had to is a disgrace, no wonder John got through again.

Perhaps voting shouldnt be compulsory so all the media influenced idiots who know nothing on politics won't have an ill-informed say on who runs the country.

Also SA/NT both swung towards labor, WA/Vic/Tas all swung towards Lib (about 3% each) and NSW/QLD swung to lib by about 0.5%.

I don't mind the Two Party Pref system, seeing I can still put my first vote for the greens and then make sure I'm still partly voting for Labor.

Also people who don't use the current system in place to help change government can't really complain about John winning his fourth term. To place an illegial vote isn't any better than voting for Howard. It won't help so you cant complain about the government one iota if you're not helping swing government.

Basically the only things which matter are who is #1, and which is higher out of the two bigger parties. The rest of the numbers can go to hell and can be filled in any order you wish.

And there were quite a few ballot papers with Libs and Labor as the last two numbers which is quite disconcerting. Still I found most of the prefs went to Labor no matter which original party the person had voted for. (at least at my place).

As for How To Vote cards, in the Kew/hawthorn area (Vic), the greens cards actually showed how to vote for both parties as #2 and greens at one and didn't make the choice for you which is quite interesting and doesn't force the person to vote along party lines.

The worst thing I saw on Saturday was a mum and a teenage girl coming upto vote and as I crossed their names off the role the girl said "Mum I don't know how to vote, what do I do?" To which the Mum replied "Just fill out the form like the card tells you to". Unfortunately she was holding a Libs card which almost made me say something abusive towards the girl being a complete moron and not giving a shit about government.

Also a few rules about when voting so the election officials don't get pissed off for next time:

1. When you're asked "Have you voted anywhere else today?"
Don't reply "Why would I want to vote more than once"

Everyone says that, after about 8:30am, it's quite annoying.

2. Don't make a joke about the senate paper looking like toilet paper or it getting bigger each year. Because obviously it doesn't. Still the amount of people who fail to remember the last election here was a state one without a big piece of paper and this one was Federal is a fucking huge amount.

3. Don't make refference that you're only voting cos you have to. Cos you're an idiot. This is your one time you get to help decide the future of the country and you don't give a fuck. If you don't care about the future you're an idiot and a selfish bastard.

Election day is alright but still there are alot of silly people doing stupid things. I just wish people would take more of an interest and become better informed. I can only hope for next time that we don't get a racist, money-grabbing xenophobe as PM.

Well that was long but then again I did do a fair bit on Saturday.

Also Kem I agree with the Women's sanitary products, my gf was talking about it today and I didn't know they were GST'ed but to me it seems completely idiotic they were since they're essential to over 35% of the population. The govt didn't take the other essentials, or so we were told.
 
I love how the "Can Do" man become the Mayor...and then everything he tried to do in council, the Labor ruled council was just like...Umm...no.

Remember when he went on the news and was all pissy about it going on like "I'm in charge here!" That was hillarious.
 
The thing I don't like is... theoretically, Labour can have the most votes overall, and therefore be the party that more people want running the country... but still not become government.

It didn't happen, but I'm saying it could.
 
ceydn said:
The thing I don't like is... theoretically, Labour can have the most votes overall, and therefore be the party that more people want running the country... but still not become government.
Click to expand...
That couldn't work, as large portions of Australia would be ignored. In effect, Sydney and Melbourne would control the country.
 
ceydn said:
The thing I don't like is... theoretically, Labour can have the most votes overall, and therefore be the party that more people want running the country... but still not become government.

It didn't happen, but I'm saying it could.
Click to expand...
Actually, I think it did happen last time. Not buy lots, mind you, but I'm sure that Labor got something like 51-53% of the votes, but the Coalition won the most seats. I think it was because there was a swing to Labor, but the swing was biggest in the seats that were already Labor and there wasn't a big enough swing against the coalition in their seats to make them lose them.
 
Yeah, if that was the year Howard campaigned with the GST then yep, Labor did win more votes.
 
The amount of seats is determined by who you vote for Locally....if you vote for a Liberal in your local but want Labour to be pm the liberal gets the seat and counts as another one for the liberals.So effectivly your voting Liberal.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Spiff
Countdown to the Election
Replies
389
Views
10K
Maiden Downunder
Winmar
W
Winmar
Excuses for not voting in an election
Replies
18
Views
345
Maiden Downunder
Winmar
W
Badbird
  • Poll
2011 Canadian Election
Replies
45
Views
2K
GMD Social Forum
Badbird
B
T
The Redskins lost. John Kerry will now win the election!!
Replies
61
Views
2K
Anthrax
Riehlthing
R
MetalAges
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE's MORELLO, DE LA ROCHA To Appear At CIW TRUTH Event In Chica
Replies
0
Views
209
Metal News 2
MetalAges
M
Top Bottom
Back