atw: Re: OT: Grumbling About Elections... vote NONE OF THE ABOVE [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
- From: Peter.Martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:26:57 +1000
>The system is wrong. The system is corrupt. The system is not just
amoral, it is immoral. I will not be forced to conform to a flawed,
corrupt and immoral system.
> End of story.
Christine:
Unlike some who support compulsory voting as it is, I have to say I think
you have a point.
But saying a system that is flawed is "corrupt", "amoral" and "immoral" is
really a bit much. And suggesting then that I am "embedded" in
corruption demeans me without cause. You've just gone over the top
there.
Voting systems don't have morals. They may be flawed, badly designed,
unworkable. But corruption, amorality, and immorality are characteristics
of the people who misuse them, design them deliberately for the wrong
purpose, and enforce them that way etc.
[BTW you don't have to conform to the system in all aspects. For a
start, just get older -- then you don't have to vote. Voting is not
compulsory for those of us who are really mature. So would you say I
have grown out of immorality, corruption and amorality now ? ( Of
course not -- I'm still desperately trying to sin, although I'm avoiding
the amorality and corruption bits, thank you.)]
As for the system flaw: I happen to agree with you that a compulsory
voting system is wrong and wrong-headed and badly designed if it does not
have adequate safeguards, and our system is in that category, as far as
I'm concerned. And systems that do not have adequate safeguards can be
exploited by people who are incompetent and lazy or even immoral, amoral,
corrupt etc. Chances are in most cases, however, that incompetence
and indolence have more followers than corruption. That's almost a
corollary of Ockam's Razor.
To illustrate what I mean, let me jump to the Simple Solution:
It can all be mostly fixed if we allow a formal vote for "NONE OF THE
ABOVE" every time we have compulsory voting.
It is not good enough, as some seem to suggest, that you are forced to
cast an informal vote if you disagree with all choices, and that informal
vote is treated as though it has no defined meaning -- it is really
treated as a mistake. You are right to object to the lack of choice
that is implied in the easy option of an informal vote.
(BTW -- while it was until 1998 an offence to advocate a deliberate
informal vote, following the Langer case, the law was amended. It is not
an offence to cast a deliberate informal vote -- and nor should it be,
given secret ballot rights.).
The prospect of a formal tally for explicit and formal votes for NONE OF
THE ABOVE might go a lot further to redress some system balance than might
at first be evident, but think of it this way:
1. At present we have major parties with officials who are only too
willing to claim victory and justification of their
immorality/corruption/indolence/exploitation of prejudice because they can
point to relatively large percentages of formal votes.
2. If you consider that before we had compulsory voting (ie pre 1925
elections) a reasonable %age of the enrolled population who voted was
around 65 - 70%, we can assume that outright compulsion potentially
accounts for about 30% of the vote. [This is more or less in line with
many of the results in the majority of democratic voting systems -- non
compulsory ones.]
3. In more recent years, in some areas, I'd suggest that a non-compulsory
election would have been lucky to pick up a 50% vote.
4. Imagine the impact on all the major parties if a NONE OF THE ABOVE vote
was permitted and could rise as high as even 25-30%. For that matter, try
10%! Jobs for the Boys would be starting to look really sick.
Performance indicators might suddenly change. And if there's one thing
we need at present in all parties, it's a case of those boys looking
really as sick as they are, and their KPIs (excuse my language) changing.
At times, I have been tempted to actually start a party called "None of
the Above" and see what votes (and preferences) I could pick up.
I still think it might be worth a try.... but first you'd have to convince
a pretty conservative Electoral Commission to accept the party name. Now
THERE's an exercise.
Peter M
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