I probly agree. I'm anti-mandatory voting. On the very very few occasions where I'm moved to vote for a real-life candidate as opposed to a more deserving fictional character (such as the Mighty Thor, or Howard the Duck) I never follow suggested preferences, I nut those out for myself. To me the two party-preferred system means the people who think they're voting, for example, Greens in the lower house, really aren't in the vast majority of cases. In any seat where the Green candidate has no real chance of winning, a formal vote is effectively a vote for whichever Labor or Liberal/National Party candidate is listed as the higher preference on the vote slip. (With very few exceptions when an independent candidate is one of the two main players in the seat in question, when the Greens voters pref goes to them over the other most vote-winning candidate.) People who vote Greens in the lower house are basically kidding themselves under the current (two party-preferred) system as far as I'm concerned. And maybe there should be some consideration of a first-past-the-post system, without voters having to provide preferences.
Greg - 12 years ago
I voted for "Try to get past the weirdos near the gate without taking their how-to-vote cards". Our "democracy" already tells us we HAVE to vote and if the person we want to vote for doesn't get enough votes we HAVE to vote for someone else (they call it a "preference", when it comes to voting I want the person I WANT not PREFER). These cards now want to tell us that if the we want the person we want we have to prefer the people they prefer. Doesn't the concept of "how-to-vote" go against what democracy is all about? Think, vote and prefer for yourselves god-damn-it!
I probly agree. I'm anti-mandatory voting. On the very very few occasions where I'm moved to vote for a real-life candidate as opposed to a more deserving fictional character (such as the Mighty Thor, or Howard the Duck) I never follow suggested preferences, I nut those out for myself. To me the two party-preferred system means the people who think they're voting, for example, Greens in the lower house, really aren't in the vast majority of cases. In any seat where the Green candidate has no real chance of winning, a formal vote is effectively a vote for whichever Labor or Liberal/National Party candidate is listed as the higher preference on the vote slip. (With very few exceptions when an independent candidate is one of the two main players in the seat in question, when the Greens voters pref goes to them over the other most vote-winning candidate.) People who vote Greens in the lower house are basically kidding themselves under the current (two party-preferred) system as far as I'm concerned. And maybe there should be some consideration of a first-past-the-post system, without voters having to provide preferences.
I voted for "Try to get past the weirdos near the gate without taking their how-to-vote cards". Our "democracy" already tells us we HAVE to vote and if the person we want to vote for doesn't get enough votes we HAVE to vote for someone else (they call it a "preference", when it comes to voting I want the person I WANT not PREFER). These cards now want to tell us that if the we want the person we want we have to prefer the people they prefer. Doesn't the concept of "how-to-vote" go against what democracy is all about? Think, vote and prefer for yourselves god-damn-it!