In the lead up to every election in New Zealand, we have the same discussions about ‘E Voting’. As a generalisation, more people from the left would like to see it introduced, than people from the right. It’s odd to me that there would be a political divide about something like this but there you go.
The argument for this divide seems to settle down to two main concerns. The left, and Labour and the Greens in particular, are seen to be the favoured parties of the indolent, the bludger and the crim, and those three social subsets, (although an argument can be made that they are often one and the same) are less likely to get out of bed on a miserable September morn in order to carry out their civic duty.
So electronic voting may be a good way to bring votes in from those less inclined to be up and about, looking forward to their tri-yearly outing to their local school or church.
The other main concern that I see with E voting is the ease of scamming the system. There will need to be a lot of checks and balances in place to ensure that pertinent details are not hacked by unscrupulous vote riggers who could, theoretically at least, place as many votes as they can hack.
But it’s not as if it’s hard to vote more than once now. In New Zealand we do not have to provide identification at the poling booth so the poor folk giving you your voting paper have absolutely no idea if you are pulling a fast one. Basically all you have to do is ‘accidentally’ enrol twice like old mate ‘Two Martins’ Bradbury did a little while ago and theoretically, there would be an easy double vote.
People will no doubt say that this is all solved by the Easy Vote Cards that you should all receive. But of course, Mr Bradbury would have received two of those so unless someone was stupid enough to go to the same polling booth, the chance of being caught double-dipping would be minuscule.
And then there is the problem of all the unclaimed Easy Vote Cards floating around. I was astonished how many of those things I got my hands on last time. There was my elderly, now dearly departed, Mother-in-law’s one, my not very interested in politics son’s one, and I kid you not, five other ones from people who used to live at my rental property!
Had I been an unscrupulous sort of a rooster, I could have easily dropped all those extra votes on to my favourite party, but as McGillicudy Serious didn’t have a local candidate I was forced to simply chuck them in the recycling bin so someone at the transfer station could have a crack with them instead.
So why do we not require ID from our voters? Surely if you are of voting age you will have something suitable, a drivers licence, a passport, one of those cards that show the bouncer at the local nightclub that you are over 18, or even a firearms licence, (just kidding, no one will have those soon).
In the U.S.A, 35 of their 50 states have requirements to show ID at the polling station. But of course, you know the Democrats are grizzling because Transgender people may get turned away from the polling booth because they don’t have ID that accurately reflects their new made-up gender. I guess that’s fair enough, there may be a few ladyboys over in Thailand that might do a pretty good impression of the fairer sex but over in the good ole U.S of A, your average Jessica Yaniv, Hannah Mouncey or Laurel Hubbard type cock in a frock is just going to confuse the crap out of them.
But the argument isn’t simply that they look like a bloke but have a girlies name, it’s that they don’t have ID in the right name, or with the right photo on it, and according to a new report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, a public policy research institute, we’re talking about a possible 260,000 voters there who could be affected.
“Keeping trans people from voting could favour the Republican party that is more conservative than its Democratic rival”, said Richard Hasen, an election law expert and law professor at the University of California, Irvine.
“If you look at the demographics of people least likely to have an ID, they tend to be more poor or a racial or ethnic minority,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “These all correlate with someone who is more likely to vote for a Democrat.”
IJR.com
Oh cool, at least it now seems official that Labour and Green voters are more likely to be poverty-stricken, minority gender-benders with blue hair, and an ‘I’m a victim’ badge.
At least that’s my take on it, sorry if I may have got that a bit wrong. I shall read a book and re-educate myself forthwith just in case Golriz wants to twit about me.
In the meantime, let’s bring in a compulsory ID for voters. If it means Martin Martyn might find it harder to vote twice then job done, and if his husky-voiced ‘female’ friends are forced to go and get a new driver’s licence, then so be it.
At least it will give them a good excuse to get their hair done.
If you enjoyed this BFD article please consider sharing it with your friends