Oh Dear – Face-Palm Material

Written by Ben Ross - Talking Auckland

Voter Turn Out Worrying Low!

 

Politics and you

 

It is already worrying parts of the Unitary Plan got bottled in parts of Auckland. This means Auckland wont be advancing to the 21st Century any time soon.

What is more concerning is this:

From the NZ Herald

Super City Elections 2013: Aucklanders urged to vote

By Vaimoana Tapaleao 5:30 AM Tuesday Oct 1, 2013

Slow start a worrying sign as survey shows many Kiwis feel they don’t know candidates

Aucklanders are being urged to have their say in local body elections as voting gets off to a slow start.

Ballot paper deliveries began on September 20 and by yesterday a total of 76,112 votes from around the city had been received, figures from Auckland Council showed.

That is the equivalent of only 7.65 per cent of people eligible to vote.

In the 2010 elections, 13.1 per cent of votes had been received over the same period.

The figures come as Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) releases results from a survey which indicates why many Kiwis do not vote in local body elections.

The majority of people, 31 per cent, said they did not participate because they did not know enough about candidates.

Other top reasons were because they forgot or left it too late, were too busy or were not interested in participating.

Figures since 1998 show a decreasing trend. In that election, 55 per cent of those eligible voted.

In the next election, only half of the eligible voters did so and by 2007 the figure had dropped to 44 per cent.

Auckland’s new Super City and particularly the mayoral race saw a surge of voting in 2010, taking the national average up to 49 per cent. However, going by this year’s trends, it was expected only 46 per cent of Kiwis would be sending their forms back, LGNZ president Lawrence Yule said.

“If you took Auckland out at the last election, [the statistics] would continue to be dropping, which is not good. I think, unfortunately, what postal voting has done over time has sort of trivialised the voting decision. It comes in the mail with a whole lot of other mail.”

…

You can read the rest over at the Herald site

Having the voter turnout drop below 50% in Auckland does not give the Council nor Mayor much of a “mandate” through the 2013-2016 term. With more issues such as the Area Plans to be drawn up in this period we need a strong council with an equally strong mandate from the voters behind them

Further more this would be the worse time for Auckland’s voter turnout to drop under 50% – given that candidate selection in some areas is pretty dismal. Especially after you see an example like this “Auckland’s Unitary Plan ‘delivering world’s least liveable city‘” (this would affect the Area Plans)

It would take an entire post to go and debunk what was in that statement because a whole lot of it was blatant misrepresentation of reality here and in the future.

 

So: Everyone needs to vote and you effectively have two choices in deciding:

  1. Try and get Auckland from the 1950’s to 1970’s and send all the incumbents back in that are re-standing (much as that is going to be painful in some areas) or voting for those who would be more liberal with Unitary Plan provisions
  2. Lurch to the conservative side and the city slides backwards especially in the housing and wider urban development area (more sprawl, more height restrictions, more people being unable to exercise their freedom and choice in house buying (in saying that there comes responsibility too))

 

At the end of the day you vote which way you want to – your right – but please exercise that right and vote.

 

At the end of the day

No Vote – Do Not Complain

[There should be a No Vote box for those who do not like any of the candidates and want to make their voices known]

And yes my voting papers were posted back in

Related articles