The Daily Blog Open Mic – Tuesday 27th September 2016

1. The Wellington Rugby Union takes strong against violence. Yeah Right

   • They are training to enter the next election as national replacements for other NatZ who are retiring as it it appears there is a cosy relationship between rugby and NatZ now.

2. Some changes to our electoral system that have been introduced in a bill to parliament but seemed to have escaped any public notice.
   The changes include provisions to start counting advanced votes earlier than the close of the polls and the LOCATION of the counting.
   This is not just a technical ammendment, this is actually quite important.
   The timing and location of the count is fundamental to our system. The fact that ballot boxes are all opened around the same time and the counting is done either in polling booths or in the electoral HQs is important. If you get sealed ballot boxes being opened at different times and in different places then this increases the likelihood of vote tampering and fraud.
   Also electronic look-up and mark-off of voters’ names.
   Ostensibly the bill is just a mechanism to allow electronic checking to be considered, as the system is probably years away from reality.
   Also electronic is here now, as you can see on the local body election voting papers.
   My concern is that the government is sneaking quietly towards an electronic voting system and closed-door counting system without the necessary debates over the necessary safeguards that such a system requires to keep it free and fair.

   • Absolutely correct Marcus, as we see the Government need every tool they can amass to falsify the voting papers as the research we already have completed a audit under the OIA earlier this year around May and we have had the Electoral Commission advising us that (quote); “there is no way to validate if any voting paper has been tampered with, under the current 1993 Electoral Act.”

     Here is our full answer from the Electoral Commission to us after we asked the question; how we can verify if our voting paper has been altered after we selected it with “our preference vote”

     OUR QUESTION 3/ If a ballot paper was altered how can you confirm if it was or not?

     ELECTORAL COMMISSION ANSWER; “Because it is a secret ballot it is not possible for either the Commission or the voter to prove one way or the other. The Act does not provide a process by which a voter can request to see their voting paper after it has been placed in a ballot box. That is why the Act contains a range of processes to ensure security of the ballot box and that scrutinisers can be present throughout voting and the preliminary and official count process to watch ballot boxes, the count and the recording and reporting of votes.”

     THEN IN ANOTHER QUESTION WE ASKED HOW WE CAN CHANGE THE ACT.
     Question 7/ – Will you support Voter Verification paper audit trail rights for transparency and security of our NZ Parliamentary Elections?

     ANSWER FROM ELECTORAL COMMISSION; “As outlined above, the Electoral Act does not provide a process by which a voter can request to see their voting paper after it has been placed in a ballot box. If you want to see this type of process, legislative change would be required. In the first instance, you would need to raise your concerns with the Minister responsible for the Electoral Act 1993 – Hon Amy Adams, Minister of Justice (amy.adams@parliament.govt.nz). Public and political consensus would need to focus on whether there is a need for this given the high levels of trust and confidence that New Zealand voters have in the manual system, and how it could effectively be delivered whilst protecting the secrecy of the ballot. I am not aware that any such system has been introduced in any other comparable countries that have manual voting and counting systems including UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.”

     SO WE ARE SEEING GOVERNMENT CHANGING THE RULES THEMSELVES WITHOUT BOPEN TRANSPERANT RULES UNDER THE
     ELECTORAL ACT. 1993.

     IT SMELLS BAD FOLKS ANOTHER PHONEY RIGGED ELECTION?

     Under 3rd May 2016 response below you said;

     ‘under section 187 of the Electoral Act 1993 but to protect the secrecy of the ballot, no person can see how the voter has voted.’

   • MARCUS YOU HAVE GIVEN US SOME VITAL DETAILS ON THESE CHANGES CAN YOU PLEASE GUIDE US TO THE BILL BEFORE THE HOUSE PLEASE AS WE NEED TO REQUEST ELECTORAL COMMISSION ADVISE AND PLANS FOR WHY THIS BILL HAS BEEN INTRODUCED.

   • Marcus,

     I found the Bill on http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2016/0176/latest/versions.aspx?search=ts_act%40bill%40regulation%40deemedreg_electoral_resel_25_a&p=1

     This bill seems to have 107 amendment’s to the Electoral Act 1993!!!!
     That is definitely not “some minor changes” as the minister Amy Adams’s claimed they are.
     107 changes is a major change not minor!

     Opposition MP’s need to stop this bloody rout of any changes until we can have free access to have our paper voting paper recorded so we can go into the records and check if our voting is not tampered with.

     Opposition MPs must now enter their own changes to allow “Verified” voting changes now to force Government to conduct honest fair elections not rigged elections as appears now to be planned.

     Since we the voter at present cannot go into the Electoral Commission base to check what voting preference we have recorded is a correct representation of our former preference vote we placed on election day.

     THIS MUST CHANGE AS WE ASKED OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISION AND THEY REFUSED THIS IN MAY 2016.

     http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2016/0176/latest/versions.aspx?search=ts_act%40bill%40regulation%40deemedreg_electoral_resel_25_a&p=1

     • You are on to it CG.
       As Mike the Lefty has remarked on other topics – very little happens by chance with National.
       National has introduced this bill now hoping it will escape strict scrutiny by being outpublicised by Key’s grandstanding in the UN, All Black rugby rollovers, US presidential insult trading and of course compensation for prisoners.
       They hope no-one will notice how they are setting us up for elections to be tampered with.
       The Electoral Commission might think they are completely neutral but they are naively unaware how their power has been diminished over the last few years.

       • Marcus we sent a submission to all opposition MPs dealing with Justice to reject the 107 changes/amendment’s to the Electoral Act 1993 and to request we also move to “Verified voting paper audit trail ” (VVPAT) as Canada and the Philippine’s have recently completed and others are being that process also including the US and UK.

         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter-verified_paper_audit_trail

3. Sorry, as with 9/11 – something was ‘not quite right’ with our last NZ elections too. The rats were everywhere to smell.

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