Our electoral system at times seems hell bent on making it more difficult for the exact communities it has highlighted as most disconnected from ever voting.
While we are scrambling to explain to a consumer culture generation why democracy isn’t one giant scam aimed at empowering those who have vested interests, how about some focus on the manufactured constraints that disenfranchise from the outset?
The poor, the under educated, the young, migrant and Maori vote are the ones missing in the decision making process so if universal suffrage is to mean anything, the structural barriers built into the system must be removed to grant those excluded to gain voice.
Many living in poverty are weary of Government agencies and debt collectors and so don’t want to enrol and have their contact details traceable. Voters can choose to be on the unpublished roll but the process is difficult and should be streamlined with the tick of a box and publicised as an option.
If universal suffrage is to mean anything, it must be extended to everyone. A prisoner is still a citizen and as such have rights which should be unalienable regardless of incarceration, the right to vote should be one of them. National in its first term passed a petty nasty pointless raw meat policy to deny all prisoners, including those on remand or serving sentences of less than 3 years, from the right to vote.
Currently there are 1802 prisoners on remand and 6718 sentenced. With almost 50% of those sentenced in low to minimum we are talking roughly 5000 prisoners denied the right to vote for little more than right wing law and order rhetoric.
If we honestly believe that our electoral system should strive to provide the most democratic outcomes by encouraging even those disenfranchised by the system to engage in it, then the system has to make the effort to remove the structural blocks to that participation.
If the current trend in the polls continue for the left they might need proxy votes from all those of voting age who have died since the last election.
Meanwhile, huge corporate and finance adviser fraudsters are given a slap on the wrist with a wet-bu ticket and allowed to vote. Rubbish. Take away their right to vote as well or stop disenfranchisement entirely!
What will be the next step, denying beneficiaries the right to vote on the grounds that they don’t pay tax? Nothing would surprise me about this mercenary government.
Prisoners are citizens. Citizens have the right to vote. When Martyn Findlay gave them that right, it was one of the best things Labour ever did.
Totally agree Martyn. Privatising prisons, 3 strike law and No voting. Mass incarceration strategies. And also employing the locals to pass it off as ‘jobs’ for the locals, when in reality its about making communities economically dependant on the prison system, thereby causing division within the community about whether or not the prison should stay or go. Because people now work there. Running out of words for this government!
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/11/the-incalculablecostofmassincarceration.html
Totally agree. That vindictive little act of exclusion was even worse than I thought at the time. I never realised that it even excluded prisoners on remand – in other words, people who have not been convicted of any offence!
Also worth noting that by denying prisoners the right to vote, they also deny them the right to participate in any other aspect of the electoral process as well. Plenty of revolutionary election campaigns have been run from a prison cell – from Bobby Sands, the heroic Irish republican who was elected to the British parliament while on hunger strike in the Maze prison in 1981, to Eugene Debs, who ran for US president while in prison for opposing World War 1.
The petty meanness of the denial of voting rights to prisoners should not prevent us seeing that there are important political rights at stake here.
I could be cheeky and suggest that at least white collars crims imprisoned for the collapse of dozens of finance companies won’t be voting National or ACT this year…
Until common sense returned and I realised that the system mostly doesn’t imprison white collar crims who steal hundreds of millions from mum and dad investors. They get community service, home detention, or a day out at the beach.
Meanwhile, someone stealing food for his family gets jail time.
Heck, the justice system here doesn’t even charge spies for breaking patently straight forward laws because, um, well, they didn’t know they were doing a ‘bad thing’.
Moral of the story; if you’re going to do crime, make it big, or work for the government. That’s when you become a real Untouchable.
True that Frank. I am wondering how John Banks would find Waikeria. Still, I am wondering whether or not he will even get convicted! On a side note, its neat watching The Daily Blogs likes rise on facebook on the right hand side there 🙂
..”scrambling” would be the right word.
How can it not be a scam (and a global one at that) when facts demonstrate clearly that “vested interests” have indeed been empowered.
Stand back far enough and observe the general trends over the past 4 decades.
Are families better off today than they were in the 1970’s?
Are workers better off today than they were then?
Why have thousands & thousands of immigrants (“multiculturalism” – a deliberate strategy to destroy a nation’s unity)) been allowed to pour into NZ and take jobs , buy properties , receive free welfare etc? (just a few good questions to ask yourself)
I totally agree with what you say about “prisoners”, BUT I’m afraid nobody out there gives a toss. (They will just say “well they shouldn’t have committed crimes..”) That’s how the masses think these days, if they can find the time or have the inclination to think in any depth at all..
Btw immigrants don’t care about NZ, and most of them will likely vote National, as they won’t know any better.
Sorry but NZ is doomed, just like the other western nations, who are all in the same boat, with all the same problems. (I’ll leave you to work out the common denominator)
I recommend you take the time to watch this factual run down on history, 1878-2006 .Watch one hour per day ( 5 hrs long) . Then see if you still think the same way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuzkLbHb1Q8
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