@Matthrew Whitehead. What a load of rubbish, I just said it’s not about you, and I did address the issues in detail, and all you have done is now repeat what you said earlier which I have already responded to. How do you know it was an “honest screw up”? it’s not the only error, so it may be intentional for all you know. You just assume it to be otherwise, but you don’t know for sure. The electoral commission is not as non-partisan as you would like to think, its been corrupted by the Key National government, and I no longer have any faith in it, they even changed their rules for Peter Dunne.

Also, “National” doesn’t translate the instructions. The Electoral Commission does it as part of their job, and they’re generally a very non-partisan organisation. They can get things wrong, for sure, but we’ve never had any issue of outright favouritism from them before. They go out of their way to be fair and not to make political insinuations, which is why I am quite confident it wasn’t a result of the National Government leaning on them. They’re always careful that all of their examples and instructions use completely unleading language and symbols.

This is an honest screw-up, and probably just an error that got through both the translator and the quality-check.

You are the one who was attacking me rather than discussing the issue, so yes, I do have to talk about where my opinions come on this because you’ve stopped purely playing the ball rather than the man.

If we have hindi-speakers saying the instructions caused them to vote in a way they didn’t intend, THEN we have a big issue. If we don’t then we have a poor translation that shouldn’t be repeated. There is a big difference.

I am not assuming anything. I am saying nobody has come forward to say they voted in a way they didn’t intend, as we would expect to happen if the instructions were as confusing as you claim.

But it’s not about you is it? You are not an immigrant with possibly very little English skills are you? So you think having a dodgy process is acceptable in a voting referendum? But to say otherwise is making a mountain out of a molehill? John key, Bill English knew this was an extremely contentious and controversial subject, one would have thought they would gave taken extra care to avoid any issues that have been raised. You are just assuming that no one needs to read the instructions, then why did National have the instructions translated in various languages, albeit incorrectly then? you also assume that no one has come forward, the commission is not being honest are they? The fact that it has been raised means there are issues, and someone who has been influenced may not feel comfortable about coming forward either.

Oh, it’s important to get it right, I agree. The electoral commission should have quality controls in place for its translations so that it’s signed off by both a translator with the foreign language background and a translator with an English language background as a good translation.

That said this is a simple FPP poll between two options. Most voters don’t need instructions on how to vote in that kind of election, they already know to tick just one box. In fact this is the simplest vote I’ve been involved in in my life. I’d want VOTERS coming forward saying they were confused by the foreign language instructions before I feel that this is an issue with the actual election, as opposed to merely an issue with the translation of the instructions.

This isn’t something like the MMP threshold being set deliberately high so party votes don’t get counted that you can evidentially point to people’s votes not counting. (Which, btw, I post about after most elections because I *do* take issues with voter disenfranchisement seriously)

The reason I don’t really care so much here is because you’re honestly making a mountain out of a molehill. Nobody has come forward saying this influenced the way they voted. The minute even one person does, THEN the commission is in deep trouble.

Echoing Daniel’s view doesn’t wash, as it has nothing to do with whether someone is smart or not. Didn’t you read all of the posts on here? Hindi is not the only misleading translation. The Russian translation is also misleading, pointed out by E-Clectic on here and by Winston Peters in the media yesterday as well.

How many other languages have been incorrectly translated?

I wonder why people like you and Daniel are trying to minimize and be so dismissive of inaccuracies that are not acceptable or right in a voting process.

It’s not a minor translation gaff, the translation is not accurate, it is misleading and can be easily misconstrued as I have pointed out in previous posts. Trying to minimize it like you are doing, doesn’t make it right.

Why would you assume people wouldnt read the instruction in their own language?

If the current flag wins, it is not the “new” flag. That’s a stupid and desperate statement for you to make.

Like you said you don’t know and it may not have been just an innocent mistake, it could have been made deliberately to trick people whose first language is not English. On the other hand, you don’t have any evidence to show that it wasn’t a deliberate attempt to skew the referendum result either, do you?

Or perhaps the flag vote doesn’t split as cleanly between left and right as you’d been assuming, which means the audience of the blog is a bit more split than usual. 😉 Remember, flag change USED to be a policy championed by Labour and the Greens, but was only recently supported by National, and those with an extra-strong hate for the current flag for various reasons might be okay even with an imperfect replacement.

No judgement of course if your mileage varies. This isn’t exactly a life-or-death issue, and I imagine we’ll totally have another go at it if we don’t change but later decide to become a republic. If the vote does come back as “No,” hopefully by then we’re ready for a better option and we can all be a bit happier about it.

…how would one slightly confusing mistake in the instructions for one language invalidate the whole referendum? It’s arguably no longer perfectly neutral wording, but I think Hindi-speaking voters are smart enough to realise that someone probably just put in an extra word by mistake.

The electoral commission is always very fair on counting the vote. Nobody has ever had any problems with them on this fact, and given how contentious politics get (and other issues of electoral law) you’d be forgiven for thinking that someone must have complained about them one time or another. So I’m not sure how they’d cheat you there, so you should really stop this BS about how the government is going to steal the election. They only ever try to advertise their way to a win, they’ve never resorted to actual electoral fraud to anyone’s knowledge.

You may not have liked the two-phase process, (which I can understand, although I think that it would be even more unfair to reverse the questions and ask people to vote on whether to change before they had any idea what change could be to- because a lot of people will simply conclude it would be to their least preferred option) but it hasn’t done anything to sway voters, (if anything, it has generated significant backlash after the panel process was so badly screwed up) it’s just allowed this second phase to be a completely fair head-to-head vote.

If there’s anything wrong with the Hindi instructions, I honestly don’t see the additional of an extra “new” swaying anyone. Confusing them slightly, perhaps, although they’ll likely vote correctly regardless. If anything people tend to resist anything they feel is an outright attempt to manipulate them, so I expect this would help the 1902 flag if it has any effect. Were the language actually pushing anyone in a given direction it’d certainly be a huge blow to the referendum system in general.

You’re right it’s atrocious that anybody has even been talking about taking ballots out of other people’s mail. That’s two separate crimes if they actually did it, and really unacceptable. But one dumbass does not represent everyone who wants a new flag- just like the worst KOF arguments don’t represent everyone who likes the 1902 flag.