So let’s talk about how Wayne Brown won a rigged Mayoral Election and can the SuperCity be fixed?
As the Boomer King astounds with his latest interview provoking a wave of shock from detractors and a ‘bash Jack hard for us’ Boomer cheerleaders, let’s remind ourselves how Mr Magoo got elected and why it’s really bad for Auckland.
You heard me right, I said rigged election.
I’d like to start by pointing out that I made the exact same criticisms about Goff’s win 3 years ago and argued that his paltry 35% turn out was no mandate and was symptomatic of a broken system!
Even if Efeso had won over the weekend with the exact same levels of turnout, I would be as equally damning of the system that produced that result, DESPITE my candidate winning.
This is NOT a left wing or right wing issue, it may be a generational issue, a bit more about that later, but to champion and defend democratic infrastructure that produces such damaged results as this does would make Republicans who adopt voter suppression tactics in America blush.
Because that is ultimately what we are discussing here.
A broken system of engagement that has been allowed to rot on the vine.
My issue is that the local elections are subcontracted out to a private company who have a vested interest in low voter turns outs!
We are such a cheap arsed, deregulated basket case of a country, we sub contracted our democratic obligations to a private company who maximise their return if fewer people engage and cost less resource!
In the last week of voting, only 8 polling booths were open for a city of 1.2million.
Here they are.
Again, that is Republican tactics in Georgia level voter suppression right there.
So if I wasn’t enrolled to vote, the only place I could have voted was one of these 8 venues.
Central Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Henderson, Manukau, Orewa, Pukekohe, Waiheke and fucking Warkworth.
How the Christ does that list sound reasonable to anyone else?
I can not see how anyone attempting to defend Wayne Brown’s victory will look at 8 booths for 1.2million and pretend that a 35% turn out is a victory for democracy.
It isn’t.
It’s a victory for the private company who has this outrageous contract in the first place.
They run postal ballots because it is far cheaper, not because it engages the population.
As for the counter to the landed gentry having multiple votes around the country (many of whom are boomers), I’m well aware that the landed gentry don’t have multiple votes if they have multiple properties in the same Council, my point is they have multiple votes around the country, if they have properties in different Councils.
The Right will claim they pay rates in different councils, so they have the right to vote multiple times, but renters pay their rent with the cost of rates already built into that rent by the Landlord!
If a renter moves multiple times into different councils, they’ve paid rent that goes towards those rates but they sure as hell don’t get extra votes despite paying those rates in their rents!
I note this to show how the vested interests of the propertied landed gentry (many of whom are boomers) and how their interests are sacrosanct.
To damn an 18 year old without ID who bounces around from house to house and who has to get out to only 1 of 8 booths to cast a vote is churlish.
To blame beneficiaries who are constantly moving in the churn for not getting out to 1 of 8 booths to cast a vote is disconnected from that reality.
To criticise the poor and the apathetic for not being engaged enough to get out to Central Auckland, Great Barrier Island, Henderson, Manukau, Orewa, Pukekohe, Waiheke and fucking Warkworth is just so jaw dropping in its audacity, it’s difficult to take seriously.
What are the solutions here?
I’ve been very clear.
Take the bloody contract off the private company and run it ourselves!
Run it with the same density of polling booths as a National election, a one day vote with 2 weeks of early voting.
There were 84 polling booths in 2020 for Auckland Central and Epsom electorates ALONE last election. That’s not city wide, that’s just the leafy burbs.
How can a handful of suburbs in the swanky part of town have 84 polling booths for the national election when there was only 8 for the entire city of 1.2million for the Mayoralty?
There is an outrageous imbalance of power here and attempting to defend a broken electoral system that has been subcontracted out for the cheapest outcome and call that vintage democratic wine is not acceptable.
Again, this isn’t a Left or Right issue, it’s a basic citizen issue.
Watching so many defend this broken system and claim it is democracy at work is the kind of sophistry we’ve come to expect from those benefiting from it.
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Definitely voter suppression.
And as many of us have pointed out like Martyn, transience, alienation, and the degraded postal system played their part. Some new gens may never have posted a letter in their lives, NZ Post seems more a delivery service for online shoppers these days.
Browny Magoo was elected by a carefully targeted audience with thousands of others shut out, as surely as one of those crazy USA zig zag border gerrymandered districts that skirt around every black and brown neighbourhood.
It’s not rigged when there is very little choice of quality candidates and those that run are very polarised, from woke to bloke.
If people are too lazy to work (Sarcasm) in NZ, maybe they are too lazy to vote, now.
Or maybe nobody wants to vote for any of them, so they don’t vote at all.
South Auckland was bought up by developers and the super rich and prices rose dramatically, this is a woke led intensification push that matches the right wing ideology.
Maybe the woke need to look at whether their policy works out for their desired demographics and traditional policy (ak green environmental), because it doesn’t seem to.
You didn’t say, but it would be interesting to know if the contract company is wholly NZ owned or are we outsourcing our democracy to another country?
Election Day should be a mid week public holiday which promotes and enables people to partake in their democratic rights. Postal ballots were originally sold as being more convenient for voters but there is no longer a post box on every street corner. Voting in person at an election booth is a “ritual” of democracy and having local people, election officers, vote counters and scrutineers whom you may know gives the election credibility. Voting machines would be a further step toward dystopia.
Anti Road Cone bridgrade are in charge now..a by product of the Phil gooff era
Simple really, who are you to have your say, manipulation of a inert voting structure that says, you rent what is your say allowed. I pay my exploit rent therefor your mortgage, so i am entitled to vote as you, a rate payer.
Mr Brown is only on level above have Mr Magoo for mayor.
But I don’t live there anymore, so I don’t give a shit.
thank you