New Zealanders were out in force voting over the weekend.
A total of 1.15 million people had cast their votes for the general election as at the end of Sunday.
At the equivalent time before the 2017 election, 444,032 had voted. That’s less than the 453,426 who voted over the weekend.
Advanced voting opened on October 3. The election is on October 17.
Here are some graphs from the Electoral Commission:
I voted for Act Party and National person.
Yes for Euthanasia. No for Cannabis.
My folks voted for Labour.
However, we all know that no party will make a dent on NZ's development path, which is the one of the least resistance or in this case the least amount of efforts.
What about Euthanasia and cannabis? I see your update. Just a question if you don't mind, do you support prohibition of alcohol?
I was greens, yes, yes.
Alcohol was not a referendum issue that I can vote for during this election.
I personally do not see a prohibition of alcohol will do any good to any society.
Thanks, always wondered why people think alcohol prohibition doesn't work but cannabis does.
Making cannabis easily accessible will increase its population of consumption and lower its consumers' age.
Consuming cannabis on a regular basis such as alcohol and tobacco will have far more sever and irreversible mental and physical damage.
Just ask one question: would NZ Army put anyone who is a regular cannabis user on any mission?
All those arguments are made against alcohol which is far more detrimental to society (see https://www.actionpoint.org.nz/deaths-from-alcohol or https://www.alcohol.org.nz/research-resources/nz-statistics).
Smoking kills over 5,000 kiwis a year (see https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/healthy-living/addictions/smokin….) where as very few if any can be attributed to cannabis.
As to your hypothetical. NZ army definitely shouldn't send someone on a mission who is impaired by any drug, whether cannabis, alcohol or prescription. Similarly no one should be driving or operating dangerous machinery if they are drug impaired. Pretty obvious answer really.
Overseas evidence suggests overall use barely changes and importantly teen use decreased following legalization. Cannabis is a far safer drug than alcohol. There's also no evidence of irreversible mental damage.
It's frustrating that misinformation like this still gets spouted. I'm voting yes which is consistent with the leading addiction experts and health opinion.
Top NZ health experts say vote 'yes' in Medical Journal editorial
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/election-2020-cannabis-referendum-top-nz-…
You get five guys pissed on alcohol, they start a fight. You get five guys high on weed, they start a band!
Same here - party vote Act, candidate vote national. Yes to Euthanasia, no to cannabis.
Yes I voted the same. National MP, party vote Act, no to cannabis and yes to euthanasia.
I predict a Labour Green govt, the euthanasia referendum will be majority yes and cannabis no.
New Zealand people are simply not a sophisticated enough for cannabis legalisation. Alcohol abuse is bad enough without adding cannabis plus are we not aiming to be a smoke free country?
FFS, Cannabis is already easily available and consumed by those who want to consume it. Should those people be saddled with a criminal conviction for a currently victimless crime?? no
VERY FEW people who use cannabis get a conviction for using it. They try today 80% of adult Kiwis have used it....I don't see 80% of adult Kiwis with a conviction for it. Like them or loathe them, I think Kiwi cops are generally pretty good and their approach to cannabis users is sensible.
You just made the most convincing case for decriminalisation I've heard in a while!
I was at an 80th birthday on the weekend. They did a voting thing there, surprisingly they voted the same as you, average age 70 ish.
Im not sure why you need to be sophisticated to deal with cannabis.
New Zealand people are simply not a sophisticated
Speaking for yourself I guess. Cannabis is already here and widely used, it's this kind of extreme naivety that I find astounding. It's also amusing that those who vote National and Act appear to condone what they'd call a 'nanny state' and diminish peoples person freedoms. I guess when they espouse 'freedom of choice' it's all just hot air and virtue signaling.
we probably already know the outcome. I can predict with certainty (almost) and Labour will form the government.
If we are really lucky, one Party will Govern on its own - no MMP carry on. ( I understand why people support it, but we are just too small for it to work as envisaged)
Then there will be no excuses; no trade-offs of Party manifesto and sole accountability for performance at the next elections.
Agreed. If this election was being run on delivery of policy I think the polling would be a lot different. Labour failed at every turn to call NZFs bluff and could have looked to Nats for support on some of the "big picture" stuff. This constant partisanship within our political system is a drag on NZ
Comments like this one mostly discourage people from going voting. Not sure if that's your intention though.
As all parties are still releasing policy it seems disingenuous to vote early unless you're voting on personalities as opposed to policy. There is also a constant trickle of news being drip fed about various subjects each day. The latest I found a little concerning was the article on RNZ about facial recognition software being implemented by IA, Police, Customs etc. IMV better to wait and make a fully informed decision rather than jump in early and regret it. I believe the Cannabis ref probably has a lot to do with it though.
Most policies of consequence have been announced already. Basically summed up by "more of the same, there are no issues worth fixing" so might as well just pick who you'd prefer to roll it out.
True, not a lot of differentiation between the "big" two. Realistically it's a foregone conclusion, more a matter of who gets to build experience and how much of it for 2023
Looks like the government have figured out how to get the "don't trust government/don't believe in COVID" bloc to start wearing their masks.
Why is it disingenuous? Very unlikely to be any significant policy from here.
As someone who voted Greens I was very confident that neither Labour nor National would come out with serious policy dealing with the environment and inequality.
What they stop releasing policies after the election? Everything is set in stone until the next election and no party would dare go back on their word. I am just picking a random point in time and voting for the people that least disagree with. I voted early because of COVID-19 frankly the less people I am around the better.
Frankly I don't agree any of them in any significant way. I personally would like a green party that would actually focus on saving the planet as opposed to trying to right every social injustice they perceive we have. All our lives are quite good, very few people starve in here, now concentrate on the planet remains livable, so it stays that way.
Party vote Green. Im always a natural voter for change. Anti-conservative if you like.
Greens, TOP and ACT are the only ones who actually want to change anything. ACT want to be the Republican Party (no thanks) and TOP felt wasted.
You forgot to mention that the Greens want to be NZs version of the USSR - everyone shall be equal. Of course there are always some who are more equal than others
Hard to judge tone but I just don’t believe that. This idea that the Greens are desperate to smash capitalism just isn’t borne out anything they say or do.
I thought if any party was similar to the Republicans it would be New Conservative, not ACT.
question,
do they start counting the votes earlier than normal, in the past it was after polling closed, will they start counting saturday when polls open, by then most votes this year will be cast
Of course they won't. Polling is counted at the end. Same as it's always been. Stupid question
"(There's) no such thing as a stupid question" is a popular phrase with a long history. It suggests that the quest for knowledge includes failure, and that just because one person may know less than others they should not be afraid to ask rather than pretend they already know. In many cases multiple people may not know, but are too afraid to ask the "stupid question"; the one who asks the question may in fact be doing a service to those around them.
Colin Powell says: "there is no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid answers" Presentation Skills That Will Take You to the Top says that within the business world, the adage holds true. The book adds "a question might be uninformed, tangential, or seemingly irrelevant, but, whether the presenter perceives it to be stupid or not, every audience member has every right to ask any sort of question
Your reply is quite valid. However when someone asks an undeniably stupid question in the face of of well known and accepted protocol, then the question can only be classified as "stupid" It's a bit like asking "is the world really flat"?
found the answer they can start counting from 9am
Counting votes cast before election day
From 9am on election day, we can count advance votes. We count them at secure electorate headquarters across New Zealand.
Returning officers in each electorate make sure the count follows the rules in the Electoral Act.
https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/about-elections/how-are-general-el…
Given that the results aren't publicly available until several hours after the polls close who actually gives a F@#k?
because all the parties have people at the count whom relay progress back to party HQ so they know . and years ago labour drove people to vote on election day in south auckland and it was enough to get them over the line
We do two preliminary counts in the presence of scrutineers:
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=_BJzCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=…
Who’s stupid now? And a sore loser by the looks. Starting the count early (obviously) finishes the count early. The results are available in real time as they are counted (after the polls close of course).
the results are available to the parties as they are counted , we the public will only get the results after the polls close
.
Hook,
How about an apology for calling someone stupid-and then being wrong, or is that too much to ask?
.
Interesting that parties are still announcing new policies. You'd think they'd do that before voting opens.
Makes no sense that on the 'final day of voting' that political parties can't advertise at all. Yet they can today, and keep releasing new policies, when people are now out voting. What's the difference between people today and people doing it on the final day? I understand the rule was put in place when almost all voting had to be done on election day, so peoples didn't have their vote swayed. But you would have thought common sense would mean that they would have then changed the laws since they changed things.
Your parents are smarter than you.
The big problem with the incoming Labour government is that they will feel completely of the leash. Extreme things will happen.
Covid let Robertson run amok with the open chequebook. But after the election it will be wokeness supreme.
Question: If Labour gets 45% ,Nats 40% & Act 8.5%,no other party gets across the line...does a Nat /Act government become the Coalition of Losers (COL) ??
no they become the government that is how MMP works the biggest block takes power.
it will be more interesting if the maori party win a seat and get 2% of the vote as they will have two mp's
would they try to become part of the labour greens collation? would labour allow them to join? would they sit on the opposition and pick holes in labour greens and build profile.
remember JK had a 4 party collation in 2008 even though he did not need it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/49th_New_Zealand_Parliament
LOL,I was being sarcastic Sharetrader...it has been 3 years with a group in here calling the current MMP government the COL,that it was morally reprehensible that a party that didn't get the most votes couldn't form a government...guess we won't hear so much of that if a coalition from the right is formed in the same way :-) :-)
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