With COVID in the house a couple of weeks back I put it off. It wasn't until yesterday I remembered (I felt like we must surely still have a week to go). All the nearby voting places were closed by the time I could go so ended up waiting until today. Then I woke up feeling miserable, so ended up loading up on drugs, N95 mask, drenched in hand sanitiser and managed to make it out of bed and down the road to vote before returning for a nap.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Champion effort

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Well done

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ka Pai!

Remember, until 7pm tonight it is a crime to attempt to influence the way a person votes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

To be fair, who wants till election day to decide which set of politicians is the least worst.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How long was the wait ?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

No wait at all at my place.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

About 3 min, a couple of people in front of me

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For me it wasn't too bad. Maybe 5 people in front of me when I got there, with a couple of people to find names and hand out papers. Plus an extra person to handle special votes and on the day enrolments.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's pretty fantastic on the last day. Maybe there will be a rush towards 7

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We used to have all votes on one day, and now we do half in advance and still seem to have the same number of polling places. I wouldn't expect many to be super busy, except mall based ones.

I would have also thought the lead up to polls closing would be the quietest time? People who want to vote wouldn't leave it so late that they risk not being able to vote.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You never know.

Will be real interesting to see once we get digital online voting. Those that just couldn't be bothered or forgot might change the voting landscape

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Digital online voting is just asking for trouble. The requirement to be present in person solves a lot of issues, I can't think of a way that online voting could work without serious issues.

Relevant xkcd

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Technically it could work. But only if it had the right amount of funding, sustained for every election. Which it wouldn't.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I just can't imagine a way to make it work that prevented people from selling their votes or being forced by others to vote a certain way. Requiring people to show up at a poll and having no way of knowing who someone voted for is a huge part of what makes elections fair.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you use ird then what's the issue?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let's say I'm a dick. I run a church, and everyone who comes to my church has to vote FreedomNZ. Now you have a way to verify that they did, by requiring voting to happen at a church session.

Or, let's say I'm a prisoner in my own home, and my husband is forcing me to vote for a party that intends to repeal laws that protect people in my situation. At a polling booth, you are not allowed to hang around watching someone else vote. You aren't allowed to take photos, and you can't know who they voted for once it's in the ballot box.

With online voting, you lose that protection. You will probably even see a black market for voter codes, or whichever method is used to help people log in.

I've never seen a proposal for digital voting that looked better than the current system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup agree there is coercion. That still happens. No way to know for sure what people vote for but we shouldn't hold back technology because it can be used for nefarious purposes.

Let's ban all internet use because it can be harmful. Ban books because they can spread lies.

We can learn from the past and out safeguards in place. Nothing is 100%. But we can't stop things because bad things might happen

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think that missed the point. We should move to digital platforms as and when they become better than the existing ones. Voting is no where near that threshold.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Takes decades to transition. So start now and roll it out slowly. Catch bugs and patch them. Build a safe a secure system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Apart from the security issues, there's not much evidence that digital voting would mean people are more likely to vote. It's not voting being hard that puts people off, it's feeling alienated from the system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Oh I think you'll see an increase. It's not hard. But it's not hard to go for a walk yet people struggle. Remove obstacles and you'll get better penetration.

It's 2023. We can vote online. We don't need paper votes