New Zealand: 1 Million Didn’t Bother to Vote
November 28th, 2011Update: National Almost Beaten by The Abstention Party
Via: New Zealand Herald:
Voter turnout in the general election was an historic low of 68.8% of eligible voters. An argument can be made that the National Party was almost beaten by The Abstention Party, which won 31.2% of the (non)-vote. Once you take into account the large number of the New Zealand population that abstained from voting on polling day you can see just how unpopular the political parties are. The National Party actually only scored about 33% of the electorates’ votes, Labour got only 18.5%, and the Greens only 7%. Thus although the Abstention Party was hardly mentioned by political commentators – it, rather than the National, the Greens or Winston Peters, was the major success story of 2011.
—End Update—
This is just incredible to me, and sad.
Both National and Labour are clear and present dangers to New Zealand. National’s goal is sell our country’s assets to Australia and China. Labour’s goal is get us saddled with debt to those country’s banks. In other words, the ultimate goal of both of the main parties is to sell us out, to make us renters and debt slaves in our own country. (This has already been accomplished to some extent.)
However, with MMP and voting conducted by simple, effective paper ballots, there is a real chance to get alternative parties playing significant roles in politics here. If there’s any small hope at all to be found in politics, this is it.
If you look at what the Greens and Winnie pulled off this time, consider the fact that such outcomes would NEVER happen in the U.S.
While a disturbingly large number of people are clearly disgusted with the system here, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Via: New Zealand Herald:
A million eligible New Zealanders did not bother to vote in Saturday’s election, producing the lowest turnout in percentage terms in 120 years.
Turnout dropped by just over 90,000, from 79.5 per cent of those on the rolls in 2008 to 73.8 per cent.
Except for an anomaly in 1978 when the rolls were inflated by outdated and duplicate entries, this was the lowest percentage turnout since 1887, when 67.1 per cent of those on the rolls voted. That was before women won the right to vote in 1893.
Moreover, only an estimated 93.2 per cent of the 3,276,000 people who were eligible to vote were enrolled, so the 2,254,581 people who did cast their votes (including special votes) leaves just over 1 million who stayed at home.
Overseas votes included in this total plunged from an estimated 32,000 at the last election to 19,527.
The result reinforces a general downward trend in turnout since 1987 which has been broken significantly only twice – first when the mixed-member proportional system was introduced in 1996, and again in the 2005 election when the margin between Labour and National was the narrowest in recent memory.
one of the most instructive things to look at is the reaction of the newspaper duopoly. they spent yesterday and today calling this a huge victory and mandate for Key. Orwellian overdrive. propaganda panic? the Big Lie in little nz? how many votes did National get compared with 2008? let’s wait till 10 December to find out.
either way, we are down to the endgame now. by the 2014 election, the National Party voters will survey quite a new vista. turkeys voting for Christmas?
A 73.8% turnout still seems astonishing to me. That’s higher than US turnout for all levels of elections. In my local city election there was about a 15% turnout.
@Josh
The excerpt I used here actually puts a positive spin on the turnout. If you consider the total number of people who could have voted (including people who weren’t on the election rolls), the turnout was 68.8%.
Anyway, the U.S. is absolutely screwed beyond repair. NZ is heading down the same road and many people here simply have no clue about what’s slipping away.
So it goes…
of the people who did bother to vote, National + Act + United Future only received 48.98% of party votes. an historic victory, according to our overlords at the MSM. despite massive media propaganda techniques employed over three years, National only increased their party vote by 5,240 compared with 2008. but this is a “huge mandate” we are told. over and over again.