[AA]
At 23:19 26/10/98 +1100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Seems to me a different question entirely. How about this?
>
>"Neither rejects as criminal any attempt to coerce voters to vote in
>support
>of candidates who they choose to vote against, regardless of whether
>such
>criminal coercion is disguised as requirements to not use repeated
>preference
>numbers or by other means."
Fair enough - it's certainly much broader.
[AL]
I am taking that response and your remarks below as an indication that
you are not pressing your original proposal and would be happy with
the above instead. Seems to me the above is already implicit policy
so unless somebody actually opposes it or wants to formalize it in
those words or with amendments we would be better off moving on to other
topics.
[AL]
>2. Experience has shown that far more "accidentally incomplete" votes
>result from OPV
>than the number of "accidentally informal" votes that result from CPV.
[AA]
I would have thought that it wouldn't be possible for an OPV vote to be
accidentally incomplete?
[AL]
By "accidentally incomplete" I did not mean incorrectly marking a ballot
paper by accident but marking a ballot paper with less complete
preferences than
the voter actually has as a result of not understanding the importance
of later
preferences. I was referring to the situation explained below with the
possibly
confusing term "accidentally incomplete".
[AL]
>In fact CPV was
>originally introduced because of outrage over a state election held
>under OPV in a strongly
>anti-ALP seat where the ALP candidate won because too many voters for
>the several anti-ALP
>candidates failed to record their actual preferences fully and were
>surprised to discover
>that this resulted in none of the anti-ALP candidates being elected in
a
>seat which they
>were certain was safely anti-ALP.
I see - fair enough.
In any case, unless you're prepared to kick out the OPV supporters, does
it
matter whether we've got OPV vs CPV differences? (This question isn't
rhetorical, by the way).
[AL]
As far as I can make out we seem to be in agreement after brief
discussion.
I don't quite understand the rhetorical question. I did not propose a
policy
resolution for Neither to adopt a policy of support for CPV, let alone
to make
it a criterion for membership.
On the contrary I agree with Tom Brennan, Anita Hood, and now yourself
that there
is no need to have a policy either way, let alone make it a criteria for
membership.
What I said (re opposing O'Farrel's alleged plans in NSW), was:
***
Neither has no policy for either compulsory ("full") or optional
preferential voting.
(I prefer compulsory myself).
Any campaign should make it quite clear that whether voters are required
to
put a number in every box or not it is a crime to attempt to coerce
voters
to vote in favor of candidates they want to vote against. If that is
what
is behind the O'Farrel then he is a criminal. Opposition to that crime
should be described as support for free elections and opposition to
coercion of voters, not as support for optional preferential and
opposition
to "full preferential".
It has been extremely difficult to get that across to the media and
Courts continue
to write judgments about it based on media reports rather than anything
before
them (as recently as 30 September).
It is important that we take a consistent line on this nationally.
***
I believe the (implicit) current policy you expressed agreement with
above
does cover this and a common understanding about it ensures that any
campaign against moves to
introduce Criminal Coercion in NSW under the guise of a switch from OPV
will avoid the
error of assuming that Neither has a policy for OPV and against CPV as
the media and
courts keep insisting.
Previously, you proposed in this subject thread:
***
That until the nature of Australian electorates changes, Neither adopt
national policy in favor optional preferential voting for both single
member and multi-member electorates.
and that support for such a policy be a requirement for membership.
***
So I opposed your proposal precisely because I do not think it matters
whether
"we've got OPV vs CPV differences" and object to kicking out CPV
supporters.
Does that answer your rhetorical question ;-)
Or have I completely missed the point (as is pretty common in email
lists) ;-)
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