Slashdot Mirror
A How-To Website For Australian Voters
Twisted64 writes "If you're interested in voting below the line in the upcoming federal election in Australia, but don't want to waste time in the booth individually ranking up to 76 candidates (for the unfortunates in New South Wales), then Cameron McCormack's website may have what you need. The website allows voters to set their preferences beforehand, dragging and dropping Stephen Conroy at the bottom of the barrel and thrusting the Sex Party into pole position (as an utterly random example). Once preferences are set, the site can generate a PDF to be printed and taken to the booth." (More, below.)
"There's also something to educate the above-the-line voters — if you check the box for your single party of choice, the site will fill out the effective party preferences below the line. This shows that a vote for The Climate Sceptics hands first preferences to Family First, and so on.
The website claims not to harvest voting information, but for the paranoid it recommends printing out a blank ballot sheet and copying your preferences from the screen. There is also a button to set up a donkey vote when in the ballot view, in case you have trouble counting from 1 to 100."
The website claims not to harvest voting information, but for the paranoid it recommends printing out a blank ballot sheet and copying your preferences from the screen. There is also a button to set up a donkey vote when in the ballot view, in case you have trouble counting from 1 to 100."
OK that didn't take long. The site seems to be slashdotted already. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea for it to be serving 500KB @font-face referenced fonts from my little VPS. :)
Once everybody's stopped clicking the link, I'll try moving the static data over to something that can handle it, like an Amazon S3 bucket.
Non Australian voters might be confused by this article because it gives the impression that you need a HOWTO to be able to vote. But thats not true. Just give people you don't like high numbers, and people you do like low numbers. Its still pretty simple.
You can tell from my sig. Labour candidates are getting high numbers from me in the senate this year.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The problem with "donkey votes" is that politicians waste time arguing about who gets the top slot
They don't. The position on the ballot paper is drawn by lot.
The real problem with donkey votes is that the people casting them are negligent in fulfilling their public duty to vote.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Technically, no. You're attendance confirms your intention to vote, and fulfils your obligations.
Where you people get this stuff from?! IAAL, so since we are talking matters of electoral law, 'technically' to me means you show me an Act of parliament of a curial decision rather than just making this stuff up. Allow me to demonstrate.
Technically, you can't be marked off the electoral role until after you receive your ballot. (C'th Electoral Act 1918, s232(1)).
OR thus: Once you get your ballot paper you are required "without delay" to "retire alone to some unoccupied compartment of the booth, and there, in private, mark his or her vote on the ballot paper" (s233) [my emphasis]
So technically you must enrol, attend, collect your ballot, be marked off, and vote. Turning up and having your name marked off without collecting a ballot, spoiling your ballot, and all these other suggestions are technically illegal.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
They do. They're called "how to vote cards". As you walk into the polling booth you're handed bits of paper from people representing many of the major parties. They contain facsimiles of the ballot papers which have been filled in to their liking, allowing you to copy the vote your favourite party wants without thinking.