Slashdot Mirror
Man Formerly Charged With Rigging Student Ballot Exposed As Labor Official
First time accepted submitter pocock writes "Motivated by reports of Matthew Weaver's twelve month jail sentence for rigging CalState student elections, a comprehensive blog describes in detail how a generation of student ballot riggers from the late 1990s have graduated unhindered into federal politics, playing a pivotal role in Australia's upcoming federal election. One can only wonder if Weaver had not been caught, would he too have eventually swiped a million dollars and put the SRC into liquidation?"
They might come from the "social democratic" tradition but there's nothing democratic about the Australian Labor Party. They're the masters of branch stacking and rigging votes, especially through union representation at national conferences. The party has become a joke and the sooner they're turfed in the coming months, the better. They need a few terms in the wilderness to clean up their filthy act.
I don't see that anywhere.
I don't think anyone is surprised that people who would cheat to win a school election would continue into politics where they could try to cheat their way into anything and everything they can.
The sad part is the 12 month sentence that Weaver got will not deter him from running for office, not will it keep people from voting for him.
A similar dynamic of student-election "dirty tricks" graduating into general election bugging and sabotage of election opponents played out during the Watergate scandal. Donald Segretti cut his teeth in election fraud during his USC days, and later applied his skills in Nixon's reelection campaign, the resulting "Muskie letters" effectively knocking a democratic senator out of the campaign. Karl Rove came from the same school of campaigning.
These incidents are as perfect an example of "Broken Window Theory" in politics as you are likely to come across. "Shenanigans" in college, if left unchecked, lead inevitably to outright election fraud. If you permit criminals to train their skills, operate unpunished, and indeed enjoy the rewards of their misdeeds, they are unlikely to change their ways in a hurry.
On a related note, I regard most student politcs in universities as a wholly illegitimate process. The resulting bodies and persons do not represent the student body or its values. At best, they organise drunken festivals and serve as a training ground for the corrupt and incompetent cadre currently in charge of the western world.
May the Maths Be with you!
hey /. eds: how about requiring a [disclosure: submitter is linking to their own blog post]
especially in a politically charged article about ethics rife with speculation and innuendo during an election campaign.
The two major parties are very similar in most respects. Both parties have been trying to out-do each other in reprehensible policies.
For me the election has come down to just a few issues:
1. The (incumbent) Labor party has a future-proofing, infrastructure-based Fibre-to-the-Premises broadband policy that is in build at the moment. The (opposition) Liberal/National coalition has a patchwork Fibre-to-the Node policy that they've been dragged kicking and screaming to because the FTTP policy has been so popular. The FTTN policy will cost almost as much to implement, cost more to maintain, and need replacing with FTTP before the FTTN build is complete.
2. The Labor party is still slightly less nasty on social issues (but they're doing their best to convince me otherwise right now).
3. The leader of the Liberal/National coalition - Tony Abbot - is a truly nasty piece of work. He is an intolerant bigot. He makes my skin crawl every time I hear him talk. I don't like the leader of the Labor party (Kevin Rudd) and was ambivalent on the recently-deposed leader (Julia Gillard) but there are some things they say that don't make my guts turn.
Disclosure: I'm personally scheduled to have the FTTP NBN start building in my town in about 1.5 years. For purely selfish reasons I need to vote for a party in the Senate (upper house) that will work to ensure that the NBN stays on track (I'm in a safe Liberal seat, so my vote in the House of Representatives means nothing). However I happen to think that the FTTP NBN is the most important infrastructure project we're likely to see in the next 50+ years, so my vote is not just for selfish reasons.
As I recall, when I was in high school the kids in the "national honor society" were a pack of left-wing ass kissers who made a habit of cheating on their tests and homework. It used to bug the shit out of me when the teachers and overseers would tell me that I should be docile and obedient like they were.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
... I voted for Kodos.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The problem with politics, is that, over time, it attracts those who WANT to be in politics...
How about a body that is selected at random, they only get to vote once, and they only get to vote "yes" or "no" to approve or veto what has been passed by the "professional" politicians.
Liberals tamper with elections all of the time.
Can't you dredge up something less suckful than this in your desperate bid to spam Slashdot with stories about Australia -- any stories at all?
Sad.
Captcha: banned. Does this mean Michael Sims is returning?
Can anybody imagine a US congressman collecting Weaver from the prison gates and deploying him to an office on Capitol Hill?
Yes, easily. Why do you even have to ask?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
"First time accepted submitter pocock" is the person behind the blog linked to. Daniel Pocock, himself formerly a student politician, appears to be using Slashdot to promote his own grievances against the incumbent Australian Federal Government and former fellow student politicians that date back almost twenty years. There's no connection to the CalState case, no obvious evidence to support the claims, but there is an Australian Federal election looming. This couldn't be an attempt to obfuscate and cast aspersions against members of the Labor Party, could it?
The hired gun ratfuckers called themselves Pierre Poutine. A very cheesy name for a spin doctor who was only in it for the political gravy.
They have learned to hide in the shadows of the internet and cover their asses before the public gets any info about what they do. At least that is what the investigators want the public to believe, the ratfucking that went on in BC to side swipe the NDP in the last provincial election was even more amazing. They went from leading in the polls by a 20% margin to losing an election almost overnight with the financial help of pro ratfuckers mostly trained in American universities, whatever the hell the academic moniker "political science" means.
One thing, the Republican party in the States seems to be rather afraid of using them anymore and they just hire "PR" firms instead and distance themselves from the mud slinging if at all possible. Funny but the last American election defaulted to Obama largely because the Republicans seemed to be ratfucking each other more than going after the Democrats as a unified entity. LOL
Perhaps ratfucking should be restricted to in party elections and the ensuing blood bath could make a two party system more competitive both in the US and Canada.
Then completely eliminate political advertising, telephone and internet polls and all other electoral forms of advertising except moderated tv and internet debates between all prospective candidates for 6 months leading up to the elections. And these debates will be on all issues leading up to the election. Perhaps allow only the transcriptions of the debates to be mailed out unedited and publicized to voters by the candidates.
This could completely stop the nonsense of letting the spin doctors and lawyers work on a politician's image. The days of having leaders like John Chretien, who dominated debates with a real human personality are unfortunately gone. If a politician cannot speak directly to the electorate from their gut then they do not deserve to be elected period. Paid University "political science" spin doctors and politically motivated lawyers need to be exposed for who and what they are and hung out to dry by real politicians for a change.
http://www.paul-robinson.us/index.php/2008/10/25/the_robinson_method_a_really_simple_way_?blog=5
You would be surprised at how easy it is to vote in Australia.
- At a polling station it hasn't ever taken me longer than 30 minutes to vote
- All I need to provide is my Name & Address
- I can turn up at any of the polling stations in my electorate.
- If I happen to be outside my electorate and a reasonable distance, then I can vote at any polling station in the country.
- If I happen to be busy on polling day (almost any excuse will do), then I can submit an absentee vote via post.
The easy of the process probably helps to explain why voting is compulsory. Sometimes I even take the kids along for a bit of civics education.
On election night we have details for the almost all seats in lower house with a couple of hours. Only a few very close seats take longer if postal votes or a recount is required.
Frankly, most Australians (and New Zealanders) are surprised at how hard the rest of the world makes the process of voting.
My mom ran for student government as a freshman at the University of Southern California (the Harvard of the West coast) in 1963. When she lost, she reviewed the data for the election and found that more ballots were counted than there were registered students. It was determined a group of upper classmen who were members of the Republican party were responsible. The university election commission took over and re-ran the election. Later they figured out members of Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity and Gordon Strachan had a hand in it. The same Strachan was Pres. Nixon's chief of staff and part of the Watergate fiasco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_C._Strachan
Your great reference sounds like the Craig Thomson fan club from the comments. The linked article states that it is 173 charges relating to $28,000 of Health Services Union funds. The mere fact that it is called "Jacksonville" suggests a smear campaign against Kathy Jackson who first raised the allegations of corruption in HSU by Craig Thomson and colleague Michael Williamson.
What I see is evidence of Unions / Labor being more interested in internal politics than helping members / running the country.
Ah yes - the stunt where he wasted parliment's time to show how Catholic he was to the voters, and had his own department draft a pointless law telling him to do his fucking job. He then, with all the appearance of reluctance, did his fucking job. Anyone trying to pull such a thing in reality instead of a stage managed stunt would just be sacked by the prime minister for going against the party line.
The guy is a just an amoral factional head kicker that puts up whatever front that he thinks is going to do the job at the time.