Here's the Blast!

[skyring]

Sneezed this afternoon and the dog literally cringed. It was an award-winning sneeze, and I'm coming down with an award-winning cold. I think I'll spend the next day or so in bed.

Except I can't - too much to do.

LJ was down this morning, so it took me a while to catch up this evening. Seems like most of my LJ friends are in a different political quadrant to me. My law enforced by goons was to make everybody vote. I really hate seeing people marginalised because there's no votes in their demographic for the politicians. It's a vicious circle.

Comments

[skyring.livejournal.com]

We generally know who won on the night. Close seats can take a while, mainly because postal votes can take up to a week to straggle in.

However, in Australia we have a more rigid system of party discipline, and we don't have primaries. "Pre-selection" for a seat is an internal party matter.

It is rare for representatives to "cross the floor" and vote with the opposing party, unless there is a so-called "conscience" vote.

The main reason I like compulsory voting is because it demonstrates that in our democracy, the vote of the billionaire and the vote of the bloke with the arse out of his strides count for the same. We all get a say in who runs the show and we are all a part of it.

[resqgeek]

>> We generally know who won on the night. Close seats can take a while, mainly because postal votes can take up to a week to straggle in <<

I'm assuming this means the ballots are tallied electronically. If they had to tally paper ballots and then recount those ballots for the eliminated candidate(s), I would think the count would take longer.

One of our (admittedly many) problems is that the exact nature of the ballots and counting is controlled locally. There is no single unified system for voting and counting the ballots. In my county we use touch screen computer systems to vote, but there are many areas of the country that still use paper ballots or mechanical voting machines. Each of these systems has its own issues, but the lack of uniformity, by itself, creates issues. When you move, you often have to learn how to vote all over again!

[skyring.livejournal.com]

Actually, we count the votes on the night. I've been a scrutineer at a few elections and I see the process in action. Each polling place counts its own ballots and the totals are phoned in to a central office. Generally you can get a pretty good feel for the flow of preferences without having to count them.

For instance, if the USA had preferential voting, most primary ballots for a Green candidate would probably have the Democrat as a second preference.

The ballots are all sent into a central office for that electorate and a second, more thorough count is conducted over the next few days for the record.