Matt Long
Fatherhood, Farming and Freedom
One of the great things about writing on a platform like The BFD is that you are writing for people who are motivated, well informed and more intelligent than the average punter, so everyone here almost without exception will be aware of the vagaries of MMP and the concept of a wasted vote.
With voting beginning in the New Zealand 2000 election, it seems I have never been involved in a more important election for the future of our nation. It seems more critical than ever that our votes are not wasted.
There are several ways to waste your vote;
The first is not to vote at all, and anyone not voting in an election deserves whatever kind of government they get.
The second way to waste your vote is to not vote for your values and instead vote for a party that has failed to live up to your expectations before, but somehow seems to be the least worst option. An example of wasting your vote would be to vote for a party whose record in office is of stifling regulation, economic stultification, loss of freedom and property rights. While nobody would rationally vote for more of the same, some spooked by fear of a mad radical leftist coalition may be contemplating voting Labour Lite. Likewise, you may consider ACT’s economic agenda to be sound, but be uneasy about their links to big business and urban liberalism and find their moral agenda repugnant, but still be persuaded to vote for them because they are less worse than National.
The third way to waste your vote is to look at parties that have a perfectly valid platform that accords with your values and then decide for some obscure reason that supporting a fringe party that has not the slightest possibility of getting past the parliamentary threshold with your vote is a good strategy. Those voting Vision, One party, or Advance New Zealand come under this banner. (If you are a Leftist thinking of voting TOP, Social Credit, Legalise Dope or whatever, great strategy, I commend you.)
The fourth way to waste your vote is to leave your friends and associates, who perhaps are less well informed than you are, to vote according to tradition, horoscopes, media misinformation or whatever method they use to choose their preferred party to vote for. You don’t have just one vote but a whole parcel of votes when you are a part of a community and you have an obligation to graciously educate, inform and motivate the people who form your network to vote sensibly.
In summary, don’t waste your vote. If you hold a different vision for New Zealand than I do and most people do, vote according to your conscience. But, if you support small business, are socially compassionate, killing granny and babies for convenience’s sake isn’t your thing, and you want a realistic chance of having those values represented in Parliament, then there is only one real choice for your party vote. New Conservative.
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