Posts matching tags 'election'
2007/11/21
I have so far mostly refrained from commenting on the Australian election campaign. In short, it has looked like the Opposition would win by a landslide—much as it has in the previous two elections, in which they got caned. However, now it's looking like the real thing; the much vaunted "Narrowing" of the polls has failed to materialise (the opinion polls, both public and private, have hovered within a margin of error of the 55-45 mark for some months). Even the ABC is biting the hands of its despised master, seemingly confident that the punishment will not be forthcoming.
The Tories, it goes without saying, are panicking. All the rocks they've thrown at the Rudd juggernaut have failed to derail it. It seems that they have been unable to manufacture a "children overboard" or pull any rabbits out of a hat. So now they are resorting to desperate tactics, such as printing pamphlets from a fake, if ominous-sounding, "Islamic Australia Federation" urging people to vote Labor, because of "its support for Muslim causes", such as, say, the Bali bombings:
"We gratefully acknowledge Labor's support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings," the pamphlet says.
"Labor is the only political party to support the entry to this country of our Grand Mufti Reverend Sheik al-Hilaly and we thank Honourable Paul Keating for overturning the objections of ASIO to allow our Grand Mufti to enter this country."Did you see what they did there? It's not even a dog whistle. They could have hardly been more gormless if they threw in a mention to Labor's multiculturally-correct support for the practices of gang rape and honour killing or somesuch.
The trail for the pamphlets appears to lead straight back to various Liberal Party volunteers, who have been sacked. If anything, it's a sign of their desperation that they couldn't wait to get one of their once-removed black-bag outfits like the Exclusive Brethren to do it.
On the other hand, the election is not over. There is still the possibility that Howard will get back in (or that the Tories will get back in while he'll lose his seat). Granted, it's a lot less of a possibility than before, though if anyone can pull off a dirty victory from behind, it's Howard, the Voldemort of Australian politics. I won't be celebrating his demise until I read his concession speech.
2006/11/8
The Republicans got a caning in the US midterm election, with the Democrats seizing the House of Representatives; the Senate hangs in the balance.
Would it be too cynical to suggest that, if Congress becomes too difficult (i.e., by refusing to pass whatever follows the abolition of habeas corpus and legalisation of torture), all the Whitehouse has to do is allow a major terrorist act to take place on US soil (perhaps by strategically blocking various investigations or programmes) and blame it on Democrat recalcitrance, after which no-one will vote Democrat for a generation?
2005/5/6
Well, it turned out much as expected; Labour got back in, although with a severely reduced majority down by about 100 from 165, giving rise to speculation about Blair's leadership. The Lib Dems gained about 8 seats, going up to 59, though hopes that the Tories may wither away to third place were dashed, as the bastards got the lion's share of Labour's losses. One of the biggest swings against Labour was in the Welsh seat of Blaenau Gwent, where the Labour party machine tried to impose a centrally-selected candidate on the electorate, only to get trounced with a 49% swing by the now-independent MP. On a more ominous note, the we-are-not-neo-Nazis British National Party doubled its vote, and odious Stalinist-turned-Islamofascist George "I never met an anti-Western despotism I didn't like" Galloway took Bethnal Green.
The election results are trickling in; Labour have retained a number of seats; the Lib Dems are getting significant swings (5-10%), though they're all falling short of unseating Labour. So far, Labour have lost two seats: Putney to the Tories (interestingly, Putney is an area popular with South Africans, who, as Commonwealth citizens, are entitled to vote, and who are said to be conservative on racial issues; I wonder whether this was a factor), and a Welsh seat to an ex-Labour independent. Exit polls say that Labour's majority may be slashed to 66 or so.
The BBC's election coverage seems quite similar to the ABC's Australian election coverage (the computer-generated bar charts and swingometers are there), though there's a carnival atmosphere that the Australian elections don't have, with elements of silliness and irreverence, such as a George W. Bush impersonator at the BBC's election party, and a computer-generated mockup of the party leaders racing down Downing St.
2005/4/14
Security guru Bruce Schneier turns his professional paranoia to the Papal election, and looks at how vulnerable it is to fraud or rigging. The answer: not very. There are a few minor flaws, though much of the mechanism is quite robust.
What are the lessons here? First, open systems conducted within a known group make voting fraud much harder. Every step of the election process is observed by everyone, and everyone knows everyone, which makes it harder for someone to get away with anything. Second, small and simple elections are easier to secure. This kind of process works to elect a Pope or a club president, but quickly becomes unwieldy for a large-scale election. The only way manual systems work is through a pyramid-like scheme, with small groups reporting their manually obtained results up the chain to more central tabulating authorities.
And a third and final lesson: when an election process is left to develop over the course of a couple thousand years, you end up with something surprisingly good.
2004/12/25
A handful of "liberals" in America have been claiming since November that the Presidential election was stolen. Now, the big news is that Presidential candidate John Kerry may be among them; Kerry is allegedly planning to retract his concession and launch a legal challenge against the election results on the ground that the election was fraudulent. As opposed to the Democrats having lost for having run the most inoffensively uncharismatic candidate, and/or because 51% of Americans really believe in their heart of hearts that gays have it too easy.
For all I know, this could be wishful thinking. Then again, if it does happen, I wonder how far it'll get, especially given that most of the Democrat-voters seem to have acknowledged that Bush won it fair and square. Perhaps we'll see a replay of the recent events in the Ukraine, with liberals, secularists, progressives, gays, lesbians, atheists, humanists, polyamorous pagans, Burning Man attendees and the kinds of Americans who own passports and read books other than the Bible and Ann Coulter camping out in the streets of Washington DC under blue banners, soon to be joined by red-banner-waving counter-demonstrations of Pentecostals, ultra-patriots and Nascar fans.
Then again, it may not get to that; given the state of free speech in the Bush Era, the blue rally are likely to be herded into "free-speech zones" miles away from anywhere, ignored by CNN/FoxNews and their efforts unknown to anybody but a handful of liberal bloggers, with those who resist facing the full brunt of "Miami-model" anti-protest ultraviolence.
2004/11/3
It's offical. The Lesser Evil has conceded, and we're about to see just how much darker this night can get. Expect increasing authoritarianism in the US, and quite possibly a full-scale world war, with mass conscription and those nifty mini-nukes BushCo are developing, Real Soon Now.
Oh dear, it doesn't look too good does it? Mind you, Ohio's still up in the air, though how much that amounts to is uncertain.
2003/7/11
How to rig an election using the voting machines popular in the U.S. (and often manufactured by Republican-controlled companies). Apparently the things are riddled with back doors, allowing well-placed officials to make strategic adjustments and cover their tracks seamlessly. You'd think that if democracy was taken at all seriously, they'd ensure that the voting machines were open-source and open to scrutiny by any concerned members of the public.
2002/10/21
Surely enough, the Greens take Cunningham, their first lower-house seat, and set their sights on the balance of power in Victoria (which they could well get, with the two major parties being what they are right now). This was a kick in the gut to Labor (the first opposition party to lose a byelection in half a century), not to mention to the Democrats (who tried, and failed, to win lower-house seats on many occasions).
2001/10/29
Election-related sites: The ABC is running an election weblog, linking to election-related articles everywhere, for all you political trainspotters out there. Speaking of trains, a group called Public Transport First want to get the politicians to support public transport, rather than just building more freeways.