Let's just let ANYBODY vote!

[Roy]

The idea of restricting the vote to white land-owning males is long gone.

In your little country, the land ownership requirement was only removed in 1879, and women allowed to vote in 1893.

That's 27 years before the US. It also means there are no more NZers who were alive then, but are Merkins old enough to remember it.

[Cow Poke]

If you remove the age requirement like you want that means that even infants have the right to vote. The same group you don't even think have a right to live, what with your supporting the "right" of parents to kill children who are a couple months old.

Being a liberal is such a challenge!

[Cow Poke]

That's 27 years before the US. It also means there are no more NZers who were alive then, but are Merkins old enough to remember it.

Not sure you really typed what you meant to say, but I think I got it!

[rogue06]

That's 27 years before the US. It also means there are no more NZers who were alive then, but are Merkins old enough to remember it.

If you're talking about the land ownership requirement... "By 1840, only three states retained a property qualification, North Carolina (for some state-wide offices only), Rhode Island, and Virginia. In 1856 North Carolina was the last state to end the practice." That's decades before NZ.

[One Bad Pig]

If you're talking about the land ownership requirement... "By 1840, only three states retained a property qualification, North Carolina (for some state-wide offices only), Rhode Island, and Virginia. In 1856 North Carolina was the last state to end the practice." That's decades before NZ.

I'm positive he's referring to allowing women to vote.

[Starlight]

Wait, WHAT? So, a FIVE YEAR OLD could vote?

I would allow a kid who could read and write sufficiently to fill out their own voting paper unaided in a voting booth to vote, yes.

Somebody has 9 kids (as did my parents) and they could tell their kids, "OK, we're going to go to the polls, and we're all going to vote....." SERIOUSLY?

That reminds me of the historical arguments here about women getting the vote. Many men protested it would allow married men to get two votes, and that that would be unfair to unmarried men. That it gives the women democratic representation and that a woman is person in their own rights capable of having opinions different to their husbands didn't occur seem to occur to them judging by the historical letters to the editor I've read.

Your concern seems to be that parents could order their kids to vote a certain way. Other people I've talked to seemed concerned a teacher might influence a classroom of kids. But the thing is, it all comes out in the statistical wash... for every parent and teacher that influences kids to vote one way there's a parent and teacher somewhere else influencing kids to vote a different way, and it's not going to sway any elections. What's far more important, IMO, is that kids might actually chat with their friends about voting and what it means, and go on the internet and learn about politics etc, and ask their parents and teachers questions, and become educated citizens of our democratic society, and that is 100% good.

you'd find my use of tabasco on scrambled eggs morally disgusting!

When you start a thread titled "Let's just let ANYBODY vote!" as if extending voting rights to more people were a bad thing, your words condemn you.

And it's NOT my view that it's bad to "allow more people to vote" - but there are some COMMON SENSE factors - like age - that even YOUR country enforces.

US conservatives have both a history of suppressing voting rights, and continue to do extremely actively it right up to the present day, and it's utterly morally disgusting, and whaddaya know, here you are starting a thread whining about more people being allowed to vote.

That's precious.

Yeah, so you mocked my little country for being late to give women the vote, not realizing we were first in the world to do it. That is precious.

In your little country, the land ownership requirement was only removed in 1879, and women allowed to vote in 1893.

So, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but NZ was colonized much later than the US. The first national election that produced a parliament with authority to govern was 1855 with less than 10k voters. So, what you're basically saying is that within 40 years of the country being established we extended the vote to women and removed landowning requirements (and gave the vote to the native people as well).

You mean "permanent residents of New Zealand"

Yes, anyone who is permanently residing here can vote, regardless of citizenship. (This includes both the immigration visa status of "Permanent Resident" and also "Resident", as well as citizens obviously)

That's 27 years before the US. It also means there are no more NZers who were alive then, but are Merkins old enough to remember it.

Also, somewhat importantly with regard to people voting in America, they got the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to make sure Black people could definitely vote. There are very much Americans alive today who are old enough to remember that.

Of course, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court ruled parts of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional in 2013, and the Republican-controlled states were quick to seize on the ability to bring in voter-ID laws to stop those pesky Blacks from voting wrong.

[Cow Poke]

I would allow a kid who could read and write sufficiently to fill out their own voting paper unaided in a voting booth to vote, yes.

Wow. And you think WE are insane?

That reminds me of the historical arguments here about women getting the vote...

Comparing the voting responsibilities of women to small children is just downright goofy.

When you start a thread titled "Let's just let ANYBODY vote!" as if extending voting rights to more people were a bad thing, your words condemn you.

Condemn? Because I think it's unwise to let CERTAIN people vote is not the same as your goofy interpretation.

US conservatives have both a history of suppressing voting rights, and continue to do extremely actively it right up to the present day, and it's utterly morally disgusting, and whaddaya know, here you are starting a thread whining about more people being allowed to vote.

Voting is a very sacred thing, and I do not believe it should be entrusted to small children or illegal aliens.

Yeah, so you mocked my little country for being late to give women the vote, not realizing we were first in the world to do it. That is precious.

Mocked? It was a poke in good humor. I think New Zealand is a wonderful place, its only drawback is that it has YOU for an ambassador. (Xena, the Warrior Princess, more than makes up for them having you, I think)

So, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but NZ was colonized much later than the US. The first national election that produced a parliament with authority to govern was 1855 with less than 10k voters. So, what you're basically saying is that within 40 years of the country being established we extended the vote to women and removed landowning requirements (and gave the vote to the native people as well).

Yeah, I read all that on Wiki.

Yes, anyone who is permanently residing here can vote, regardless of citizenship. (This includes both the immigration visa status of "Permanent Resident" and also "Resident", as well as citizens obviously)

Yes, I read that too.

[Starlight]

P.S. A final consideration when thinking about the early years of NZ political development was there was no constitutional convention to draw up a big constitution with enumerated rights like there was in America. Britain was basically like "why would we want to try and govern a colony on the other side of the world? Democracy is a thing. Have at it." So the first several decades of NZ parliament could be considered akin to the US founding fathers spending time discussing what sort of rules they would want for their country. When I think about NZ history I tend to think of the pre-1900 period as "them getting organised". We didn't get our flag until 1902 and were officially upgraded in status within the British Empire to a proper autonomous country rather than a protectorate in 1907, if that puts it into perspective.

[Teallaura]

That's 27 years before the US. It also means there are no more NZers who were alive then, but are Merkins old enough to remember it.

Eh, yes and no - for universal suffrage, yes - but Kentucky had had limited suffrage (property ownership) in 1807 - New Jersey had full suffrage even earlier (but had repealed it).

In reality, the states were already enacting suffrage laws as early as '69 with much of the US enacting them before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed. So, no, women were voting in the US under the new amendments as early as 1869.


360px-Map_of_US_Suffrage,_1920.svg.jpg




Source

[rogue06]

I'm positive he's referring to allowing women to vote.

So am I, but this is Roy and I daresay he would not have missed the opportunity to have done exactly the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot.

[Starlight]

Wow. And you think WE are insane?

Yes, actually, particularly with regard to how the US right-wing doesn't seem to see democracy as a fundamental good and cornerstone of Western civilization.

I was thinking today how to get this across to you, and maybe I could convey it by considering the Freedom of Speech right. My own personal view is that freedom of speech is a secondary good because it contributes toward the two primary goods of 'Personal Freedom' and 'Democracy'. But I don't particularly regard freedom of speech as a be-all and end-all good in and of itself, only as a means to those ends. So, if there comes along a good reason to curtail it a tiny bit, I don't particularly have a problem with that. So if it turns out that it's better than we ban drawings of Muhammad or going out of our way to insult black or gay people on race or sexual grounds, then so be it.

Whereas, from a lot of Americans, and particularly right-wing Americans, I get the impression you view Freedom of Speech as an absolutely fundamental good in and of itself. You view it as not merely present in your constitution to ensure freedom of political opinions and thus allow for a properly functioning democracy (i.e. as a means to achieving the goal of Democracy), but rather you view it as an absolute and sanctified right in an of itself. And woe betide anyone who dares violate the sacred right of freedom of speech. If anyone does, cue people screaming "You're violating my FREEDOM OF SPEECH!" and almost general emergency sirens and panic buttons being hit. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking you guys think the entirety of Western civilization is coming to an end the moment freedom of speech is breached in any minor particular.

And while I don't share that level of concern toward freedom of speech, that IS very much my level of concern toward democracy. I might be a pacifist 99.9999% of the time, but if there is one time I think mass mayhem in the streets is absolutely 100% valid it is when people stand up and fight for their own democratic freedom. I see democracy as the absolute moral core of the politics of Western civilization. Touch democracy and I'd be smashing the nearest glass that says "break in the event of emergency" in less than a second.

And I think it's... really really weird, that you US conservatives on this forum and US Republicans more generally seem to not see Democracy in moral terms, almost at all. The Republican party seems to see it as merely a tool to be used to get their political policies implemented, and if they have to break the tool a bit to do it, they have zero problem with that - they don't see the tool itself as particularly of moral importance. Hence they gerrymander districts out the wazoo, they do every kind of voter suppression tactic they can think of in the states they control to stop as many of the wrong kinds of people / people likely to vote 'wrong' from voting as possible (voter ID, Cross-check, voter role purges, felons can't vote etc), they love the idea of unproportional representation in the Senate because it gives them more Senators, they decide Bush v Gore by saying the vote can't be recounted because their guy won, corruption and money in politics is good so long as it helps them more than it helps their opposition, etc. To say I see that as utterly morally bankrupt and a fundamental betrayal of the people and of Western civilization itself would be, perhaps, an understatement. I would view straight-out treason against the country itself as a less-bad crime than such attacks against democracy itself. And it pretty much flabbergasts me constantly that US conservatives just go along with all of this and have an attitude that could be summarized as "It's great so long as it helps us win! Suck it libtards!"

And we see the same attitude recurring in the Trump-Russia scandal, where the US right has decided to see no evil and hear no evil, and if Putin helped their guy win, basically "well that's great and so much the better". And the rest of us are open-mouth aghast at the horror of the destruction of US democracy itself.

It makes me wonder why our difference in values is so massive. I guess one possibility is that I live in a country where democracy is the supreme law of the land ("parliamentary supremacy" - there is no constitution a court can use to overturn a decision made by the elected parliament) so making sure that the elected representatives truly do represent the people is important because it could all go horribly wrong if they started doing bad things, whereas you live in a country with a lengthy constitution and judicial supremacy (the court can and does regularly overturn decisions of the elected based on the constitution) so in theory things cannot get too much out of hand if the elected representatives are bad because the courts would stop them. Another possibility is that Democracy is inherently a left-wing institution - in France where the terms left and right originated in politics it was Democracy (left-wing: rule by the masses) versus Republic (right-wing: rule by the elite aristocrats, over the masses) - and hence as a left-winger I am inherently pro democracy because I believe power should be distributed among the people, whereas as a right-winger you are happier with the elites setting rules for the masses to follow. Another possibility is that New Zealand ranks as the least corrupt country in the world because people here are like me and genuinely care about democracy as an institution, and in America you don't rank so well because people don't care so much.

[lilpixieofterror]

I would allow a kid who could read and write sufficiently to fill out their own voting paper unaided in a voting booth to vote, yes.

You just handed consertives several elections. Congrats!

[Starlight]

You just handed consertives several elections. Congrats!

I have no idea why you would think that would be true, but regardless the democratic process itself is vastly more important than the outcome. If having a proper democracy makes conservatives win, so be it.

[lilpixieofterror]

I have no idea why you would think that would be true, but regardless the democratic process itself is vastly more important than the outcome. If having a proper democracy makes conservatives win, so be it.

Judging by your ignorant comments, you know nothing about children. I suppose if you think those that need to be told it’s a bad idea to ride a dog like a horse should make decisions about elections, well, guess you deserve having President Marshall the Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig as PM of the UK.

[Starlight]

Judging by your ignorant comments, you know nothing about children. I suppose if you think those that need to be told it’s a bad idea to ride a dog like a horse should make decisions about elections, well, guess you deserve having President Marshall the Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig as PM of the UK.

I have a 5 year old nephew who would happily write-in President Marshall from Paw Patrol as president. If he wanted to write that on his ballot, I would be 100% fine with that. He would be learning the valuable lesson of participation in the democratic process. Over the years, and with practice, he'd improve and refine his understanding of it. As far as I'm concerned that would be everything gained, nothing lost.

If you prefer the voting age to be an age where we can agree the children at least understand what they are doing / approximately capable of understanding what political policy is / what it is that they are voting for, then I would have zero problem with that. Would you agree that perhaps 10 or 11 years old is an appropriate age? My memories from when I was in intermediate school (two years in the 10–13 age range here) indicate to me I would have been 100% up to the task of being given materials in class from all the various political parties, reading about their policies they laid out, considering the arguments they each made, perhaps doing a group project comparing and contrasting party positions on different issues, and then going to the voting booth with my parents and casting a vote that had rational reasoning behind it. Perhaps not all kids would be capable of that at such an age, but again, I don't think it matters if people write nonsense on their ballot paper or vote for a candidate at random (such votes even out across the country).