Advance Voting
October 16, 2020
By NZB3
When businesses approach you, or give you products and services you didn’t ask for, it’s an uninvited direct sale. You can change your mind and cancel any purchase agreement for any reason within five working days.This is the law, under the Fair Trading Act (1986.) The principle is that, sometimes, people get caught up in the persuasive power of vendors and make hasty decisions. Binding decisions should only be enforced when the consumer is not being pitched and buzzed and seduced by marketing campaigns. No, buying a toaster or a bicycle of transformer-ladder is too important for a consumer not to be sober and deliberate. Their choice must be allowed to stand beyond the maddening crowd of marketing campaign bells and whistles and slogans and billboards.
Voting, however, it completely the opposite. Also an uninvited direct sale, the advertising and personal appearances and megaphones and ubiquitous hoardings down every other road are protected. While the campaigning circus is going on, people are now permitted to vote. While high under the influence of the latest TV or radio or in-person campaigning pitch (provided it is 10m away from a voting place) all votes are counted as firm and final.
If it were a used car or a massage chair you could change your mind. But such rules are only imposed on the Free Market. In politics the votes made under the influence have no such consumer protection and cannot be taken back. No matter about buyer’s remorse. No matter if the product doesn’t turn out to be what was promised.
It’s different rules for government. By changing our constitution to support Prolonged Campaigning (aka “Advance Voting”) the political process is shifted to a different part of a New Zealander’s consciousness.
The Consent of the Governed, instead of being asked of your up-regulated and deliberate intellectual self is instead being put to your Low-Time-Preference and Reptilian brain. The kind of Government we will increasingly get now is Feels over Reals. Campaigns that win support will be the ones that can hijack a quick reactive response at the expense of policies or ideas that take longer to think about or apply to a longer time horizon. To win an election it becomes essential to out-bid the other candidate by offering quick pay-offs now that have painful costs hidden in a long-term that is not seen and not talked about.
Why should children not be allowed to vote under these conditions? Gone, the pretence that a deliberate mind that had reached maturity and could see further than the ‘now’ was required for political participation. Any kid, perhaps any animal with an amygdala, can have a knee-jerk instant reaction to a stimulus. These reactions are consulted and recorded as a vote now. It’s encouraged! So by what principle can an immature and developing mind be excluded?
We’ve ceased all pretence at being governed by the Kiwi’s cerebral cortex. Politicians don’t need to debate or offer thought-out policy or appeal to our intellects, that has been passing away for several General Elections now since 2008 when “Advance Voting” came in. The theatre they compete in now is in Feelings- Fear, Hope, Kindness, Dread. Quick Fixes, fast rewards, obscure costs and far-off long-term consequences beyond the scope of the now. How long until our politicians realise this and start campaigning this way? I think they’ve already noticed and it has already begun but take a look at how they behave and decide for yourself!
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