From: dac@prolix.apana.org.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: What is three feet wide and one foot tall?
Date: 8 Nov 92 13:47:07 GMT
Organization: More like Dis~, really.
X-Newsreader: Arn V1.00 beta rel2

Pre-emptivePeeve: Elections. Anytime, anywhere.

In article <1992Nov6.161148.28433@merlin.comlab.ox.ac.uk>, Gordon Riddell writes:

> geoffm@purplehaze.Corp.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller) writes:
> >You know, I keep hearing about these machines, and I see the phrase "pull
> >the lever" used quite often in connection with voting (but not nearly often

> I've followed these accounts of these weird and wonderful contraptions which
> aid Yoosans to vote and find myself totally overwhelmed with admiration.
> 
> Back in Scotland the most difficult choice I ever faced was put an X at
> one out of four (with a pencil tied to the table).
> Here in England it got better, for one Parish election, I was presented
> with a list of nineteen and up to 12 Xs to use. It took from 11pm to 330am
> to count those!

At the inaugural Australian Capital Territory elections, there
were something like a hundred and seventeen different registered
political parties, including 'No Self Government', and 'Abolish
Self Government', with several other whacked out names, such as
the 'Party Party Party Party', and the all time favourite 'Sun
Ripened Warm Tomato Party'.  I am NOT joking.

The ballot was in modified d'hondt format, and the ballot paper
was one metre [that's just over three feet, for our ignorant
American friends {This included you, Jenny}] wide, and about a
third of a metre tall.  There were a total of seventeen seats in
the offing.

The ACT has a population of around 300,000 people, with about
125,000 eligible to vote, in two electoral zones.  It took the
Australian Electoral Commission -three months- to decide the
outcome of the election!  [The commission normally works out
preliminary national results in an evening, with final results in
a week or so]

The result was unimportant anyway.  Except that someone from the
'Abolish Self Government' party was elected [a supremely silly
person by the name of Dennis Stevenson], as well as someone from
the No Self Government party. Needless to say the people from the
two 'get rid of self government' parties hated each other's
platforms.  They didn't manage to do diddly squat except for
temporarily removing the flouride from the ACT's water supply.

The second election came and went some months ago. The ballot
paper was very moderately sized, and only a few weird political
parties were represented, since they modified the rules and
stated that to be able to be elected, you had to be a member of a
political party with at least 100 official members, and you
no longer got back the $200 electoral fee, no matter what
percentage of the vote you pulled in [you used to get your money
back if you got more than 5% of the votes in your electorate].

The surprise result was the the incredibly stupid people of
Canberra voted Dennis Stevenson [Abolish Self Government] in for
a second term. Sigh.

Prior to 1990, the ACT was a territory, governed by the federal
government of the day. This worked alright, for the most part,
excepting that the people of the ACT got no choice in how the
city was run. There were two referendums on whether or not the
citizens of the ACT wanted a government of their own, and
resoundingly [75%+ in both cases] the answer was NO!

We still got it. Thanks Mr Federal Government.

Politics. Who needs it.

Dac
[I never said I would like to kill George Bush either]
--
dac@prolix.apana.org.au              David Andrew Clayton.           // _| _  _
dac@prolix.sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au      Canberra, Australia           \X/ (_](_](_