We did early voting over the weekend and we were surprised that the Electoral Commission had expanded the voting areas to supermarkets, churches, clubs, community and park centres.
I mean how cool is that? Buy your weekend staples (and wince at the prices), and then cast your vote after checking out. Zero anxiety and fear over your voting rights being curtailed, hijacked, bought, suppressed or worse, violently taken from you is a basic right that every decent human being should have.
When I would tell stories to people about elections in the Philippines, they think I’m making it up.
We cast ours at the local St. Luke’s Anglican church and it took all of 10 minutes; an election staffer checks you on the rolls and verifies that you’re good to vote, then hands you the voting paper. For this year’s general election, you only needed to make two checkmarks, one for your preferred local MP and the other one for your preferred party.
It was a crisp spring day, not too cold, not too hot. A super-rugby match was happening later in the evening and the Tongan and Samoan fans were out in full force, their cars festooned with their respective flags which created a festive vibe not really typical of a chill and quiet Kiwi weekend. It didn’t feel at all that something so serious such as an election had started- should it though?
In New Zealand, strict campaign rules makes sure that the elections are not in your face. The Prime Minister has only two body-guards. The country ranks 4th in the Least Corrupt Countries in the World index. So go figure.
Sure, there are a lot of issues and a vote is not an immediate fix, but if you’re able to cast it without issue to start with, then the country you’re living in is doing pretty well than most. So let’s start with that.
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