Email to Chief Electoral Office

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jordan Carter <just.left@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 15, 2005 4:36 PM
Subject: Blogs on Election Day
To: chief.electoral.office@justice.govt.nz

Hi there

I write a blog (a weblog) whose major focus is debate on NZ politics.  http://jtc.blogs.com/ It is a private website, with a partisan position supporting the New Zealand Labour Party.

I believe there are provisions of the Electoral Act 1993 which may affect the blog on Saturday.

My understanding is that I cannot post any material on the site encouraging people to vote for any party or candidate, but that I do not have to remove any existing material which asks for a vote but was posted before midnight Friday.

Please confirm this interpretation or explain why it is incorrect.

Also, the blog like many allows for people to make comments on posts I have written and published. Such comments may be anonymous. They are not displayed on the front page of the blog; however the front page does show the name of the commenter and the title of the post they are commenting on.

It would be difficult (practically impossible) for me to change the settings of each post in order to ensure that no comments could be made.

Can I please seek your advice regarding how I should deal with this situation.

I intend to publish your response on my blog. If your response is not for publication please advise me of this, and I will not publish it.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,

Jordan Carter

Comments

[tim barclay]

I suppose the dear old soul has not thought about political blogs. Tricky question I know. But I would be inclined to let it pass providing there is no overt party political advertising material going up on the site.

[Jordan]

I hope that what they'll say is, no posts is fine, don't care about the comments.....

[Sean]

I'd prefer they allowed you to post whatever you want. Will be very interested in the response...

[Millsy]

I think the advent of the Internet has caught a lot of lawmakers napping.

Hopefully regardless of who wins on Sat, the law will be changed to take the Internet into account.

[Philip]

Section 197 of the Electoral Act is clear, and yes has caught up with the InterWeb:
www.legislation.govt.nz

Would certainly seem to catch new posts and new comments on Saturday.

Every person commits an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000 who at an election—
g)At any time on polling day before the close of the poll exhibits in or in view of any public place, or publishes, or distributes, or broadcasts,—
i)Any statement advising or intended or likely to influence any elector as to the candidate or party for whom the elector should or should not vote;

It is a defence to a prosecution for an offence against paragraph (g) of subsection (1) that relates to the publication on an Internet web site of a statement or other material specified in that paragraph, if the defendant proves that—
(a)the statement or material was placed on the web site before polling day; and
(b)the defendant did not operate or permit the operation of systems that cause the statement or material on the web site to be made available, on polling day, to persons other than persons who voluntarily access the web site; and
(c)the defendant did not, on polling day, distribute, broadcast, or exhibit in or in view of a public place, or publish, or at any time cause to be published, in an issue of a newspaper or magazine that is first issued on polling day any material promoting or advertising the web site.

[Greg Stephens]

screw that I ain't commenting on Saturday :-)

[Aaron Bhatnagar]

Jordan, good on you to clarify this position - the NZ blogosphere might owe you one!

[dave]

Jordan, as I posted on SH, I think you`d be wise to shut comments down from midnight Friday for the day.

Would you think it was OK for the Exclusive Brethren to send out anonymous pamphlets on polling day?
Perhaps anonymous comments fit into the same category...

[Craig Ranapia]

I guess the point is that if all us partisan blogger haven't convinced Swinging Reader X. over the last eight weeks, WTF are we going to say tomorrow that will made a difference? Pretty please with sprinkles on top? ;)

[Craig Hall]

If you want a Labour-led coalition government, vote for the National candidates in Epsom and Tauranga(!). Act and NZF represent (at this stage) 7-8% of the centre-right vote, so the elimination of those two parties will cripple National's ability to form a government.

If you like the policies (more or less) of the left-leaning parties, Progressive and Greens need your party vote more than Labour does, since a vote for Progressive could be the difference between one or two MPs, while a vote for the Greens could likewise add an extra MP to their ranks. As 0.7% of the party vote roughly equals one seat (after irrelevant party votes are removed), it's more likely to make a difference for the smaller parties than Labour.

[Tiberias]

I've heard it argued that Progressive is extremely unlikely to make it to 1.4 and therefore progressive voters should party vote Labour and let Jim Overhang in Wigram.

Lets check the polls...

Frogblog's running average for progressive in the polls is currently 0.7% - to me that means there's no way they're going to get to 1.4% since there's been no major events relating to Progressive in the news lately.

So they're correct. Even that 0.7% is "wasted" on the grounds that Jim's going to get the seat anyway, so basically no one should party vote prog (sorry Matt, but there's just no way you can make it).

Wigram voters get to double dip for the left and vote Anderton/Labour or Anderton/Green.

And for goodness sake yes, if you're in Epson or Tauranga candidate vote National, party vote left.

[Mark Bahnisch]

A trackback from the left of the Aussie blogosphere:

http://larvatusprodeo.redrag.net/2005/09/18/it-wasnt-blogs-wot-won-it/