Captain GetUp is Coming for Your Democracy Sausage

I have done the pre-poll - it was quick and easy with was able to fully enjoy under the line of voting (yes, Anning's Nazis were marked dead last), albeit sausage-less.

I've pre-polled in the past and gone to get a sausage on the day without queuing, good stuff

Guys, you can cook food at home.

I had completely missed out on the naked nazi until today.

which liberal party member was naked? i’m not keeping up

This guy (one nation candidate in wa)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tkgcrpxp4i9567t/File%209-5-19%2C%2020%2030%2035.jpeg?raw=1

Liberals are busy saying rapists are the real victims.

In general all parties seem to have been picking some fucking ghouls to stand as candidates.

AgkwDKhZqVaEbWfSlvX-u-Gm-f6Vl3xgb8U26wpH0sdSYop9XVeQuocE3MdEQloScva3yypZ76lcLohzs10amwEORJ-UKUkm2ebW5HgolpMWiQ/file# ?

oh hey, that image shows in Zing!

My area is all Greens signs, all the time (obv). Bit tiresome tbrh.

a million times better than the batshit tory posters saturating my area

Learned that in my electorate we have NO Nazis standing, aside from the Liberal stooge, and despite being in SA, not even a Bernardi shitbag candidate. Even the one independent seems sane and decent. Weird.

Cooper seems to have gone back to being a safe seat after the green by-election debacle last year. Our shitbags are limited to UAP and Liberals with a possible shitbag independent who doesn't seem to have registered her 'Voter's Right Party' in time for the election.

It seems like months since I voted. Though the AEC dude probed more deeply than usual re eligibility for pre-poll voting. Had a little laminated checklist of criteria, something I've not seen whipped out in the past.

With about a quarter of a million votes submitted on each of the last few days, I do wonder how many would bother to queue up on election day proper if we didn't have to (pretend to) have a reason for voting early.

Pre-polling is growing, but more than anything, it's easy for people to remember to vote on voting day. Also, Australia's high-ish proportion of swing voters mean that ppl are paying attention during the campaign and making their decisions up until election day.

My electorate (Australia's smallest!) is as solidly rusted-on Labor as it gets thanks to DJ Ablo, so there's room for a range of kooks: this time we have a Liberal candidate who's a rugby-playing Federal cop and gym instructor, likely to come third behind the Greens firefighter; a Palmer candidate whose previous political experience is running the P&C at this school; a lawyer from the fruit-loops-with-lots-of-good-policies-actually Science Party*; and the Nile mob are running a Chinese pastor who lives in and campaigned in John Howard's electorate as recently as the December 2017 byelection. CDP got 1.2% last time, which I wouldn't expect to increase.



* since the last election, the previous Science Party candidate has spent months in court battles with the State government over implanting a travelcard chip in his hand, and thus not being able to produce the physical card to ticket inspectors.

I hadn't given most of my lower house minor candidates (Palmer; Rise Up Aust; Animal Justice) a lot of thought before voting, to be honest. Redistribution has actually made the seat ever so faintly marginal, which is novel. But the Lib candidate was one of those disendorsed racists, such that the incumbent, a certain former attorney-general, will be surely be returned. (My $2.75 of electoral funding went to the Greens; they'll not get much over 10% here, but I can't bring myself to give the incumbent first preference.)

there's room for a range of kooks:

Although only six candidates total this time, vs 11 in 2016. Folks caught double dissolution fever!

Good reference for the microparties in the Senate: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/10/australian-election-2019-full-list-of-micro-parties-standing-in-the-senate

Word on the street is that Lab/LNP will now seek to reduce the pre-poll period somewhat urgently.

As of COB Friday approximately 1.93m people had cast their vote at an early voting centre for the 2019 federal election. Around 286k voted yesterday. #ausvotes #auspol

— AEC (@AusElectoralCom) May 10, 2019

This compares to almost 1.1m prepolled at the same stage of the 2016 federal election #ausvotes #auspol

— AEC (@AusElectoralCom) May 10, 2019

What street? (I’m genuinely curious for a supposed rationale behind such a move - to stop ppl from voting for racist nutbags before the press manages to get them disqualified?)

Just comments in all sorts of places--I claim no inside knowledge. :) I think it's mostly that the larger parties have traditionally ramped things up to some big announcements (or dirt-bombs) in the final days of the campaign. When, as you said above, a greater number of people are traditionally paying attention. They get way less bang for their buck when 30? 40? percent of the electorate have already voted weeks earlier. They're already dragging official campaign launches forward with this in mind. And I seem to recall a joint committee recommended reducing the window from three to two weeks after previous elections.

Well, that's handy. Seems Bernard Keane addressed this at some length last week:

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/comment-swing-towards-voting-early-has-left-the-governing-elite-fuming/ar-AAAMHhy?li=AAgfLCP&%252525252525253Bocid=SL5MDHP

Australians demonstrate their disengagement and alienation from the system in other ways, too. The level of support for minor parties and independents, as everyone knows, has hit record highs, with nearly a quarter of voters opting to support someone other than a major party candidate in 2016.

surely the latter is evidence against the former assertion, not for

Innit. He also seems to contradict himself by suggesting early voters are both (i) disengaged AND (ii) "daring to demonstrate agency, rather than act as passive recipients of manipulation." Oh well.

The whole commentariat seems hard-wired to view a drop in enthusiasm for The Labor Vs Coalition Show as an actual problem for democracy, rather than for those parties alone. The ongoing use of phrases like "both sides of politics" and the readiness to characterise support for other candidates as mere "protest vote" are further symptoms, methinks.

i’ve been totally incapable of engaging at all in this election campaign, apart from screaming “FUCK THE FUCK OFF” at every blue poster (and there are A LOT of blue posters jesus christ)

i did wonder how thy would campaign after six years of total fucking misery, the answer seems to be “blatantly and copiously lying”

the Liberal party campaigning in a federal election by.......... lying?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikinews/en/thumb/d/d9/Childrenoverboardboat.jpg/350px-Childrenoverboardboat.jpg

idk i have a memory of them rolling out a through line of “we will do this” or “we have done this”, but this year every single thing they’re saying is a lie, including but not limited to “labor’s retiree tax” and “we have already restored the budget to surplus next year”

“We passed a $100 million environmental protection bill just last week. You wouldn’t know it, it goes to a different Hansard”

in the same imaginary parallel universe as their environment minister

Are you... actually screaming fuck off at inanimate objects in the street? That kind of thing can get the attention of a CAT team if yr not careful ;P

irl very much in character with posts

yes

trayce: tbh i think people agree with me

my ballot arrived and I am hyperstoked

Apparently pre-poll votes have now passed 20% of total enrolled voters. (Yes, I am apparently obsessed with this matter.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bleyX4oMCgM

I'm actually pleased cos now maybe voting on satdee will be quick!

(it usually is anyway tbh you just have to time it right - not first thing or lunchtime, elevenses usually does it)

we have 31 senate parties in macnamara

parties

31

I made it to 29 out of 105 below the line in the Senate before it turned into nothing but anti-vaxxers, close-our-borders, and Tax Other People Not Me fringe parties. Still I had to push on, as Fred & Elaine Nile's daughter is running, and I've put a Nile last on every Senate ballot they've run on in the last quarter-century.

yeah i did the test ballot today and it was properly a tornado of fuckheads with innocuous names. at least 14 of the 31 are batshit insane.

incredible that hawke’s death news hadn’t been out there half an hour when tony abbott reminded the country what a total fucking shit sandwich he is. i really hope that grips the news cycle tomorrow because that fucking clown needs to go down and take the entire party with him.

people loved Hawkey (be it for the good bloke he was or reminder of simpler times, etc.) so I wouldn’t be surprised if a) the non-Murdoch media really runs with it and b) it pisses people off

anyway looking forward to seeing Toney look/act totally weird when he loses his seat

The grunt at the end really says it all

"Tony, we know exactly what you're going through ... they did the same to Jesus." - talkback caller Heather to former PM Tony Abbott on 2GB this morning 😳#mustlisten #auspol pic.twitter.com/i5GPNyCdXs

— Roje Adaimy (@rojeadaimy) May 16, 2019

I happily let my senate ballot exhaust under the amended rules, so just ignore the nutjobs altogether.

Anyway, the day is here and I'm a bit excited. (It's possible I enjoy elections a bit too much, given the typical outcomes.)

Good luck aus

Hopefully my last election without a ballot, although scomo and Dutton have done their level best to wreck the department of immigration, so citizenship processing times are crazy long right now.

If I were to get a vote first preference would go to the Victorian socialists as the only party really trying in Cooper, plus they seem to be out their trying to organise call centre workers so they deserve $2.75 for that.

Getup messaged me this morning recommending I voted Hinch, Greens or Labour in the Senate. I keep looking for the major flaws in Hynch, but his lefty populism seems quite genuine and it if means you don’t have to preference a ghoul, a fash or a loon then so much the better.

Eh.. hes too much of a vigilante mob justice person.

I was in and out in under 10 mins at my local skool, there were more people trying to buy vegan democracy sausgaes (lol brunswick) than voting by a wide margin, but thats why I went at elevenses.

dinner and wine lined up with some good friends and i’ll be honest i’m a bit scared

like ed, i can’t vote but hopefully will be able to next time (have a very long wait in the immi queue to go yet) and i’m feeling quite nervous but hopeful. i still feel guaranteed glee whenever i recall john howard losing his seat and am really hoping zali steggall will win today and double that banked joy.

We have fancy dinner in Carlton to celebrate being together for 12 years. We may have something like a result by the time that is over.