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12:04 pm, June 17th, 2026 - 10 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, democratic participation, Donald Trump, election 2026, elections, greens, human rights, national, same old national, te pāti māori -
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A glaring similarity of views about the ability to vote recently struck me.
Currently in the United States of America the good people of California are in the process of completing their primary elections. I understand that the primary count is now concluded but checks are built in to make sure that all votes count and the result for the election, which happened on June 2, are due by June 24.
California historically has a very slow count. This is because the state wants to make sure that as all valid votes are counted.
But the right is upset. Because an initial good showing by Republican candidates has ebbed as more votes are counted. And Trump thinks this is evidence of a conspiracy.
From the Guardian:
Just days after the California primary, Trump began claiming without evidence that Democrats were cheating in the state’s election, and urging Americans to support the Save Act.
On Thursday, Trump wrote in a social media post: “The Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.” He repeated such claims before walking out of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Friday, and over the weekend.
Trump has a history of undermining election results that don’t go in his favor, most notably alleging that Democrats “stole” the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden. He has repeatedly opposed mail-in ballots, a voting method favored by Democrats in recent elections.
Over the weekend, Trump’s preferred LA mayoral candidate, [Spencer] Pratt, hinted at similar election conspiracy theories in a social media post, writing, “They’re not the only ones who know where to find votes” and suggesting that Raman’s lead in the race came from votes from the entirety of LA’s unhoused population.
Of course there is no actual evidence of fraud. And an attempt by a right wing think tank to establish the magnitude of electoral fraud in the US has shown that over an extended period of time an exceedingly limited number of fraudulent votes have been discovered and none of them affected election outcomes.
But Trump and the Republicans think that the vote should be faster so that the result is through quicker. For faster read disenfrachising poor and marginalised people so that Democratic Party support is reduced.
In 2020 he famously wanted to stop the count of votes as a late surge effectively removed him from office. And Republican attacks on the right to vote are numerous including a sustained attack on same day voter registration.
Sound familiar?
How about in Aotearoa where Christopher Luxon and the National-Act-NZ First Government thinks that our election vote count takes far too long and needs to be done more quickly.
After the 2023 election result he expressed incredible frustration that the count had taken so long. He could not understand why it took so long, even though it always taking some time to make sure that all votes are valid and all votes are counted.
And of course he was not affected in the slightest that after the counting of special votes National lost two seats, Te Pati Maori picked up two and the Green Party picked up one.
No siree, not in the slightest.
And the history of the change needs to be looked at.
National Act and NZ First members of the Justice Select Committee when considering the report report reviewing the 2023 election proposed that the cut off date should be the day before election day. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith described the proposal as practical but then went even further and made the period thirteen days.
And, shock horror, the change may not make the result come through more quickly. And this is coming from someone who knows what he is talking about, the Chief Electoral Officer. It will still take time to process the votes cast. Special votes will still be offered to people who in all likelihood will not be able to vote. But fewer votes will count.
The intent clearly is to skewer the result back to the right. Historically the counting of special votes has allowed for one seat to flip to the left. Last time it was three. This time National is taking steps to make sure this does not happen.
Don’t let them.
Make sure you and your whanau are enrolled to vote. You can do it online here or at your local post shop.
And make sure you vote to change this Government. Our future depends on it.
More, “The Alarming Echos between Trump's and Luxon's teams on elections ”.
Typical numskull stuff, an obsessive focus and insistence on results and outcomes without due process. Processes and procedures must be as short-fast as possible, as efficient-productive as possible, and [thus] as cheap-cost-effective as possible. Even when such results-outcomes are sub-optimal or plain wrong – no place for due diligence, that’s what litigation is for [HT to Paul Goldsmith].
One can see this in election results, legislation, teaching, healthcare, economy, social intervention, democracy & politics, in basically everything and everywhere. No wonder those same numskulls think that AI is the best thing since sliced bread.
What's so great about sliced bread?
Oxidises like crazy.
Our wise-women/Great-grandmothers, would shake their heads in disbelief and polite disgust.
Yes. A couple of things going on here, I think.
The first is a background where politics gets reduced into simply the most efficient delivery of outcomes. This is a politics eviscerated of content, because the whole substance of politics is a debate about what outcome gets delivered, and why that outcome is preferred over all other possible outcomes. In such a content-free politics, the 'right outcomes' are just assumed to be natural, desirable, inevitable and beyond debate. (In social science jargon, they are 'reified').
The second is a foreground of cynical manipulation of this background environment. In this case, an imagined efficiency (faster delivery of election outcomes) is quite easily assumed to be a higher good than long-standing democratic norms of inclusion. And the cynicism is because the claimed efficiency is a lie.
Well said.
The Coalition always seems to be in a rush, knocking over the any hurdles & obstacles along the individual race to get to the magical finish line asap, collect their trophy and rest on their laurels, I guess. It’s a highly individual pursuit, highly competitive, secretive, non-inclusive, and binary.
It's a conspiracy theory because we on the left can't admit that the poor are just to tired to give a rats ass about voting,
As such leave it to the last moment, at best, to getting around to enrolling and voting. Why you can't enroll on the day is DOGS BOLLOCKS FROM THE TORY @$%@&^!$&^W!^%!^$$#@W$!&%^$#%!$&$RW#!&^$#&^$&#^$!&^#$&!^#$^$#&^#$^&!$#&^$&^#%#&%^)^#^%#&)%)#%&##&%^#)(%^#)%&^#)&%#)&#&%#)%^)#%^#)#%)%&
Advertise to all about enroling and checking before 26th of October!!!
Help your local team by offering lifts to their nearest voting booth.
Write and complain to the Electoral Commission and to the Minister.
National also claim that late enrollment of voters is the main reason for the slow (in their opinion) count. I can say as a former election day poll worker it isn't the last minute enrollees that cause the problems, it is the people who move all the time and sometimes give incorrect details and addresses. It takes quite a bit of time to verify these but National don't mention that because their beef is that (anecdotally) most newly enrolled voters are young and don't vote for them.
It's just Luxon separating his political work from his Christian values, surely. No Jesus in the temple for him, just a ticket to lie and steal, very straightforward.