You’ve decided you care and you’re ready to vote,
But the one you should vote for is stuck in your throat.
The blue one? The red one?
The purple? Green? Black one?
So many to pick from! You feel all confused.
But we’re here to answer, 'How on earth do I choose?'
(with thanks to Theodor Giesel/Dr Seuss)
none Photo: 123.rf
Bad poetry aside, deciding who to vote for can be overwhelming. While choosing the same as your parents or friends is a tempting option, they aren’t necessarily going to vote in your best interests.
But don’t chuck it in the ‘too hard basket’ just yet - because there are some tools to help you make a choice.
All the registered parties for the 2017 election can be found here.
There are the usual suspects like National and Labour, but also some you might not be familiar with, like the Ban 1080 Party and the NZ Outdoors Party.
The groups on this list are the ones that you can give your party vote to. You could go through all of their websites, reading all of their policies, to figure out who to pick - but there are a lot of them.
So there are also handy online tools to help you figure out which party you agree with the most.
Promises, promises
Before we get into that, though - a quick note on policies.
Policies are basically promises of what a party will do if they become the government.
You can pick who you will vote for based on policies alone but you should bear in mind that minor parties have a tougher time getting their policies from promise to reality (and to be cynical, they can promise a lot more because they’re less likely to be in a position to deliver).
It’s worth considering as well how the parties will deal with what is already in place and how much change you think they’ll actually be able to make (if that’s what you want).
Finally, the perfect policy will mean very little if it doesn’t have the right person behind it, so you’ll have to judge whether the candidates have what it takes to do what they’ll say.
Tools to help you decide
As promised, here are a few online tools to help you decide ( in no particular order):
These tools aren’t perfect so it’s not a bad idea to do as many as you can and compare your results across the board (kind of like RNZ’s Poll of Polls).
Or if that’s not your cup of tea you can also talk to the candidates. No, seriously - you can.
Your vote makes you a part of a huge panel of interviewers looking for the right person to hire for the job and candidates desperately need to get you on side (their contact details can be found through their parties’ websites).
They’re also doing their best to turn up at public places in the run up to the election, so keep an eye out for notices on their appearances.
Then of course there’s media coverage. Candidates are being followed around on their campaign trail as anyone swamped with 'Facebook is Live Now!' notifications will have noticed and journalists are providing their own analysis of the campaign.
Like the polls and the policy quizzes, consuming a variety of reports will give a much better idea of what’s going on and then you can draw your own intelligent conclusions on who is deserving of your vote.
If that isn’t enough, you could always invite them to your housewarming and get them to convince you first-hand. It worked for this Auckland couple. Only in New Zealand!
So, does this info float your boat?
Would you, could you, will you vote?
Then read this thing here that we wrote.
