The campaigns are in full swing now. I had figured that we wouldn’t be allowed to vote since we aren’t citizens, but it turns out that if you’re a permanent resident (ie your visa doesn’t expire) the main restriction is that you have to have lived in the country for at least one year continuously, which we have now. And in fact, if you’re eligible to vote, you’re required by law to register.
So far the election has been pretty different than US elections, as I mentioned a few posts ago. Now that we’re only about a week away there are many more yard signs (but big ones, not the flimsy little ones they do in the States) and there are TV ads too. But they’re all uplifting-type ads, none of the negative muck-raking you’re bombarded with in the US. No bumper stickers though and I think I could count on one hand the number of mailings we’ve received. There are plenty of websites and such where you can compare the different party’s policies or even take a little survey to show you which ones line up with you best. That’s probably the hardest bit for us since we’re new to it and there are so many different parties to compare.
We’ve found the the back and forths in interviews with the politicians to be a lot less, I guess polite? would be the word? The journalists seems a lot less afraid to ask hard questions and then call them out when they don’t get answer. And the politicians seem a lot less afraid to go after the journalists as well . This morning we were listening to an interview where the party leader called the journo a “self appointed genius” among other things. Not to say that there aren’t aggressive journalists and politicians that push back in the US too, because there certainly are, but to me, it seems simultaneously more pointed but less mean here if that makes sense. Like it’s less for show.
As far as voting goes, it’s also quite different. They seem to do whatever they can to make it easy to vote. For one thing, election day is on a saturday, which is nice. I registered by mail, but since Kelly has had to get an identity verification for her job she was able to do it online. We just received our early vote card in the mail, so all we have to do is “go up to a person issuing voting papers. Give them your early vote card and tell them your name. They’ll give you your voting paper.” There are plenty of voting places on election day, and early voting places are located in the local mall and in the airport departure lounge among other places.
So that’s how it looks one week out from the election. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes!
Kiwi Bound 