Is anyone still voting?
Shock, horror. People are refusing to vote. With only ten days left for voting, not even 5% of Wellingtonians have voted in the local body elections, Radio NZ reports. How can that be? asks the inquisitive reporter and seeks answers from an academic instead of looking at the voting papers themselves, because that is what they learnt to do at journalism school. And the academic from AUT comes up with some excuses – the Queen’s death has confused people to a degree that they forget what a Mayor is and the long weekend has disrupted people’s routine. Local body politicians continue the series: people forget to empty their letter boxes or there aren’t enough post boxes to put the completed voting papers in. Or it is the fault of the people who do vote. That particular argument goes something like this: the voters are mostly older people who are homeowners, therefore candidates pitch their campaign at older homeowners, therefore young people feel there is nothing for them, therefore they