ACT Labor cull two election candidates

Actually Aurelius @ #13, I think I would suggest that someone was not properly informed about the ACT electoral system. There are two very important difference with Tasmania. One, only the ACT has these extra rotations which means that if you stand more candidates than vacancies, your ticket gets randomly split by the Electoral Commission. In Tasmania you can stand as many candidates as you like and they will all appear in the same group. Second, in Tasmania, a formal vote requires there to be as many preferences as there are vacancies to fill. In the ACT, only one preference is required though the ballot paper instructions do encourage more preferences.

Mælinar said :

@peterh – politics are exempt from the DNK register.

maybe they missed me.
oh god, may they miss me.
or call when I am doing a bath run for the kids – I won’t answer the phone then…

The Canberra Times has a bit more detail here:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/labor-loses-two-poll-hopefuls/811751.aspx
Quite understandable given that Pascal would want to take time to help his partner with their new born twins.

Aurelius said :

My understanding is that one reason for having additional candidates is to cope with this situation – if you have 20 candidates, there’s every chance that one or more may become unavailable, unsuitable, or otherwise unable to complete the process.

I see where you are coming from but that will not work in the ACT where doing well at the polls is based on profile and name recognition… normally if a candidate were to drop out during an election race a party would simply back fill the vacancy with another candidate. That is what the whole point of having the “traditional” pre-selection process – the party ranks potential candidates and puts the top individual(s) forward. Why would you go to the expense and simply waste resources on the raising the profile of candidates you may never use?

However that being said it appears that the Community Alliance seem to be taking a very different approach to running their campaign and raising candidate profiles. Ric Hingee who is the president of the Community Alliance Party (and has said numerous times on the record that he is not running as a candidate) seems to be hell bent on raising his own profile and meddling with the campaign process at the expense of his own people:

The City News ran what would have otherwise been a solid piece on Norvan Vogt (Molonglo) had Mr. Hingee not interfered:

http://www.citynews.com.au/index.php/content/article/vogt_puts_pigeon_among_cats/
“…Not that Vogt’s going that far, but when quizzed on the leadership issue and the rumours of rumblings within the Alliance, a wry, occasionally worried, smile creeps across his face. The rumours say there’s friction between Vogt and party president (not standing at the election) Ric Hingee. Since the interview Mr Hingee has written to “CityNews” to say that he understood there were “strange” questions being asked of Norvan about “schisms in the party or the executive or something. I don’t know what that might be about, but our exec is working just fine”. Vogt was not quite so adamant: “I won’t pretend that it’s not difficult (the internal workings of the CAP) because it is, to be honest. It’s like herding cats!…”

Don’t get me wrong … having his own party president creating “media issues” and thus undermining the good work that Norvan was otherwise doing must be soul destroying.

@peterh – politics are exempt from the DNK register.

Mælinar said :

I was tele-polled regarding local politics recently,

I really love the DO NOT CALL REGISTER!!

Goodusername = Labor Lackey! 😉

I was tele-polled regarding local politics recently, hopefully I added my own 2c to the equation with the answer ‘who?’.

Although that Pascal name rings a bell, was that the one who looks quite nice in a yellow leatherette top from a while ago ?

My understanding is that one reason for having additional candidates is to cope with this situation – if you have 20 candidates, there’s every chance that one or more may become unavailable, unsuitable, or otherwise unable to complete the process.
I think the speculation that the excess candidates is part of a failed experiment is a little skewed – does anyone here really think the Labor Party are that uninformed about the electoral system we have here? Especially considering a similar system has operated in Tasmania for decades?

Hmmmm….goodusername needs to take some happy pills.

I can’t see anything that wrong with JR’s comments.

Shame about Pascal Leahy as he seems like a decent guy. I met him a few times when he ran out in Brindabella last election.

I heard they pulled out for “family reasons”.

Wow, and on the same day – I didn’t know they were related…!