{"id":1045,"date":"2013-09-02T07:25:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T21:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/?p=1045"},"modified":"2013-09-02T17:18:24","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T07:18:24","slug":"above-the-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/2013\/09\/above-the-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Above The Line"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week we voted early in the Australian federal election.<\/p>\n<p>I am a firm believer in below-the-line voting, as it enables the voter to explicitly state their personal preferences on issues that matter to them.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for me, two things conspired against my plan:<br \/> 1. I had 6 min left on my parking, and<br \/> 2. The 2013 Victorian senate voting form has <strong><em>ninety-seven candidates<\/em><\/strong> listed.<\/p>\n<p>Now, my kids can count to 100 in less than six minutes, but I doubted I could evaluate whether the Motoring Enthusiasts party should be before the Internet Voting party or the Pirate party or the Stop CSG party. (I didn&#8217;t even know what CSG is! \u00a0It&#8217;s Coal Seam Gas mining.)<\/p>\n<p>So, for the first time in my life, I voted above the line.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not proud of it, but hope you can forgive me when you see <a href=\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=10151881262725229&amp;id=662005228&amp;set=a.26653920228.48786.662005228&amp;source=42&amp;ref=bookmark&amp;__user=662005228\">just how big<\/a> the thing is!<\/p>\n<p>[Update:] After writing this post, I was pointed to a brilliant online tool that lets you <a href=\"http:\/\/belowtheline.org.au\/\">practice voting online<\/a>. Then, when you&#8217;re happy with your ballot, you can print it out and bring it to the polling place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week we voted early in the Australian federal election. I am a firm believer in below-the-line voting, as it enables the voter to explicitly state their personal preferences on issues that matter to them. Unfortunately for me, two things conspired against my plan: 1. I had 6 min left on my parking, and 2.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/2013\/09\/above-the-line\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Above The Line<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1RxuW-gR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1053,"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gearfamily.net\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}