Democracy. That's Kind of Important, Right?

The voting booth at Victoria University is being burnt, bombed and destroyed before the upcoming Local Body Elections1.

The City Council Electoral office has confirmed that there will be no voting drop off boxes provided at the University. However a special voting facility will be available on Wednesday 25 September from 9.30am to 3pm.

Why? Because a complaint was received, apparently (considering his statement linked to below) from Mayoral candidate John Morrison. His reasoning: the group that is one of the least likely to vote, young people, shouldn't have access to convenient voting because that would be unfair2. Democracy: where we don't make voting easier for all, we penalize people by removing voting booths. Oh, the sounds of ironic laughter. Mature students also seem to no longer exist, good to know.

Why should this be picked up by the mainstream media? Because it sets up a creepy precedent, and a campaign that of late has been aggressively used by the Republican Party in manipulating where and when people can vote as to try and influence the outcome. North Carolina Republicans have also been shutting down student voting on campus because of the supposed belief that the student vote is also going to be a predominately left-wing vote3.

Rachel Maddow has also been following the story on the targeting of campus voting in America. One of the reports can be here: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/52823962. Also downloadable through iTunes and I highly recommend it.

So come on media, I've been told that voting is important. Prove it is by shining a light on what is a terrible precedent that should be halted before general elections are sullied as well.

1. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153223878420344&l=5019337773
2. http://www.mm-research.com/Young+People%27s+Participation+in+the+Voting+Process
3. http://www.thenation.com/blog/175837/north-carolina-republicans-escalate-attack-student-voting#