Duncan Garner: Why I refuse to vote in a general election
Duncan Garner says as long as he interviews politicians, he will stick with his self-imposed rule of not voting in a general election. Photo / Tony Nyberg
Opinion: I don’t vote. I never have.
Some people will scoff at my decision. Others will say, “But people die for the right to have their voices heard.” That’s all true, but my decision to abstain from voting isn’t flippant or one I took lightly.
Some elections appear more crucial than others, and in those instances, I have wrestled with myself, but today I remain dedicated to non-voting celibacy.
The upcoming October 14 election is crucial. Without sounding like a hypocritical prat, I urge everyone to enrol, vote and make it count. MMP elections are traditionally close.
Despite what appears to be a big gap between the two major parties, MMP has a way of making the contest much closer.
So, make sure you vote – and it’s the party vote that counts. The rest is just noise.
I’d really like to exercise my vote in this election, but I’m staying true to the 28-year-old pact I made with myself.
As long as I continue to interview politicians and have daily political opinions on my Duncan Garner, Editor-in-Chief podcast, then my self-imposed rules set in 1995 exist today.
I’m 49 and have been eligible to vote in every election since 1993. But I made this decision in 1995 after I was seconded to TVNZ’s One Network News Parliamentary Bureau as an intern, who would support senior political staff with their daily storytelling at 6pm.
That was the official job description. The unofficial but more honest approach was to be everywhere first, get the interviews before everyone else, stay in the loop, find good stories, get up earlier than your opponents, go to bed last and crush them in the hours in between.