[SGE 2011] Rejected votes: A basic analysis.

Sun, 8 May 2011
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Your vote is your voice: Be heard.

Thought I’d just take a basic/preliminary look at the rejected votes in this year’s General Elections because it’s something I’m curious about.

Based on data provided by ChannelNewsAsia:

  • Total percentage of rejected votes as a proportion of votes cast: 2%
  • Constituencies with lowest percentage of rejected votes:
    • Hougang: 1.13%
    • Aljunied: 1.34%
  • Constituency with highest percentage of rejected votes: Ang Mo Kio (3.01%)
  • Proportion of constituencies with rejected votes > national average of rejected votes: 16/26

What are some possible conclusions we can draw from this?

  • Perhaps voters in Hougang and Aljunied took voting the most seriously because:
    • These constituencies were the most hotly contested,
    • These constituencies were contested by the Workers’ Party (reinforced by the fact that all except one of the constituencies contested by the Workers’ Party had <2% of votes rejected).
  • Rejected votes in Ang Mo Kio: small proportion of voters who feel they don’t really have a choice, or perhaps are really clueless about how to vote.
  • If it’s the latter, then we can tackle this problem in relation to the fourth statistic I found:
    • Perhaps we need to be teaching our fellow citizens how to vote over the course of five years, instead of only doing so during the elections.
    • There also needs to be instructions at polling booths, because the rejected votes make a mockery of the voting process.

This is a basic analysis of the data, so I welcome more scrutiny/thoughts on the subject.

What’s so significant about having a place to stand?

Sun, 9 Jan 2011
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This is a question from Formspring that deserves a blog post to itself, much like the one about the point of learning literature.

For context, I often use the line “All I need is a place to stand” in the About Me portions of my social networking pages.

The question of “What’s so significant about having a place to stand?” comes from a student who wants to know why I place so much importance on the above-mentioned phrase.

Before I explain, though, I’d like all of you to read the following pages before coming back here:

Now, Archimedes was a mathematician who is believed to have said, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth”.

This is with reference to the law of the lever, where one can use a small effort to move a great load, so long as the distance between the effort and the fulcrum is sufficiently longer than that between the load and the fulcrum.

However, we can also interpret “move” as a metaphor to mean ‘affect in an inspirational manner’ – something which Archimedes’s findings have done for the world.

Therefore, I am leveraging on (pun intended) Archimedes’s metaphor to explain my own ambitions in life; ideally, I’d like to do what Archimedes has done and change the world with a small idea one day.

Before I can do that, however, I need to find a niche or an area in which I can make a difference. Once I find this niche/area, I know I’ll be good to go.

Hence, “[a]ll I need is a place to stand”.

TL;DR: Don’t be a lazy shit – just read the damn post.

Everything is text.

Mon, 10 May 2010
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Everything is text.

So I’m filing medical certificates and letters from parents, and I come across a document which a student passed to me some time back as proof of her/his absence from school.

This document is an important one; it marks a point in the life of someone the student knew.

I hold the document up to the light, to differentiate between fine print and photocopied smudges.

I read the document, and then I read the document again.

I do some calculations, then it hits me: said student’s life story is contained within the digits that have been inked on the document.

I wonder what the limits of professionalism will allow me to ask said student.

I remember that it is not within the limits of the job to wonder.

The document returns home, slipping into its plastic folder like a late night out at the clubs.

The folder, like its compatriots, is crinkled. Each bears its owner’s name, scribbled with a marker on a white sticker, pasted on the top right-hand corner of each clear sheet.

I carry on sorting the stack of papers that sit on my desk, sheaf after sheaf a demonstration of  presence, of absence, slotted into its assigned vault.

The bell is going to go in a few minutes. There is marking to be done when I go home from work. There will be papers looking for lodging tomorrow.