NationStates Jolt Archive


Election, where?

Bahgum
02-05-2005, 12:03
Having the dubious fun of sitting through a RT election, I have noticed that this time around the election is drvien by narrowly targetting a few people and that the majority could almost not know the election is taking place. Compared to previous elections, there are hardly any window stickers/bumper stickers/billboards/candidates door knocking activities, it all seems to be personalised letters to a few folk (my missus for example) and bland debates on issues affecting swing voters on TV.
Perhaps i'm jealous at not getting any mail, or maybe it's the recognition for swingers? Who knows? But I thought that there was a different angle for a UN debate here.........so here is the proposal (finally).....

Election, where?
A resolution to increase democratic freedoms.


Category: The Furtherment of Democracy
Strength: Mild
Proposed by: Bahgum

Description: Often nations debate the furthering of democracy in less advanced parts of the world and in those parts with alternative government. However, it is increasingly apparent that in advanced deomocracies that things sometimes need to be put back on track.

This proposal aims to tackle one of the more obvious faults of electioneering, that of the obsession with 'swing voters'.

The problem: to the majority of populations, they can be forgiven for thinking that a national election is not too important as almost all of the parties attention is focussed on a minority of undecided voters.

Why an issue?: This leads to parties having much the same issues and views, and can cause them to forget that being in government is for the good of the country, not the party and swing voters. Voter apathy by non swing voters is another concern.

The proposed change: Focus groups, computer targetting of swing voters and targetted mail and phone calls to individuals should be banned as a perversion of democracy.
National elections should not be conducted by chasing individuals, but should be conducted via means that target the masses i.e. by TV, Newspapers, advertising boards, party visits to towns etc.

By following the ethos of "talking to the nation", the outcome should be elections of interest to the nation, not small subgroups, with parties focussing on the nations needs, not selfishly chasing a few people in certain towns.
_Myopia_
02-05-2005, 12:16
The cause of this focus is the first-past-the-post system that many nations insist on using. It pushes voters and parties closer and closer to the centre in the hopes of gaining any power, and forces campaigns to focus only geographical areas where the outcome is not already certain. OOC: In the UK, for instance, 425 of the 659 seats are already pretty much guaranteed, and in a further 54 seats you'd need a swing of at least 7% to dislodge the current MP - leaving 180 seats with a good chance of changing the vote. All in all, it amounts to just 800,000 people (2% of the electorate) having real power to choose the government.
The Lynx Alliance
02-05-2005, 12:47
we have the Preferentual(sp) system here in TLA. we believe it is better, because even if the one you want hasnt got much of a chance, you can still vote towards someone who is preferable and has a chance. OOC: this is the system that exists in Australia atm
Tekania
02-05-2005, 14:43
We avoid this problem with a double "house" system of legislature... Much like normative democratic republics...

The first (The Senate) is composed of 2 repesentative senators from each "Dominion" of this republic, whereby all Dominion have equal representation.

The second (The House of Delegates) is composed of 1 representative delegate for every 30,000 persons. Each Dominion is divided into "districts" composed of approximate populations of 30,000 persons (each dominion has no fewer than 2 seats in the House of Delegates)... Whereby involvement and power of a dominion is determinate on population.

We find this system most ballanced.
Yuunli
02-05-2005, 15:38
Yuunli has a different system: The seats in parliament are determined by proportion vote. If a party gets 39% of the votes, it will get about forty percent of the seats. No people are elected into the legislature.

To create a certain balance of power between big and small provinces, each province has a representative in parliament. The majority of these representatives can block bills.

Imagine there are two major parties: A in 3 provinces that combine 60% of the population, B in the remaining 7 provinces. A has a majority of 60% in parliament. But B has 70% of the provincial representatives, so they can block A's bills.
The Most Glorious Hack
03-05-2005, 05:16
Meh. Another real world inspired Proposal to flog a particular horse with certain specifics stripped to keep it legal.

Not a big fan, personally.