So this thought came to me after reading 09philj's post regarding the UK elections. In that post, there's a link where you can answer question regarding your feeling on certain topics and how important they are to you. At the end, it gives you which political partie(s) most line up with your preferences.
And this got me thinking.
What if this sort of survey/poll/thingy was just the way elections were held? You went to the polling booth, filled in your preferences for certain issues and how important they are for you, and then your vote is cast based on those answers. So you're not voting based on a person or a party - you're voting based on your individual preferences.
So my question is: would this sort of system of voting be an improvement? I do see some upsides to this: uninformed people could still vote for someone who would represent their interests, political parties would have to become more transparent to meet the demands of this system, and this would likely have a huge positive impact on how campaigns are run in general.
The big downside I see, though, is the worry that you're not really voting any more. You're answering questions and then a vote is cast on your behalf. Plus this system basically amounts to telling people: "Look, you're too stupid to know who to vote for, so here's a quiz to help!"
At any rate, this was just a passing thought. It's certainly not a well-developed or well-argued for position. I don't even know if it would work in the first place. Just wondering what you think about a change like this.
Well, I think it could be a part of the voting process, but not a wholly new voting process. Maybe it can be included as part of a test of sorts, which would help voters decide which parties to choose; I can see how it'll benefit independent voters who don't associate with any of the main parties for one reason or another.
I see a few possible downsides though. For one, when one is voting, I think an essential part of the process is that one looks as much at the boringly dry politics as well as the personalities and character of the people they are voting for. I think that's a crucial part of voting, and certainly almost as significant as knowing which party stands on which side for any given issue. Does one tend to flock to a personality that vouches for change and seems wholehearted about it? Would another person like to vote for a politician that projects an aura of calm and rock solid dependability during a time of crisis? I think that a quiz, whilst effective, could largely nullify making that choice. As mentioned already by yourself, it would cause the voting to seem much less personal, which I think can be fatally detrimental to any democratic system, in that it doesn't instill trust in politicians themselves?
Another hindrance to me would be that political parties tend to be split into multiple factions, and that could mean that any quiz isn't as believable as it should be. Good old Boris from London wants to see cannabis legalised, but that doesn't mean the rest of the Conservatives want it that way! Or in the United States, states, even when represented by the same party, could very well be divided by the issue of fossil fuel usage, simply because some states produce coal/oil as a large part of their exports. Internal conflicts in political parties could very well mean that parties themselves aren't always entirely clear on their stances. Maybe that's why it seems politicians can never keep to their election promises and honeyed words? Haha.
Nevertheless, I think it could be a way forward for democracies and their electorates to grow, not least because it forces the voters to actively educate themselves in politics. I think a lack of political education has always been a distressing conundrum for the growth and preservation of democracy. If we want to be voters, we need to at least be responsible and informed ones!
What if the associated candidate for your riding is someone you know to be an incompetent or otherwise ill-chosen legislator? As far as the sorting algorithm is concerned, this is the person you want to vote for, even if an opponent could do better.
What if the party that has favourable standing on most issues you're concerned with also has extremist policies or extremely poor judgement on another issue that is equally or more important? If equal weight is given to all criteria, you'd still be voting for them.
What if one or more parties fail to express any clear political standing? A carefully phrased if-by-whiskey platform could be designed to subsume a majority of votes, simply because it claims to be on every side of every issue.
The big downside I see, though, is the worry that you're not really voting any more. You're answering questions and then a vote is cast on your behalf.
With the way the U.S. electoral college works that's not actually a huge change. It would alter voting on state levels but people usually just vote for their party or vote against someone they don't like anyway.
"Look, you're too stupid to know who to vote for, so here's a quiz to help!"
Risk of being assaulted or not, I'd like to put this on a shirt and walk around saying "Yes you are. And so are you. And you." There should be a minimum IQ for voting or some other base requirement. I'd settle for the old fashioned 'must own land to vote' standard.
The biggest issue I see with this is the fact that just because someone associates with a political party doesn't mean they represent that party. There would almost certainly have to be some kind of regulatory organization to check politicians' histories so that people can vote for someone who would actually represent their interests instead of just voting for a party and getting stuck with whoever is running and associated with that party. That, however, would put up huge barriers for people trying to get a job in politics with no history in the field. It would also give a single organization obscene amounts of control over who gets elected.
Risk of being assaulted or not, I'd like to put this on a shirt and walk around saying "Yes you are. And so are you. And you." There should be a minimum IQ for voting
I'm no idiot, and I'd much rather take a fifteen minute survey than several hours trawling through the jargon and bumph that makes up a typical manifesto.
I won't make any difference because in the end, the candidates don't care about the people who elected them, they're willing to prostitute themselves and spit on the Constitution to please the crooked and unpatriotic corporations who buy them to protect their criminal activities.
In my opinion, when people vote, we don't just vote to solve our problems, we vote for someone who will have the power to create problems. We vote for someone who we think we can trust to uphold justice and the full responsibility of keeping the country together. So, I think this way voting wouldn't be such a good idea because we wouldn't know where our votes would go because they were based on the answers to their surveys. We basically blindingly vote for someone based on the situation at hand, and not based on what we see of that person. (Doesn't that seem a bit off?)
usually when given a sliding scale to work from people will tend to vote one extreme or the other, even if that isn't their real position on the matter. People might be inclined to do this as an attempt to skew the results in certain directions.
How can you deal with corrupted weasels such as prostitute Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) who was paid $25,000 by AT&T, $20,000 by Comcast, and $15,000 by Verizon to kill the new Net Neutrality rule.
In order to get rid of criminals like her, something drastic needs to happen and no matter what voting system we use, parasites like her needs NOT to be re-elected for it to actually work!.
How about a public referendum on every important decisions? Check this out!
It's starting to look like the public had a huge saying in this so why not do it all the time to prevent criminals in Congress from passing shady bills?
Referendums are mostly held for topics of significant divide and importance, especially concerning a country's sovereignty. I feel that referendums can definitely add to the political process, because it further empowers the people and acts as a counterbalance to unpopular bills. Now there's only the slightly stick question of further defining the "importance" of an issue beyond the criteria we have now, lest the system is flooded with mundane ones.....
The US doesn't have federal level referendums. Interesting, didn't know that.
The simple solution would be to keep what's already in place in the US but mandate that 95% of the member of the Senate and the House be present when voting to pass or reject a bill. This would prevent passing crooked bills on the side. Congressmen should be paid only when they show up to work to prevent abuses. If they are to often absent, they lose their job, just like the rest of us.
