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Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

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Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#101

Post by michaelt »

_ph_ wrote: post #33
bakuninsbart wrote: post #9

I hope not too many people base their voting decision on the amount of similarity they have in their answers with parties. The way questions are phrased do not always give parties a way to answer (Yes/No/Neutral) in the same way. As an example, 2 parties could both say No to a higher Co2-tax, but one of them does so because they claim climate change is a hoax, while the other one has a problem with it not being progr…

Another problem is, that currently most parties are claiming to care all about the climate and would immediately take steps to fight the climate change after the election. Just if two of those parties have been in power for the last 8 years, you might want to weight their statement accordingly :)

Theoretically, a party could recognise something is needed during their first term, but feel they don't have a mandate from the voters until they've successfully been elected with it as one of their policies.

For example, if I was elected saying the tax on beer should be lower, but having met with health experts I've changed my mind and think it should be higher.

Of course, a cynic would say that's just an excuse for delaying, and a trick to play both sides...

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#102

Post by hobofan »

aqsalose wrote: post #89
fxtentacle wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the election is still very emotional because people don't know if they can trust those statements. Many young people were upset when upload filters were introduced after the politicians responsible had explicitly and publicly promised that there wouldn't be any. Many old people were upset by the amount of corruption happening recently, from overpriced covid masks to 700 mio Eur in non-refundable deposit payme…

>Many young people were upset when upload filters were introduced after the politicians responsible had explicitly and publicly promised that there wouldn't be any. I beg your pardon, upload filters?

Yes: https://www.euractiv.com/section/copyright/news/german-copyr...

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#103

Post by slightwinder »

enriquto wrote: post #62

Why are political parties necessary? Instead of chosing representatives in bulk we should decide democratically about each of these particular questions. Then, a professional executive power (elected independently, or simply hired) would be legally bound to implement these decisions.

On one side, this is not possible on a practical level, because of the sheer amount of work and knowledge which is necessary to answer particular questions on a meaningful level.

On the other side, political parties are a bit what you demand, just on a more abstract level. At least in Germany, we choose them for their specific answers to our questions (or should do it that way), and then hope that they implement them. Though, in reality, politic is complicated and full of compromising and accepting reality. So it's not always possible or good to actually do what the crowd demands.

While it's true that most countries should use more democratic power from their citizen, the unsolved problem is how that can be implemented in a good way which would not harm the country long term. See Brexit for a case where this completely backfired. Or the ending of atomic power in Germany, which now backfires because the country can't stop coal mining.

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#104

Post by dmurray »

fjh wrote: post #82
dmurray wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there's one party who thinks climate change doesn't exist and one who believes in climate change but is unwilling to do anything about it That's obviously not the distinction between the parties here. The second one intends (or at least has a policy to) do something about it, but just not by raising the existing CO2 tax. Maybe instead they intend to raise the top rate of income tax and increase subsidies for pub…

> That's obviously not the distinction between the parties here. The second one intends (or at least has a policy to) do something about it, but just not by raising the existing CO2 tax. Do they, though? I don't know how familiar you are with the German political parties, but the concern about climate change is mostly empty marketing on all sides. We should stop running coal electricity plants, but somehow turning of…

Yeah, I generally agree, everyone is in favour of things like "peace" or "health" or (more controversially in the US, but mainstream in Germany) "the environment". The questions shouldn't be about whether you want to improve the environment, but what hard/unpopular choices you are willing to make to achieve that.

So you should give the party in favour of increasing income tax and subsidizing public transport a chance to say that, because it's a hard choice, just a different hard one than increasing the carbon tax.

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#105

Post by _ph_ »

jiggunjer wrote: post #91
_ph_ wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here it goes, all are phrased as statements, to which you can agree, be neutral or disagree: 1: There should be a general speed limit on all Autobahn roads. 2: Germany should increase its defense budget. 3: Young adults at the age of 16 should be allowed to vote in federal elections. [current age is 18] 4: Subsidies for wind power turbines should be stopped. 5: Stronger legal limitations for the abilities of landlord…

lol fugitives. I think you mean refugees.

I have changed it. According to all dictionaries fugitives isn't completely wrong, but indeed, refugees is the better choice.

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#106

Post by notanzaiiswear »

"The Wahl-O-Mat is organized by Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education, which describes itself as a “federal public authority providing citizenship education.” Despite the somewhat Orwellian language, the agency is widely trusted in Germany"

It is a very left wing institution, unfortunately. So it is only "widely trusted" in the sense that the majority of people still seems to be left-leaning.

I'm not a huge fan of the Wahl-O-Mat, because I feel the way the questions are phrased is often misleading or too simplified. Maybe it is better than nothing, though.

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#107

Post by slightwinder »

phgn wrote: post #14

For me, the novelty of this tool has worn off. You have to select "answers" to all kinds of specific issues, even when you don't know any details or care about something. Like "we should stop burning coal" - obviously we should, as fast as possible. But stopping tomorrow won't work, neither will treating every part of the country the same way. Is this the most urgent measure we can do for climate? You just can't answ…

> For me, the novelty of this tool has worn off. You have to select "answers" to all kinds of specific issues, even when you don't know any details or care about something.

Actually, you can just skip the answer. But this is a big fail (or intentional?) of Wahl-o-mat, because the interface is focused on letting the people choose, while hiding the skip-option in plain sight. A similar problem is that they have no explanation given to each question.

I can only assume this is on purpose to let the people answer honestly, even if they just randomly use their gut-feeling.

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#108

Post by swebs »

enriquto wrote: post #62

Why are political parties necessary? Instead of chosing representatives in bulk we should decide democratically about each of these particular questions. Then, a professional executive power (elected independently, or simply hired) would be legally bound to implement these decisions.

That sounds exactly like the Swiss system. And they seem to be doing quite well by all metrics, so maybe there's something to that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#109

Post by notanzaiiswear »

enriquto wrote: post #62

Why are political parties necessary? Instead of chosing representatives in bulk we should decide democratically about each of these particular questions. Then, a professional executive power (elected independently, or simply hired) would be legally bound to implement these decisions.

In my opinion, the job of politicians is to free me from having to deal with politics. That is why they are called "delegates" (in my country at least), because people delegate that job to them.

Having to consider every minor political issue would be the opposite of what I want.

I agree that maybe some middle ground could be better, though. The parties are too coarse grained, there is no party I agree with on all points. I suppose others feel the same.

Re: Germany’s no-emotion voting guide surges despite campaign of personalities

#110

Post by slightwinder »

woodpanel wrote: post #30

It's really odd: In the previous election, you couldn't see/hear one news report about the election without mentioning the Wahl-O-Mat. This election-time it was some internet meme that reminded me it existed. After usage of it, it becomes apparent as to why it gets zero coverage: Almost everyone I've asked (migrant/unemployed/self-employed/postal-worker/cooks/farmer/cab-driver/...) experienced a stark surprise. The p…

> Some of my migrant friends joked that I should label them a right-winger now.

Did they get something like AFD or NPD as top-choices?

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