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

politico.eu

121–130 of 168 posts

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

#121
post #17
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site deinwal.de tries to address this by letting you vote on past bills and then showing you who votes most similar to you. However, for opposition parties this doesn't work reliably since they'll sometimes vote against something if it doesn't go far enough or if they disagree with the implementation details, even if they agree with the general idea. Unless you read up on the vote, these nuances will be missed. I…

I am one of the creators of deinwal.de Your description is spot on, although we tried to exclude votes where something did not "go far enough" for some parties. AMA.

Thanks a lot for the tool, it's really helpful.

One thing I like especially is how I can use deinwal.de to evaluate specific representatives for my direct vote.

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

#122
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of the creators of deinwal.de Your description is spot on, although we tried to exclude votes where something did not "go far enough" for some parties. AMA.

Thanks a lot for the tool, it's really helpful. One thing I like especially is how I can use deinwal.de to evaluate specific representatives for my direct vote.

Thank you for the praise!

It is really encouraging to hear how many people enjoyed the tool.

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

#123
post #108

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

No, OP wants to have people vote on absolutely every decision, whereas the Swiss system is to have elected representatives that deal with the day to day, with the citizens having the power to challenge or propose some specific votes.

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

#124
post #6

There are still so many emotion loaded messages, while "Die Partei" keeps making fun of them: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-germany-dortmund-may15th20...

This is a respond to a ultra-right-wing party AfD which "hangs greens" in some districts.

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

#125
post #21
post #6

There are still so many emotion loaded messages, while "Die Partei" keeps making fun of them: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-germany-dortmund-may15th20...

They are funny indeed - using public election funds (meant to give each party a chance) to put up jokes. Whether you think that's right or not, it's hilarious.

For me it's important because they raise interest in politics. It's more obvious in the EU parlament (IMO), but Martin Sonneborn is great in shedding light on what's happening in there.

To be fair, though, in this election, climate change and COVID raised that interest pretty much on their own.

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

#126
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

which shouldn't be a problem if you were transparent about meeting with said experts (name them) and explain your change of mind accordingly.

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

#127

If only the parties were legally bound to fulfill the promises they make before the election...

How would that work? Let's say the ruling party proposes a law that perfectly matches one of their promise, this law is rejected in the parliament. Then what? Realistically, all promises are at best "we will try to".

At least not vote in clear and blatant contradiction to promises they made.

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

#129
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't even work that well for the governing parties. Coalition governments are based on the parties making compromises where their positions disagree. This means that in particular the smaller partner(s) have to vote against their own program most of the time if they want to at least get their core issues through the parliament. Unfortunately, an alarming number of people seem not to know this.

I think that works extremely well – taken action is relevant while intentions are much less so aren't they? And building a "coalition" isn't a natural law nor even how things were intended – the house is named "parliament" so there shall be discussion of all voting members prior voting on EVERY SINGLE bill. That's the MPs job description. A coalition in fact is an illegal voting cartel as since decades each contains…

[deleted]

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

#130
post #17
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site deinwal.de tries to address this by letting you vote on past bills and then showing you who votes most similar to you. However, for opposition parties this doesn't work reliably since they'll sometimes vote against something if it doesn't go far enough or if they disagree with the implementation details, even if they agree with the general idea. Unless you read up on the vote, these nuances will be missed. I…

I am one of the creators of deinwal.de Your description is spot on, although we tried to exclude votes where something did not "go far enough" for some parties. AMA.

Great work, thank you very much.

Wouldn't have thought though I had the most in common with AfD and Green Party. Which is no problem, because I roll the dice for my vote since about 30 years. And neither of them did get my vote. In political and some other questions I am a supporter of a moderate Rhinehart process.

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

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