MEPs accidentally vote wrong way on copyright law

It's not unlikely that at least some of them claim it was a mistake to avoid taking responsibility for their vote because they're aware of how unpopular it was. After being in parliament for at least ~5 years, it's hard to believe so many of them still haven't figured out how the voting works.

Re: MEPs accidentally vote wrong way on copyright law

#5

Post by zihotki » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

13 MEPs accidently woted wrongly. Well, how often such accidents happen in the parliament? Was it actually an accident or it's just a way to recover their faces in front of their voters?

Re: MEPs accidentally vote wrong way on copyright law

#6

Post by riffraff » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

sc11 wrote: post #4

It's not unlikely that at least some of them claim it was a mistake to avoid taking responsibility for their vote because they're aware of how unpopular it was. After being in parliament for at least ~5 years, it's hard to believe so many of them still haven't figured out how the voting works.

it's possible, but there are votes in different directions.

It's also possible some just understood the question incorrectly or confused it with something else, not just "misclicked".

Without knowing how often this happens in other votings it's hard to tell if this is unusual.

Re: MEPs accidentally vote wrong way on copyright law

#7

Post by AllegedAlec » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

What a surprise. Politicians step out of their bubble to find out that people hate the laws their sponsors are pushing and try to backpedal.

Re: MEPs accidentally vote wrong way on copyright law

#8

Post by dagw » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

Earlier discussion about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19499104

Re: MEPs accidentally vote wrong way on copyright law

#9

Post by tomohawk » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 3:33 PM UTC

Is anyone really surprised that a politician would make an excuse like this? Whether the politician actually made a mistake or is just saying so after the fact really is immaterial. When it counted, they did the wrong thing. Trying to make excuses after the fact says a lot about the politician.

Re: MEPs accidentally vote wrong way on copyright law

#10

Post by dagw » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #6

sc11 wrote: post #4

It's not unlikely that at least some of them claim it was a mistake to avoid taking responsibility for their vote because they're aware of how unpopular it was. After being in parliament for at least ~5 years, it's hard to believe so many of them still haven't figured out how the voting works.

it's possible, but there are votes in different directions. It's also possible some just understood the question incorrectly or confused it with something else, not just "misclicked". Without knowing how often this happens in other votings it's hard to tell if this is unusual.

It's also possible some just understood the question incorrectly or confused it with something else

There are a couple of explanations being floated. First of all there where two votes, not just one, and if you wanted to vote 'correctly' against A13 you had to vote NO on the first vote and YES on the second (or vice versa to support A13), The people who voted 'wrong' voted either NO to both or YES to both.

Secondly apparently the order of voting was changed at the last minute (there where a whole bunch of things being voted on that day) so people who had written down what they where going to vote on each issue (NO,NO,YES,NO,YES,YES,NO etc.) and missed that the order had changed would end up voting wrong. Ie. they knew they wanted to vote YES on issue 27, but issue 27 was actually the 28th item voted for that day. At least two MEPs in Sweden are using this excuse.

But basically a bunch of MEPs just didn't think it was that important to pay attention to the details, phoned it in, and screwed up badly.