On Sun, Sep 01, 2013 at 07:05:12PM +0300, Juho Laatu wrote: > I tried to outline some scenarios where the voters could more or less > directly determine the composition of the coalition. I guess this is too > "dynamic" for you, and you actually like the current Norwegian practice where > there are two rather fixed government alternatives, and voters know exactly > which coalition each candidate/party belongs to?
I apologize for answering so briefly on your message. I find the idea that letting the voters vote for their preferred coalition quite interesting, although I'm not certain if it will have any significant impact on the "sociological issues". And I can't fully visualize how such an election would work, and it seems to me that this may quickly become a fairly complex system? You're not off track, the basis of my question was that given a democratic election, how should the government/election be formed to reduce the incentive for candidates/parties to talk down other candidates/parties, and encourage people to vote for candidates/parties based on the their ability for the task and not their less relevant traits? There are no conditions on whether it should be a party-list system, voting directly for candidates, how the vote is submitted or even what the candidates/parties may or may not do in their campaign. The only condition is that the election is democratic, that it is the people who vote. I don't know how common this is, but before elections in Norway most media create tests where the user is presented with several questions they answer with how much they agree with, and at the end they're presented with which party they agree the most with. If this was how people voted for parties then you would effectively eliminate much fearmongering and "charisma"-votes, but you'll also introduce several other issues (the ideology of the party is lost, and you'll greatly simplify problems that may be very complex in nature). I don't particularly care for such an election myself, it just serves as an example. I know the questions is vague and broad, but I hope the issues I'm trying to point out is something the readers of this list can relate to. -- Regards, Vidar Wahlberg ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
