Swiss court overturns referendum result because voters were poorly informed
13 replies, posted
few days old but no one posted?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/11/switzerland-court-overturns-referendum-as-voters-were-poorly-informed
thread music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za0LkUQdSBs
It was less that voters were poorly informed or wilfully uninformed, and more that they were misled. The federal government initially said that the proposed changes would only affect 80,000 couples, before they subsequently revised that figure to 454,000. Also the referendum initially failed, so it’s not like the supreme court is overturning a referendum that had already succeeded.
I have to agree with the Christian Democrats over there that it is unfair to be penalising married couples in that way.
Hey UK, hint hint.
Why are there referendums anyway? What's the point of electing politicians if they pass decisions onto the public to make
Yeah man, democracy and all that stupid stuff. We should just have a system where everyone picks one person, and that guy just makes all the decisions forever.
Even if you have 100% direct democracy and the people have executive powers on everything you still need someone to run the process, and you need someone to be head of state to meet and discuss with other countries. The president of france cant just walk up to anyone on the streets of Bern and expect them to speak for the rest of Switzerland.
Referendums are also useful to gauge your populations interest and opinions about decisive subjects like immigration and welfare.
Sweden had a referendum about nuclear power where the politicians had already made a decision but had options on how to take care of it, the people just got to vote what option of abolishing nuclear power was the best.
Right I see, that's a good example and makes a lot of sense.
I feel like there should be some sort of test or quiz released to the public after an election that is filled with questions about what the person voted for. And if it passes a certain threshold of being incorrect. That should mean that a new election needs to be done.
Yeah I don't like the title and the precedent it seems to want to set. Who decides what electorates are 'misinformed'?
The media decides. Headlines sell
its increasingly clear that referendums should only be used for a limited scope of issues because the intricacies of explaining a complex problem does not lend themselves well to a set of multiple choices questions.
"I don't like the results of that referendum, better rig my answers on that quiz so I can undo the ref." Thats why it's a bad idea, could be abused by a number of people to undo every votation.
Democracy sucks
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