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One person, one vote?

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    One person, one vote?

    Good idea or not?

    Apparently until 1948 British university grads got more than one. The things you learn on the CBC eh?

    Or how about having to pass a basic civics exam of some sort before you get to vote at all? Or are any schemes to tinker with the universal franchise inherently undesirable, or unworkable.

    #2
    One person, one vote?

    You heard that interview, too, eh? Brilliant stuff. The driver's license analogy was the one that really clicked for me.

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      #3
      One person, one vote?

      I say, one civics test, one vote.

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        #4
        One person, one vote?

        With, say, free civics classes made available by the government.

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          #5
          One person, one vote?

          The last two centuries have shown, if any experiment were really necessary, the dangers of letting the plebs elect their own leaders directly.

          Even the US constitution, enshrining "democratic" principles as it does, doesn't go that far. Let the grubby peasants vote for an "electoral college", and then let that greater and more austere body choose from among themselves.

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            #6
            One person, one vote?

            Irish graduates can vote for the Irish senate.

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              #7
              One person, one vote?

              I always felt that Senate vote in the Republic of Ireland was a bit iffy. Especially as my uni (Dublin Trinity) got the same number of seats as three others in Dublin, Cork and Galway combined.

              In Britain, business premise owners also got extra vote(s) until 1948.

              Viva the Plebletariat I say.

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                #8
                One person, one vote?

                Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:
                The last two centuries have shown, if any experiment were really necessary, the dangers of letting the plebs elect their own leaders directly.
                It's been far from ideal, true, but were things really any better, from the view of the greater good, before the democracy experiment commenced? (Or in countries where they preserved or reverted to the old way of running things?) The main danger seems to be electing people who then do away with democratic rule, which admittedly seems to happen a little too often.

                Even the US constitution, enshrining "democratic" principles as it does, doesn't go that far. Let the grubby peasants vote for an "electoral college", and then let that greater and more austere body choose from among themselves.
                And it's this highfalutin attitude what leads to unrest amongst the peasantry.

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                  #9
                  One person, one vote?

                  I think you've turned your ironicometer off in your latter point, but it only adds to the debate, so let it begin.

                  Actually, in case anyone was about to leap in and similarly start throwing barbs at me for suggesting that democracy isn't the ideal model, you can save your breath, I don't think it does. It sucks. It gives us "leaders" who are more concerned with calling each other "pigs" on television and getting elected than dealing with the real problems of the world, which are so simple to sort out it's almost fucking infantile.

                  But there you go, what do I know.

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                    #10
                    One person, one vote?

                    I got your irony but felt like adding to the debate anyway. And of course, no one thinks democracy is the ideal model. The ideal model is where *I* rule.

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                      #11
                      One person, one vote?

                      AdC, how did that British system work, exactly? Did university grads get handed two ballots at the polling station, or what?

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                        #12
                        One person, one vote?

                        AG- in the Northern Ireland parliament before 1948, Belfast University was a separate constituency. Business voters just got extra cards for their home constituency, I think.

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                          #13
                          One person, one vote?

                          "Then there was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means - decent folk - should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk - people without means."

                          Joseph Heller, Catch-22

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                            #14
                            One person, one vote?

                            The City of London retains a property qualification for voting to this day- that is for people who work but don't live there.

                            It's possibly for this reason that they've given approximately zilch to the cause of archaeology of what was once the largest city in Roman Britain.

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                              #15
                              One person, one vote?

                              I voted when I was 17

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                                #16
                                One person, one vote?

                                The last MP for Oxford University was the humorist A.P.Herbert, who used his position to champion, amongst other things, reform of the divorce laws.

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                                  #17
                                  One person, one vote?

                                  I assume their disappearance was the work of the Atlee government? What happened to the seats — I'm guessing most would have been Tory — when the privilege was rescinded, were they distributed elsewhere or just eliminated?

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                                    #18
                                    One person, one vote?

                                    Or are any schemes to tinker with the universal franchise inherently undesirable, or unworkable
                                    Yes, utterly. And always.

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                                      #19
                                      One person, one vote?

                                      An unusually equivocal response there from E10

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                                        #20
                                        One person, one vote?

                                        In Australia you have to be a citizen to vote. There must be residents who are disenfranchised for decades (mostly Kiwis I suspect).

                                        Which country will be the first to make computer literacy a de facto voting rights test?

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                                          #21
                                          One person, one vote?

                                          Civics lessons? Who marks them? Sample paper -

                                          1. Do you believe that governments sometimes act in the interests of people other than the ones who elected them? Answer yes or no. Correct answer necessary in order to vote.

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                                            #22
                                            One person, one vote?

                                            That's the crux of the issue, which makes me join E10 on this particular point, no matter how much I believe in my heart that a "fair and balanced" qualification would be likely to improve the quality of my "homeland's" recent selections.

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                                              #23
                                              One person, one vote?

                                              1. Do you believe that governments sometimes act in the interests of people other than the ones who elected them? Answer yes or no. Correct answer necessary in order to vote.

                                              Sounds to me like either yes or no would be correct.

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                                                #24
                                                One person, one vote?

                                                So you think it would be impossible to devise a test without loaded questions that was entirely fact based? Like a citizenship test for instance (or the Canadian one at any rate.)

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                                                  #25
                                                  One person, one vote?

                                                  No, I don't think it would be impossible.

                                                  I do, however, believe that it would be very easy to manipulate the test in order to improve the chances of a favoured party, and am also troubled by the possibility that the introduction of such a test could make the future introduction of other "qualifications" easier.

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