Direct democracy (1 Viewer)

[Red_Dave]

From wikipedia

Switzerland features a system of government not seen at the national level on any other place on earth: Direct democracy.

Any citizen may challenge a law that has been passed by parliament. If he is able to gather 50,000 signatures against the law within 100 days, a national vote has to be scheduled where voters decide by a simple majority whether to accept or reject the law.

Also, any citizen may seek a decision on an amendment they want to make to the constitution. For such an amendment initiative to be organized, the signatures of 100,000 voters must be collected within 18 months. Such a popular initiative may be formulated as a general proposal or - much more often - be put forward as a precise new text whose wording can no longer be changed by parliament and the government. After a successful vote gathering, the federal council may create a counterproposal to the proposed amendment and put it to vote on the same day. Such counterproposals are usually a compromise between the status quo and the wording of the initiative. Voters will again decide in a national vote whether to accept the initiative amendment, the counterproposal put forward by the government or both. If both are accepted, one has to additionally signal a preference. Initiatives have to be accepted by a double majority of both the popular votes and a majority of the states.

This seams a good system in comparison to the brittish one. Under the brittish system we elect an mp [representative]to represent our area each 5 years. Normally most are left to choose the lesser of two evils and ,if the vote is split between alot of different partys its possible to become an mp when most voted for different candidates. Whatever coalition or party ends up with the most mps ends up forming a governent. Then for the next 4 years the government passes crap legislation which many disagree with but most dont have a much of a say in the matter. A system like the swiss one would be more effective in giving the electorate much of a say. However theres a number of floors in the system. For example

[1] Alot of people dont have enough time to look into issues as full time politions
[2] the average person wouldnt have a good understanding of economics
[3] Being as the most popular newspapers in the uk are controlled by rupert murdoch the swiss system would give him to much power.

How do you think a system like this would work where you are? Ive some u.s sates have a similar system in place, if your in one of these states how effective do you think it is?

*seams i messed the qoutes up, anyone know what i did wrong?

 

[shuamort]

Mod Note

Edited to fix coding.

/Mod Note

 

[Red_Dave]

Mod Note

Edited to fix coding.

/Mod Note

Ta, what did i do wrong?

 

[shuamort]

Ta, what did i do wrong?

The quote tags were spelled "qoute".

 

[Red_Dave]

The quote tags were spelled "qoute".

:doh..............................sorry