Pirate Party

[Vincent]

Yup, it's old and dumb.   :hurt:

I don't know how elections work in Germany, but in Canada, the country is split up in as many parts as there are seats at the Parliament.  For each part (region) of the country, the parties assign a candidate (some parties don't have a candidate for each region), and then people in this region vote for the candidate they want in this region.  That's why the BQ has so much seats and the NPD so little.

The system should change, obviously.  Even the BQ gets less seats, (I'm from Quebec after all), it's not fair.

Besides, the BQ isn't there to rule the country, but to defend a province and disrupt the federal government when it wants to change stuff that would displease people in Quebec.  But, well, that's another story.  Strange politics we got in here... 

[bluemonkmn]

But people are represented in the government by districts.  Since every person can't be individually represented in government, you have to group people together and let some group of people vote for a single government representative to represent them in the government.  I guess most places do this by geography.  So if 10% of the people in each district vote for party A, and 90% of the people in each district vote for party B, then only party B will be represented because there are more party B people in every district.  But if you combine the 10% from each district into one and get 90% voting for party A in that district, and then every other district votes for party B, then you can have some representation of part A in the government that more closely represents the general population.  Attempting to define districts in order to control this is called Gerrymandering.  Ideally the districting would be defined to result in the government representing the people at the correct percentages.

That's my understanding.

[Vincent]

Well, the main reason why it is still working like this in Canada is because, when you move on to "proportional representation", then only parties get elected and independent candidates (not affiliated to any party) cannot be elected anymore.  But I guess, it's not very important, what can a single elected candidate do in a parliament with huge parties?

There are some projects here to move to a kind of hybrid system, but it seems fishy...
I guess, the best should be to dismantle the districts, vote for the parties, and split the seats according to the votes % between the parties.  Let the parties decide for themselves to whom they will give the seats...  Hmm...  But I guess the road to corruption and internal lobbying would be very wide and easy with that.

Damn, it's never easy with politics and it's always dirty.  That's a shame...

[Tanja]

Today is Bundestagswahl!!!! Oh my oh my! I just voted, and i'm so excited about how all the parties will do! Especially the Pirates, of course!  :laugh:

[Vincent]

I'll keep my fingers crossed. 

[Tanja]

there are some changes in the government, Black-Red (CDU-SPD) is no more because Red had a very bad result... now Black (CDU) and Yellow (FDP) will form a coalition. Well, the pirates had solid 2%.... i really had thought we would get at least 3-4%, but well... i think it is good anyways. We are a very young party and really need to get some things done before government calls.

In four years our time is ripe!

in my town there is a polling station where we got 10,32%, and in another town we had 13,81%! wow!

[bluemonkmn]

I don't see any party with the name "Pirate" ever getting widespread support for government control.  Pirates generally stand for everything against the government.  So by definition, you can't have a government of "Pirates" no matter what they stand for.  They might have to change their name.

[Tanja]

 :laugh: hahaha blue monk, everyone said that like two months before today. for weeks i haven't heard this argument, because we and the name are accepted.
to err is human, but to ARRR! is pirate!

[bluemonkmn]

Pirate Party made the slashdot.org front page today.

[Jam0864]

Pirate Party made the slashdot.org front page today.

digg too.

[Tanja]

it will be very interesting to see where and when other pirate parties will rise and how they will do.
too bad i don't have a fast forward button here, 'cause this development will take years.
the next government elections for whole germany are in four years, but meanwhile there will be plenty of elections for town councils and federal state governments.

i wish the other pirate parties well, because it is a though business and needs very dedicated people. a lot of time is to invest in research and meetings, boring bureaucratic work and of course - debating with lots of people who have got strange opinions and a demanding way to discuss them.  :laugh: