And who says politics are boring?

[Rick1]

Penelope wrote :True. I can't believe that in a country which ranks Number One in the PISA survey, people are still so gullible they will vote for beauty queens and skiers etc. If 16 year olds get the vote, we'll have rappers, goths and who knows what else in there too

Stupid system though: soooo complicated. No one has been able to explain it to me (another one of my favourite discussion questions... "could you explain the local electoral system to me..... " ) Only the comprehensive school grade average for the Joint Application System is more complicated than that [/quote]

Try to explain to them when they are watching television and they see them the whole day busy voting over one issue,chairman, with bringing papers to the front. I thought Finland was so advanced

He, good night all I go to sleep. At 7:00 the shouting start if I am lucky

[Jukka Aho]

Stupid system though: soooo complicated. No one has been able to explain it to me (another one of my favourite discussion questions... "could you explain the local electoral system to me..... "

• Wikipedia: Parliament of Finland / Parliamentary elections
• Vaalit.fi: Central Principles of Holding Elections
• Wikipedia: D’Hondt method

[Rosamunda]

Stupid system though: soooo complicated. No one has been able to explain it to me (another one of my favourite discussion questions... "could you explain the local electoral system to me..... "

• Wikipedia: Parliament of Finland / Parliamentary elections
• Vaalit.fi: Central Principles of Holding Elections
• Wikipedia: D’Hondt method

Yes... but my point was... I'm yet to find a Finn who can explain it to me (without the help of an on-line encyclopedia)


@otykondo....

What's the ear thing? I don't get it.

[otyikondo]

The party that listens?

http://www.suomentoivo.fi/main.site?act ... view&id=82

[Jukka Aho]

Yes... but my point was... I'm yet to find a Finn who can explain [the local electoral system] to me (without the help of an on-line encyclopedia)

Understanding the local electoral system, not too surprisingly, belongs to the standard national curriculum in Finland, so everyone’s been taught the system at some point during their school years. (I recall back in my day we even had to do some exercises where we were calculating the results of a mock “election” using the D’Hondt system and some sample voting data.)

But since the electoral system has been generally viewed as if it was set in stone – not being subjected to any hot public debate [1] – I guess not too many really bother thinking about it a lot in their daily lives; rather placing their trust on the wise men on the TV who will calculate the results on their behalf, with their computers, on the election night... Thus, I guess you could say most people aren’t exactly prepared to recite the inner workings of the D’Hondt method down to the last detail if you suddenly jump on them and request them to “explain it all” but I’d argue the general characteristics of the system are still fairly well-known and understood – in particular, knowledge of the fact that the number of the votes alone does not directly determine who will get in but it all depends on the electoral districts and the parties’ candidate lists.

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[1] Actually, there has been some recent public discussion about making some adjustments to the system, and even political willingness to carry out some changes.