Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
The best idea since raw toast.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


         

Underwater polling stations

Avoid the effect of rain on voting.
  (-2)
(-2)
  [vote for,
against]

Candidates preferred by voters who are deterred by certain types of weather, notably rain, can suffer in elections held on "bad" weather days. Poorer people are put off by rain, and possibly snow and high winds, so for example fascist parties probably do quite badly, and also ones pretending to be socialist. To some extent this can be addressed by appealing to bigotry and encouraging hatred of marginalised groups, as this helps people vote against their long-term interests by voting for parties popular among the rich. So to some extent this can be dealt with by electing a new people, to paraphrase possibly Bertolt Brecht might've said, or Einstein probably or someone, I dunno.

Anyway, solution: put all polling stations underwater, preferably in the sea several metres below low tide mark. After all, we are an island nation. Arrange the constituencies in a similar way as in North-by-Northwesthampton, radiating out from points far from sufficiently deep bodies of water so as to achieve a mix of different economic, industrial, social and cultural characteristics. The voter dons scuba gear and dives into the polling station, which bears polypropylene voting cards and floating pencils tethered to the booths by fishing tackle. There would need to be some protection against rough seas, and turnout would go down the more rough weather we get, but it would also focus the minds of the electorate on climate change. As sea levels rise, the polling stations could be slowly moved inland as the coasts and river banks are submerged. Also, the only people likely to vote would be people used to diving such as oil rig employees, police frogpeople looking for corpses in rivers and maybe recreational divers, so people with lots of money. Oh, and probably people who are into wearing lots of tight rubbery stuff.

nineteenthly, Jul 22 2023

North-by-Northwesthampton North-by-Northwesthampton
Arrange the constituencies radially, in a similar way to this. [nineteenthly, Jul 22 2023]


Please log in.
If you're not logged in, you can see what this page looks like, but you will not be able to add anything.



Annotation:







       People who disagree with you may be fascists but people who disagree with me are commies.[-]
Voice, Jul 22 2023
  

       This idea kind of ran away from me. It wasn't supposed to express my politics but being a bad idea, it did.
nineteenthly, Jul 23 2023
  

       //People who disagree [...] may be fascists but [...] commies//   

       Fascism is the shadow cast by Marxism, and is a tragic consequence of Marx's misunderstanding of Hegelian Dialectic. Negative Dialectic* makes people disagreeable**. More so than they would be otherwise. Whether the disagreeable people then put on red shirts or brown ones is a secondary question.   

       *Pioneered by Marx himself, but made prominent by Theodor Adorno in the mid-C20th, this is the version of Hegelian Dialectic used by Marxists and Critical Theorists.   

       **Because it generates a picture of reality in which the primary tool for solving any problem is expropriation. And if your primary tool for solving any problem is expropriation, then the one thing you can never afford to run out of is enemies. Its enduring popularity can be accounted for by the fact that it offers an easy way out of existential angst - but at the cost of making the world worse.
pertinax, Jul 23 2023
  


 

back: main index

business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle