RE: Paper Ballots per the Swiss Voting System Method

[Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Paul Tiger - LPBC - Outreach wrote:

> An issue that we have here in Boulder County and this state is initiatives.
> It makes our ballots quite large. Is this addressed by such a system?
> Remember we can have many initiatives and referendums and all the text for
> them must be on the ballot, so the ballots themselves get to be LARGE.

The Swiss vote on FAR more initiatives than anyplace else on earth.
They are the only country with national initiatives. They vote up to
4 times a year because there are so many initiatives.

The fact that citizens participate FAR more than in any other
country on earth makes representatives more accountable because if
they don't serve the people the people will make them irrelevant.
You can walk onto the floor of parliament anytime and talk to your
rep. Try that in Congress. The citizens read more newspapers per
capita than anyplace else because they have an incentive to get
informed: they make decisions instead of just begging reps for
mercy.

For more info on Swiss democracy, see excerpts from the book Direct
Democracy in Switzerland at http://vote.org/Fossedal.htm

For info on how you can help bring this form of government, see
http://vote.org

Evan