|
It is very difficult to find information on this topic outside the US. There have been a few not very exciting experiments with publicly funded elections that haven't amounted to much, as past efforts (in the US) have simply allowed certain candidates to run without private fund-raising. These candidates still compete against candidates that get the funding the old fashioned way, and are often further backed by their party's fund-raising apparatus. If the goal is to fight the influence of money in politics (something people find broadly agreeable across party and ideological lines), it is hardly surprising that simply offering public money on top of private money won't make much of a difference. Canada also has a "public election funding" system whereby 50% of (most) election expenses are reimbursed, private donations to parties are tax-deductible and (up until recently, as it has been eliminated during the Conservative Party's last stint), a per-vote subsidy based on the last election result. Again, none of this actually takes private money out of elections (the relatively low per-person donation limit probably does far more really), and all these measures save for the now defunct per-vote subsidy do nothing but amplify private donations. Not only do you get to buy influence in your government, but you get subsidized for your trouble to boot. Pretty awful. So, I am wondering, have other countries or past electoral systems gotten any closer? There are a number of obvious loop-holes with what has been tried, but nothing that's fundamentally impossible to close. For example:
I realize of course implementing any such controls is nearly impossible since they'd have to be implemented by the party currently in power, who is only in power specifically because of a lack of such controls, but I'd still like to know about potential (or, preferably, actual historical or current-day) difficulties in implementing such scheme other than passing them into law to begin with. For example, Canada's per-vote subsidy as the sole method of election funding would make it practically impossible for any new parties to ever appear, as it's only based on past elections results. Could it be supplemented with a voter signature / voucher scheme that effectively allows someone to retroactively reassign their vote for funding purposes from the last election?
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2017 06:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 08:45 |
|
|
How do you draw the line between legitimate political speech and an "in kind" ad? Suppose I make a film critical of Donald Trump. Can I advertise the film in the days near the election? Or, what if, instead of paying for an ad, I want to spend some money to make a really well produced YouTube video that's critical of Trump?
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2017 08:01
|
|
|
falcon2424 posted:How do you draw the line between legitimate political speech and an "in kind" ad? You probably can't draw a clean line between them. It's probably impossible to reliably define even just what constitutes an "advertisement", political or otherwise. Look at native advertising - if it weren't for the explicit naming of the brand, it would be nigh-impossible to determine if Frank loves playing his video games because it's part of his character development or because it's a product placement. Would it still not be just as much an advertisement even if you hid the fact that he was playing a PS Vita specifically? How much more difficult would this question be for something like an ideology? That said, it is probably worth regulating the obvious ads just the same, even if it means it all moves to a much subtler culture-wide political campaign. It's not like the latter hasn't been happening anyway (no media conglomerates or content producers have political agendas, no siree bob). I mean, even though I think these sort of policies could see broad public support regardless of ideological divides (with a few exceptions), as a more-or-less Marxist, they are all just band-aid solutions to me anyway. I don't expect anything short of actually eliminating the capitalist class will permanently and reliably stop its influence over the state, but cutting off its largest and most well established mechanisms for doing so is not a bad way to start.
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2017 09:22
|
|
|
Yeah okay OP. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2017 17:24
|
|
