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Phaedrus74 said:
[Correct me if I'm wrong Oliver]

In Germany the President is elected by Parliament (and has no political power) therefore no primaries in the American sense.
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Primaries are not just for presidential elections, but for all elections down to the local city council Alderman.
 
gtc said:
It seems to me that there are three systems.

US, Canada, Australia, UK - you do not need to register your address with the government but you need to register to vote.

France - you need to register your address with the government and seperately register to vote.

Germany [and Switzerland]- you register your address and the system automatically enrolls you to vote.
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Correct, as far as I know.

There is also the separate issue about registering your party affiliation with the government so you can participate in the selection of candidates. The US does this, Australia leaves it up to individual parties to sort out.
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Most of Europe too, leading to much merriment, especially when the parties' dinosaurs have to justify not selecting women, "visible" minorities members, etc. ;)
 
WildCat said:
Primaries are not just for presidential elections, but for all elections down to the local city council Alderman.
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Okay, that makes sense, thanks for the clarification. US local and state elections aren't covered that much by the European media so I was only aware of the presidential primaries.

In the Netherlands there are 'primary' elections in the sense that the different political parties elect there party leadership and determine the order of the candidates on the lists for the municipal/provincial/general elections. But since these are closed to non-party members they do not get a lot of media-coverage. I believe a similar system is in place in Germany, but again a have to see whether Oliver confirms this.
 
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Phaedrus74 said:
Okay, that makes sense, thanks for the clarification. US local and state elections aren't covered that much by the European media so I was only aware of the presidential primaries.
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To put even more light on it, here is a list of candidates running in the Feb. 5 primary just at the level of my county - Cook County. This doesn't even include state, city, or national offices. As you can see, it's much more than President we vote for Feb. 5.

In the Netherlands there are 'primary' elections in the sense that the different political parties elect there party leadership and determine the order of the candidates on the lists for the municipal/provincial/general elections. But since these are closed to non-party members they do not get a lot of media-coverage. I believe a similar system is in place in Germany, but again a have to see whether Oliver confirms this.
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All Oliver is interested in "proving" is that there is no democracy in the USA. It's been a theme of his for months now.
 
WildCat said:
All Oliver is interested in "proving" is that there is no democracy in the USA. It's been a theme of his for months now.
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To his credit, this has often led to really interesting discussions of the differences in institutions between the USA and Europe (and sometimes the rest of the World) between those of us who have a less caricatural view of each other's countries.
 
Okay, that makes sense, thanks for the clarification. US local and state elections aren't covered that much by the European media so I was only aware of the presidential primaries.
Click to expand...
To put even more light on it, here is a list of candidates running in the Feb. 5 primary just at the level of my county - Cook County. This doesn't even include state, city, or national offices. As you can see, it's much more than President we vote for Feb. 5.
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WoW! That is a lot of democracy for a single day ;-)
It's always interesting to see these differences between countries. Over here we vote for five things: european and national parliaments, provinces, municipalities and (very obscure) waterships. That's it. No Mayors, Judges, DA's and what have you (basically we trust competent and impartial people will appointed in these positions, and if they don't the resposible political parties are held accountable).

In the Netherlands there are 'primary' elections in the sense that the different political parties elect there party leadership and determine the order of the candidates on the lists for the municipal/provincial/general elections. But since these are closed to non-party members they do not get a lot of media-coverage. I believe a similar system is in place in Germany, but again a have to see whether Oliver confirms this.
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All Oliver is interested in "proving" is that there is no democracy in the USA. It's been a theme of his for months now.
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Yeah, it's emberassing. Classic troll I'm afraid.
 
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Phaedrus74 said:
[Correct me if I'm wrong Oliver]

In Germany the President is elected by Parliament (and has no political power) therefore no primaries in the American sense.
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Not completely right. The Bundespräsident is elected by the Bundesversammlung.

The Federal Assembly (German: Bundesversammlung) is a special body in the institutional system of Germany, convoked only for the purpose of selecting the Bundespräsident every five years. The Bundesversammlung comprises the entire membership of the Bundestag (the lower house of Germany's parliament) and an equal number of state delegates selected by the state parliaments especially for this purpose, proportionally to their population figures. Among the latter are not only politicians: it is customary for the several states to also nominate celebrities and other prominent or specially deserving people. From the time of their nomination until the closing of the session of the Federal Convention, its members enjoy parliamentary immunity with regard to prosecution by public authorities in very much the same way as members of the Bundestag do.
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You are right with your assertion that the president has (nearly) no political power. The German equivalent to the American president would be the Chancellor.
The Chancellor is elected by the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament in Germany. The parties will tell before the general election whom they will nominate as candidate for that job, the voters do not have a direct influence on that (they have an indirect influence because the parties will more or less listen to opinion polls before they nominate their candidates). So, we do not only have no primaries in the American sense, we do not have primaries at all.

ETA: I know the question was directed to Oliver, but since he doesn´t have any clue what he is talking about (at least in politics) and you were looking for an answer, I took the chance to clear things up. I hope it helped.
 
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Flo said:
To his credit, this has often led to really interesting discussions of the differences in institutions between the USA and Europe (and sometimes the rest of the World) between those of us who have a less caricatural view of each other's countries.
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I agree.
 
Georg said:
Not completely right. The Bundespräsident is elected by the Bundesversammlung.



You are right with your assertion that the president has (nearly) no political power. The German equivalent to the American president would be the Chancellor.
The Chancellor is elected by the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament in Germany. The parties will tell before the general election whom they will nominate as candidate for that job, the voters do not have a direct influence on that (they have an indirect influence because the parties will more or less listen to opinion polls before they nominate their candidates). So, we do not only have no primaries in the American sense, we do not have primaries at all.
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Thanks for the correction Georg!

(I'm learning an awful lot today)
 
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Wildy said:
Can you join both parties then if you want to keep your options open?

For those states that you have to join a party to vote in primaries (I assume that this is a popular vote for the candidate before the proper election right?), what exactly is that supposed to achieve?
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Except possibly for party-specific elections, joining a party doesn't restrict your voting options. You can pull any lever you like at the general election, whatever your party of registration. After all, nobody can tell how *you* voted anyway; receipt-freeness is IMO one of the most important properties an election can have, and it's what we mean by "secret ballot".

IMO the reason to restrict party primaries to voters registered for that party is to prevent *other* parties' voters from selecting a weak opponent. Of course, that all breaks down when enough folks realize that party registration need not influence their actual voting; you could always register for the "other" party just for that purpose.
 
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