If we need SIPO, what does that say about voters?

[Hillmanhunter1]

Voters are stupid. It's not exactly news. Try talking to the average one about euthanasia, abortion, simple governance or basic economics. It's an absolute waste of time. They'll just sit there, dribbiling from their mouths. Alas, I can think of no better system than democracy.

I don't think its fair or correct to say that voters are stupid, its just that every aspect of society has become more and more complex, and it is no more reasonable to expect most people to understand NAMA than it is to expect them to understand cantilevered bridges or fluid dynamics.

Because people can't (reasonably) deal with things like NAMA they focus instead on things that they do understand (generally directed by the likes of Joe Duffy and the O'Reilly media) such as head shops and expenses at FAS which, though worthy of some attention, are not the important issues of the day.

[rockofcashel]

One of the primary functions of The Standards in Public Office commission is to enforce laws that ensure candidates and parties do not exceed electoral spending limits.

The provides statutory recognition of the fact that electoral success is more often than not a function of spending power, wherein if no limits were applied, it would be probable that political power would rest with the richest among us.

However, every citizen, whether rich or poor, has the right to vote, so theoretically, no laws should be required to ensure that the weak, who form a majority in any society, are not ruled by the powerful. In fact, the principle argument in favour of democracy is that it protects the weak from the powerful.

So if we need SIPO, and electoral spending limits, what does that say about the electorate?

To me it suggests that the electorate can't actually be trusted to make informed decisions about who they wish to represent them, and instead and more likely to vote on the basis of the sophisticated advertising techniques and full throttle electoral campaigns that the spending limits are designed to curtail.

If that is the case, ie that specific measures are needed to prevent voters from being 'bought', how can voters be trusted to choose Government's in the first place?

To me, this is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the democratic process. If you can't trust a voter to make an informed decision, how can you trust them to make a decision at all?

The biggest problem with this post Goosebump, is that you are convoluting what SIPO do, and the effect that the amount of campaign spend has on the outcome of elections.

First let me deal with SIPO.

The SIPO and regulations governing the reporting of election spend in Ireland is probably one of the greatest wastes of time and money that we are currently indulging in.

I say that as a candidate and as a former Director of Elections who has had to deal with SIPO, so probably more than most here, I know exactly what a waste of time that they are.

As a director of elections who has sent in returns to SIPO, I tried to do my level best to produce as clear a picture of what was spent on a general election as I could. They broke my heart, fighting over an electricity bill for a campaign office asking me to break downhow much of the electricity was used during the election period, and how much was used either side of it (as the ESB bill was two monthly and the period covered time outside the election period)

So, subsequently, I simply ignored them. And have continued to ignore them since. Every election that I have been involved in, 3 in total, I have gotten forms with my candidate forms to fill in with electoral expenses, and I simply threw them in a pile and forgot about them. Then, every couple of months after the election finished, I got a few warning letters telling me I was in breach of such and such act, until eventually they just stopped sending the letters.. no censure, no summons, no nothing.

And you know, I am not bothered if they come after me, because quite frankly, they are a completely discredited agency. Anyone with a brain or an eye in their head, can go around any constituency in the country, and see the electoral spending limits being flouted in every single constituency, by every single political party, bar none, and absolutely nothing is done about it.

I know how much an election costs. I know how much posters cost, leaflets, billboards, media advertising, benefit in kind cost for help etc etc etc, and candidates spend tens of thousands of euro on individual campaigns, and also contribute portions of their spend to national campaigns, and every single elected candidate in this country, I could put hand on heart and say, is in breach of the allowed spending limits.

And nothing is done about it, absolutely nothing.

The spending limit legislation is a complete and utter joke.

And anyway, why should any candidate have any respect for the SIPO when we have a situation where a sitting Taoiseach and still a sitting TD, could not furnish a valid tax clearance certificate to them, and still continue as if nothing is happening.

As for the effect of spend on an election, I have taken part in a number of post election surveys carried out by TCD (Liam Weeks I think)

Here is an excellent paper which people interested in the subject might take the time to read if they wish

INCUMBENT AND CHALLENGER CAMPAIGN SPENDING EFFECTS IN
PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL SYSTEMS:
THE IRISH ELECTIONS OF 2002


http://www.kenbenoit.net/pdfs/IncCha..._PRQ_final.pdf

One of the main findings of the paper was that

"Using spending andelectoral data from the Irish general elections of 2002 to test for both inter- and intraparty electoral gains from campaign spending, we find a positive and statistically significant relationship between spending and votes. Not only do candidates that spendmore win more votes, but outspending one’s rivals means winning more of the vote share. Spending more also directly increases a candidate’s chance of winning a seat.
Finally, contrary to previous results from preferential elections using PR, we find that
incumbent spending is considerably less effective than spending by challengers from
other parties, but no less effective than spending by challengers from within a
candidate’s own party."

[rockofcashel]

The paper also noted that

"Success ratesamong incumbent candidates seeking re-election are typically 82% in Ireland (Gallagher2005, 526), less than the US Congress where it has been estimated that incumbents gain at least a five percent average vote advantage just for being incumbents (Alford and Brady 1993; Erikson 1972; Gelman and King 1990), but considerable nonetheless.

That's what you are up against running for election against incumbents.. more than an 82% chance of losing

[rockofcashel]

Our data on spending is provided by the Irish Standards in Public Office Commission,
based on candidate declarations following the 2002 elections. Expenditure falls under eight
headings: advertising, publicity, election posters, other election material, office and
stationary, transport and travel, market research (which includes any poll within 60 days of anelection), and hiring campaign workers.7 The Appendix details spending by the average
candidates from each party. Most thrifty from established parties were the candidates from
the Greens who on average spent just under !7,000 each; most profligate were those from the

Incumbent v. Challenger Spending Effects / 11

PDs who spent over !23,000 each. Candidates from the governing parties, FF and the PDs,
spent much more than candidates from the opposition. Incumbents spent significantly more
than challengers, almost twice as much on average. What is perhaps surprising in the Irish
case is that even with the (by international standards) very low spending limits, most
candidates spent well below the permitted limits. For most parties, spending by the median
candidate was only about 50% of the legal limit (Labour and Fine Gael) or even less (Sinn
Fein, the Greens, and Independents). Observed spending by candidates, in other words,
varied significantly and was not censored by the legal spending caps, a healthy result from an analyst’s point of view, as long as the causes of this variation are exogenous to the political outcomes we seek to attribute to spending. As shown in previous studies, however, not all of the determinants of spending are exogenous to political outcomes, and therefore it is necessary to control for this simultaneity between spending and electoral outcomes before wecan adequately estimate how much impact the former has on the latter, a matter we discuss in the next section.

Those were the reported figures.. and if anyone actually believes them... the next flight for Mars is tomorrow evening

[PrinceMax]

Maybe we should have an exam that everyone has to pass before they can vote. It could include an element of work experience - working in a govt. dept. or something like that.

[goosebump]

Maybe we should have an exam that everyone has to pass before they can vote. It could include an element of work experience - working in a govt. dept. or something like that.

I certainly wouldn't be an advocate for that sort of measure.

Universal suffrage is a given, but can we not take a cold look at what exactly voters are voting for?

In our system, we vote for members of a legislature, from which our Executive (The Government) must be chosen.

If we have concerns about the ability of voters to make informed decisions, and I maintain that our canon of electoral law suggests that we do, would it not be better to introduce some sort of middle tier between the electorate and the Executive?

Have other countries, in which the Executive is not directly derived from the electorate, learned this lesson?

Persisting with a system in which info-tainment is consistently undermining the legitimacy of the political system, but in which we allow bamboozled and obviously confused voters to directly elect key decision makers, seems nuts.

And voters are very 'confused'.

Didn't we have a poll recently in which 85% of voters said they were dissatisfied with the Government but in which 28% of people said they would vote for FF?

That hardly describes a functioning democracy.