Scots Wha Huh?

[mrslant]

Scottish electors in following-written-instructions quandary...

Apparently it's all the fault of the system that over 100,000 Scottish voters are too thick to fill in their ballot papers correctly. I ask you.

On the paper for the Scottish Parliament you mark a cross in one box in the left-hand column, and one box in the right-hand column.

On the paper for the local council you number the candidates in order of preference.

How terribly difficult. Morons. And to think we're always being told how much better than ours the Scottish education system is (although to be fair, it could hardly be worse).

Actually, this has given me an idea. We should make all ballot papers as complex as possible, in order to alleviate one of the major drawbacks of democracy by ensuring that the votes of cretins don't count. Fairer, I think, than just taking all the poor people off the electoral roll, like they do in Florida...

Which would be the first chav town to record a zero poll, I wonder?

Comments

[uitlander]

Hmm. Taking this a step further we could set up the ballot paper as a Sudoku. Better yet give the Sudoku and traditional voting slips and insist the votes where the Sudoko is correctly filled out count. Intelligent voting.

[mrslant]

I'm liking this plan: Sudoku would be a good test as it's pure logic.

What's particularly annoying is hearing all these politicians pandering to the thickos by saying how terrible it was to expect people to fill out two different types of form on the same day. Especially when they're the same politicians who issue benefit application forms that are 32 pages long and need a chartered accountant to complete them.

Isn't there at least one decent, crusty Scots Tory who'll come out and say anyone who's too stupid to understand the ballot paper doesn't deserve a vote? :-)

[selkie-lass.livejournal.com]

I voted on Thursday using this new system. It wasn't difficult. It's just a cunning plan to keep those with a subnormal IQ from stuffing up the parliament - it makes a bad enough job of things on it's own. The only thing that bugged me, really, was the STV. Ranking this numptie against that fuckwit ain't easy.

As to the Scottish Education system, it was better, I don't think it is anymore. Stupid Foundation/General/Credit levels. Why can't they all sit the same paper and pass or fail? Shows you what their skill level is right there between A and F. Now it's all to do with league tables nothing to do with ability. If I was sitting my maths exam now I'd be put in Foundation level. When I did my O Grade I got an unexpected B - Credit level. Pupils now (I refuse to call them students, you're a student when you go on to tertiary education) don't get that opportunity to outdo themselves or show their true abilities. If there is a chance of failure then they aren't given the opportunity to try and pass at a higher level. It's sad.

[mrslant]

Well, the Wee Pretendy Parliament (as I understand it's known in Edinburgh) is going to be having a great time now, as the SNiPs spend the next few years trying to persuade everyone else to let them have their referendum on "independence" (or "being a European Region" as their policy would more accurately be described), and any actual governing can go hang...

I was in the last year to do the old-style exams in England (1987). We had GCE O level and CSE. Only the top 20% or so got to do the GCE, which had pass grades A to C. The CSE was graded 1 to 5, with a 1 being equivalent to a C at GCE. Grading was norm-referenced, so it indicated how well you did compared to other people taking the same exam: an A meant you were in the top 10% (of the top 20% who took GCE). According to the blurb on the back of my certificates, the grade boundaries were set so that a candidate of average ability would attain CSE Grade 4.

That's (supposedly) equivalent to an F at GCSE. Now everyone's expected to get Cs or better and they give out As and A*s like they were going out of fashion. Grade inflation? Of course not, it's just that today's 16-year-olds are so much cleverer than we were 20+ years ago, despite being functionally illiterate and not knowing who William the Conqueror was... *sigh*

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

The bit that broke my brain wasn't the voting; it was working out the relationship (if any) between the number of votes cast for any particular party and how many MSPs they got. Eventually I enlisted the help of AFP, because they know everything, and I think I've got it sorted out now.

I agree about the SNP. The good news is that they can't form a government on their own, so someone else (probably the LibDems) will be there to do the tricky bits while our part-time First Minister is at his day job...

[donbert.livejournal.com]

As long as Jack McConnell's not "Furst Meenister" I don't mind. I can't stand the man and that was right from his "Oh by the way I'm an adulterer, what're you going to do about it?" comments on taking the post.

It'd be nice to have a political leader these days that you could actually look up to, just once.

(Salmond's out of the running because he's an economist. That's pretty nearly as unpleasant as betraying someone you've sworn a sacred oath to...

[basement-jax.livejournal.com]

"Which would be the first chav town to record a zero poll?"

Basildon, definately!