Sunday, August 26, 2007

Elections and the Tower of Babel

Apparently, it does not matter whether the electors actually understand the business on which they are voting.

There's an upcoming local election in Norway. Election Day is September 10. All legal permanent residents having resided legally in Norway for 3 years or more have the right to vote for representatives to local bodies.

The Royal Municipal and Regional Department has distributed information on voting rights in no less than 8 languages in addition to the official language; English, Turkish, Russian, Somali, Vietnamese, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.

A lot of Norwegian-speaking people are not able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge to vote responsibly, but how are people who are not proficient in Norwegian, let alone neither in Norwegian or English, able to?

Long live the efforts to bring ignorance to the polls!

3 comments:

Johan R. Sjöberg said...

No information in Swedish? How am I supposed to understand what it's all about then?

(I'm being ironic.)

J.K. Baltzersen said...

Well, sir, I guess they reckon you as a Swede know what it's all about; voting for your favorite Santa Claus. After all, Sweden is the model for the world to copy.

BTW, since you're a Swede you don't have to wait 3 years. Run along and vote for your favorite Santa Claus! :-)

On a related note, an opinion poll institute called me yesterday. They asked me about the importance of several issues. Although local bodies can influence taxes, none of the issues were about this.

Johan R. Sjöberg said...

Yes, I believe it was you I told that Norway has actually brought the Swedish model to a "higher level" than Sweden was able to.

However, I do not vote (I have been informed that I am permitted to vote in the local election in Oslo), on principle. I am against democracy in general and government in specific, and thus, I am not voting.