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A populist can come along, who will promise the world to everybody and keep the fact that these promises will have to be paid for by somebody a secret. People, who do not care about what’s happening in their country, will give him their vote, and we have a problem. Furthermore, votes can also be bought, for example with sausages and beer.
It would therefore be good to introduce a little change into our electoral system. Votes would no longer by bought (with promises or sausages) by some dilettante, who in turn drags the republic into bankruptcy, but by the state itself. Concretely it would happen like this:
Every eligible voter would get a cheque for 7 euro a month before the elections, which could be used to pay for the opportunity to vote. On the day of the election the voter arrives at the polling station, presents the cheque and casts his vote. This cheque will be then delivered to the party he voted for. On the other hand, a voter who decides not to vote, can exchange the cheque a day after the elections at the nearest post office for money, and buy himself for example a few drinks.
What would we gain by this? The option to vote will not cost anybody anything, but the value of the vote would be 7 euro. Those people, who care about this country at least a little bit, will gladly chose the option to vote as opposed to gaining 7 euro. On the other hand, people who do not care about anything and do not have a clue about what is going on in this state, would most likely exchange the cheque for money.
The resulting effect would be that there would be no one left to vote for populists who gain their votes with unrealistic promises, or lies. A person will only let go of 7 euro if he is convinced that the option to vote, which he gains, is of higher value.
By the way, the amount of 7 euro is not just random. It is the amount of the contribution per vote that parties get already today. Since this cheque would substitute the contributions, the added expense (number of non-voter times 7 euro) would be ca. 15 million euro. That is less than is stolen by this government in a regular week.
