Policy Centric Voting

Policy-Centric Voting during General Elections

Would you not prefer spending a bit more time voting on policies rather than enduring three years or more of disillusionment and complaints about government inaction and lack of transparency?

To achieve Policy-Centric Voting we envisage:

Blind Voting

“Blind voting” means proposed policies will not show any reference to the political party (or independent) that has authored the policy.  This will allow the People to make choices based purely upon their needs as individuals as well as the greater good for their families, community, region and the nation. This will also remove bias based on “we’ve always voted for ABC party”.

Policy Detail

We envisage there being more information available to the People by electronic means including:

• Policy written in plain English (or selected language)
• Benefits to be gained by the community, region or nation
• Costs to implement policy (estimated)
• Government department primarily responsible for policy.  There may be many departments involved yet it would be deemed that there would be a lead department).  This flows through to Restructuring Government.
• Effects on income/expenditure of taxpayers (numbers, demographics, etc)
• Effects on Government budgets, income, expenditure (this will require a level of transparency by Government to have accurate accounts open to the People)
  
• Relevant documentation, videos, infographics, charts, graphs, demographics
• List of pro's and con's
• Forums for questions by the People and answers from the authors of the policy could be provided through the app/website so that the multitudes vs the minority would have access to any discussions and therefore be more informed.
  

Early Engagement

All proposed policies will be available electronically (via secure app/website) to the People at least three months prior to election.  This will give the People the opportunity to analyse/scrutinise the policies and ask questions about the policies. It will also enable the People to make selections of policies to review, review questions and answers submitted, and rank at their leisure pre-elections without limiting ability to add other policies to their final voting choices.

Select and Rank Policies

People will select and rank the policies based on their preferences. Only those policies selected and ranked will be included in the final tally. The ranking of policies will be the most important step of the process as this will determine the policies the People prefer to see fulfilled. The ranked policies will be tallied using a Ranked Choice Voting system and the top 90 (5 per redefined government department) will be deemed the preference of the People.

Outcome

Implementing Policy-Centric Voting means there could be a fair mix of parties and independents being elected to Government who would need to work proactively together as a representative coalition. We do not envisage their being “one party” or a “majority coalition” requirement. Policy-Centric Voting will also negate the need for List MPs and could potentially reduce taxpayer spend on governance.

Yes, this voting system will take longer for the People to complete but it is only a once every three (or four) years requirement (depending on what the People want).

By making policy the core that the People will vote on, parties will more likely produce policies that the People will embrace.