Group items tagged

Most Europeans wouldn't know it, but 400 citizens from across the EU are gathered at the European Parliament in Brussels this weekend to participate in Tomorrow's Europe, a Deliberative Poll exercise in the parliamentary chamber. A prepoll of a larger random sample of Europeans has already taken place, but this group will answer some big questions about the future of Europe. It's a massive logistical undertaken by Jacques Delors' pro-EU Notre Europe think-tank with the blessing of the European Union itself. Unfortunately, it seems to have gotten little media attention. I'm getting information from the dLiberation blog at openDemocracy. Only a handful of bloggers in Europe have mentioned it this week.

In this second respect, there is and never has been a secret ballot in Britain, because the way in which individual citizens vote can be traced from each ballot paper used. Every ballot paper given to the citizen who is voting contains a serial number on it, which is also printed on the counterfoil retained by electoral officials. Before a ballot paper is handed to the citizen, he is asked for his name and address (or preferably to show the clerk his official poll card which shows his name, address and electoral registration number on it). The polling clerk then traces the person in the copy of the electoral register that he has on the table in from of him, and ticks the voter's name off the list. The clerk then tears one of the ballot papers out of the book of papers printed for the purpose, hands it to the voter and directs him or her to the private booth. And then the clerk writes the electoral registration number of the voter on the counterfoil to the ballot paper just issued.

Those most likely to have stopped using a news source because of a breach of trust (the 13% strongly agreeing they have done so in the past year) are more likely to be urban males, aged 18-24. Further analysis of the findings suggests this young male audience is moving away from television towards the Internet – ten percent fewer of them, compared to the average, name television as their most important news source (46% as opposed to 56% overall); and 15 percent say the Internet is now their most important news source in an average week, compared to just 9 percent of respondents as a whole.