participation in the political process

Question 1

Voting

Answer 1

Voting opportunities - local councils, Scottish parliament, UK parliament, European Parliament
Scottish government extended vote to 16+, giving citizens greater opportunity to to participate in political process

Argued that FPTP hinders voters to participate, votes are wasted and not proportional rep.
2015 UKIP got 2.3 million more votes than SNP but only gained 1 seat compared to SNPs 56.

In 2017 Scottish Local council elections only a 47% turnout - showing supposedly less important elections are seen as necessary

Question 2

E-Petitions

Answer 2

Scottish and UK gov both have facility to create them and are widely used
used in order to participate in political process and influence government

Groups than run their own polls and petitions - 38 degrees
End on Tampon Tax has been a success
Ban on Trump coming to UK got over half a million signatures, showing extent of how many people use it
Although a criticism of it is ‘slacktavists’ can sign petitions without knowing consequences

Question 3

Standing as a candidate

Answer 3

Anyone aged 18+ can stand as an individual candidate - STV system allows many independent candidates to be elected - 200 local councillors out of 1200 are independent in Scotland
Showing Scotland able to implement these voting systems to allow more people to participate in political process

eg. London mayoral election leading candidates were Zak Goldsmith (son of billionaire) and Sadiq Khan (son of bus driver) Sadiq won
Despite background government allows anyone to participate