editorial
impressum June - Issue 05
Editor in chief: Duncan Roberts (duncan.roberts@maisonmoderne.lu) Journalist: Aaron Grunwald (aaron.grunwald@maisonmoderne.lu) Contributor: Michaël Peiffer Photography: Julien Becker, Luc Deflorenne, Etienne Delorme, David Laurent/Wide, Andrés Lejona, Olivier Minaire Proofreading: Cynthia Schreiber
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Vote for a change Text: Duncan Roberts — Illustration: Quentin Vijoux
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It is anathema to many foreigners that voting is obligatory here in Luxembourg. Something about being forced to go to the polling booth seems undemocratic to anyone who views voting as a civil right rather than a civic duty. Compulsory voting is often cited as a reason by foreigners who decline to take up their right to register to vote for local and European Parliament elections in Luxembourg. Others still claim they are wary of local bureaucracy, or have little knowledge of the issues at stake or the manifestos of the different parties. Those arguments are spurious. Compulsory voting is hardly ever enforced. Registration is quick and easy. And anyone who has lived here for five years--the legal minimum to be eligible to vote--surely has some sort of vested interest in who runs their local council. Yes, obtaining information from
the parties in English is not always easy but expats cannot expect everything to be handed to them on a platter. Admittedly, something of a chickenegg dilemma comes into play here. The parties may justifiably argue that it is too expensive and time consuming to produce information in English when so few foreigners have registered to vote, while potential voters will argue that they don’t want to register and waste a vote if they do not have the relevant information in their language to make an informed decision. The same quandary faces those who argue that their vote won’t make any difference to the outcome. But, in a number of communes foreigners outnumber Luxembourg residents. So if all eligible non-Luxembourgers did vote they could affect the final result. Visit www.icanvote.lu, register, use your vote wisely and you could make a change.
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09.06.2011 11:13:41 Uhr