In Luxembourg, roughly 60% of those forced to vote under compulsory voting rules submit invalid or blank ballots, showing the limits of mandatory participation.
Where this was said
At 19:10 · chapter starts 13:20
David Grech walks through the STV count process with the patience of a teacher and the rigour of an analyst. He introduces the Droop quota — total valid votes divided by seats-plus-one, then add one — and explains why the formula ensures that exactly the right number of candidates can reach the threshold in each district. He then describes what happens when a candidate exceeds the quota: their surplus votes are not discarded but redistributed proportionally to remaining candidates, weighted according to the second (or later) preferences on each ballot. When no surplus exists, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and all their ballots transfer to the next available preference. This cascade continues count by count — sometimes reaching 20 or more rounds — until all seats are filled. Jon repeatedly tests understanding with hypothetical scenarios ('what if a candidate gets exactly 3.6 quotas?'), and David explains how fractional surpluses are handled, how non-transferable votes work, and why the final seat in a district is often far more contested than the first.
Boris Johnson won the 2019 UK general election with just 29.3% of the total voting-eligible population, illustrating how first-past-the-post can produce majority governments on minority support.
Even Barack Obama, despite his exceptional popularity, won the US presidency with approximately 29% of the voting-eligible population.
Belgium has compulsory voting, yet a significant share of voters submit blank or spoilt ballots rather than engage. Luxembourg sees roughly 60% invalid votes under compulsion. The conclusion: forcing people to vote doesn't create informed participation — it just inflates the turnout number while the blank-ballot rate reveals the true level of disengagement.
Despite maintaining 55.1% vote share, Labour's absolute number of votes dropped by between 8,000 and 12,000 compared to the previous election.
Malta's voting-eligible population grew from around 340,000 in the 1970s to approximately 355,000 at the time of the last election.
A total of 8 states have filed lawsuits against social media platforms, including an ongoing case in Tennessee, using product liability and public nuisance theories to seek accountability.
France built 56 nuclear plants in the 1970s and now has the cheapest energy in Europe, making it independent of Russian or Middle Eastern energy geopolitics.
Estonia has a single tax form, a law preventing the government from asking citizens for the same information twice, and a flat rate of tax — enabling competitive taxation.
Portugal's Lisbon, once a city with a major heroin problem, legalised drugs and redirected enforcement spending into rehabilitation and housing, dramatically reducing crime.
The first Boland Amendment banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras passed the House unanimously — yet the Reagan administration ignored it.
Over just two years, Saudi Arabia alone donated $32 million to the Contra rebels, giving loosely affiliated factions millions they had no way to spend on arms.
The National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty raised $6.3 million for the Contras but only $3.3 million reached them — a shockingly low 52% program expense rate.
Richard Secord and Albert Hakim marked up their arms shipments to the Contras by as much as 300%, making enormous personal profits from the covert operation.
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, tapped to run the entire covert Contra support operation, had no prior experience in covert operations whatsoever — he was learning as he went.
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