Article 13 gets legalized because Sweden pushed the wrong voting button | Hacker News Reader

Article 13 gets legalized because Sweden pushed the wrong voting button

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107 pointsendymi0n69 comments

I can't believe that people who have problems with operating a 3-button remote decide how the whole internet should work.

Same stories with polish voters; mistake during voting. They have only one job: push the right button.

Easiest explanation for this is that some people took money for the vote, they did push the button they've wanted to, and they just told the public it was a mistake. Because I can't imagine how it should be hard to confuse YES with NO.

- Do you want ice cream? No. Sorry I meant yes!

- Do you want to go see the movie? Yes. Sorry I've made a mistake, I meant to say no.

Such stories suggest we're dealing with unstable individuals.

- Do you want half of the world to act accordingly to our new set of rules? Yes. Sorry, no. I meant yes! No sorry, what I wanted to say is NO. Sorry it was a mistake!

The people that made a mistake are unstable and should be treated as unstable.

I don't know what the exact thing was that was voted on, but sometimes it can get complicated.

Let's assume that there is a vote coming on road tolls. A member first proposes that "Let's implement road tolls". Then government officials give their response to that "Let's not implement road tolls." Then the speaker selects the governments response as the base for voting. Now if a member is for road tolls and votes "YES", that member is then voting against road tolls.

Again, I don't know how the process went and what was actually voted on. I'm just saying that sometimes is might be somewhat complicated to understand what is the thing that is actually voted.

Sure, this should be straightforward for any experienced politician, but occasionally newcomers make mistakes like these.

No its the first job of any representative to know what the substantive motion is and any consequentials .

Also any consequentials should be published along with the motions on the order paper / agenda.

I watched the voting live and with my very limited knowledge of how the European Parliment works I was able to discern what was voted on and when.

There were essentially two votes on this issue. First (the one that was lost by only 5 votes) was to vote on amending the directive (to potentially remove article 13 from it) and after that, they proceeded to vote on the whole directive. In my opinion in this case there was enough time for MEPs to make a decision and press one of three buttons in front of them.

Also, remember that this was a big, widely discussed issue and it's not something that took them by surprise. The order of what will be voted when was published before the session started and everyone could prepare themselves for it.

The people that made a mistake are unstable and should be treated as unstable.

It's not like there is only one thing to vote on on a given day. There are often dozens of votes covering a huge spectrum of issues often with very obtuse names and wording. So many people bring 'cheat sheets' so that they can remember what they're planning on voting on each issue. The problem in this case was that the order that issues where being voted on changed at the last minute and not everybody got the news and updated their notes. So it wasn't that they pressed the YES when they meant to press NO, its that they thought they where answering YES to question 36 when they where infact answering YES to question 37.

Oh, okay, so the real problem is that they can't even remember what they're going to vote on.

Isn't this actually even worse though? they "didn't get the memo" that they were voting for the wrong thing? Is that how we want politics to work?

No, it's not, and these people should be held accountable for that for sure.

On the other hand, we don't know the exact details of how the whole system is set up.

It might be that "they "didn't get the memo" that they were voting for the wrong thing?" is underselling that the whole system is full of bad (if not flat-out dark) UI/UX patterns that increase the chance of mistakes like this. A good run-through of that might benefit everyone.

I will confess that I'm probably a bit biased in my interpretation of the context; I quickly feel overwhelmed by administration stuff and am always scared in bureaucratic contexts that I fill in some form incorrectly. Basically, it makes me feel like I'm in Jim Henson's Paperwork Explosion[0]. So doing that as your job sounds terrifyingly stressful to me (and yes, I do realize it's weird that I don't feel the same about programming, which is arguably the act of writing instructions for an unforgiving literal-minded bureaucratic automaton).

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IZw2CoYztk

Why should I accept the excuse that MEPs are using bad cheat sheets? I've heard excuses like this in my 1-st grade in elementary school. Why did you not do your homework? I did, but the dog ate it.

MEPs that voted wrong are not fit to vote.

If they can't figure out and insure themselves against a rogue action like changing vote order in the last minute, I don't think they belong to EP, since they're too easy to manipulate.

I mean, the decisions they're making affect everyone in EU, and more. I can't imagine how one shouldn't take a vote like this dead serious.

You should watch this video about how bad the voting procedures actually are: https://youtu.be/lzigiPUXNzI

That's absolutely insane.

To illustrate:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sed/doc/news/flash/22221/SYN_O...

If I read the document correctly, the second column, 12:30 to 14:30, and 17:00 to 18:15 are all votes (with A8-0245/2018 VOSS being the topical one).

Much as we collectively like to pore over and focus on the specific things that matter to us, it's not like they "had one job" that particular session.

It's their job, they are really well paid for it.They messed it up(I'm being gentle) but they won't get any consequence for it but the rest of the EU will. They should be paying attention, they should resign immediately for incompetence.

Yes, this is a monumental cock up, and yes people fucked up. But it's hardly the first time it happens. Perhaps instead of just blaming the users (and I have no problem with also blaming the users in this case) we should also look at the underlying systemic issues that keep causing this to happen.

Absolutely agree, part of the problem is the way they do those things. It should be more clear what they are voting for, how they vote, and they should pay more attention, and that's the reason the vote can't be changed afterwards.

> Because I can't imagine how it should be hard to confuse YES with NO.

> Do you want ice cream? No. Sorry I meant yes!

I mean, this exact thing happens all the time. It's not what happened here, but it's not like this is some ridiculous, unimaginable dialog.

> Because I can't imagine how it should be hard to confuse YES with NO.

That's why we use safe words. Maybe they need colour coded buttons.

They have colour coded buttons: https://i1.wp.com/emanuelkarlsten.se/wp-content/uploads/2019...

Source: https://emanuelkarlsten.se/03/13-ledamoter-tryckte-fel-i-den...

That looks pretty freakin' hard to get wrong.

No sorry, what I wanted to say is NO

Had you voted NO on the actual vote we're discussing, it would have meant you where for Article 13, not against.

The title is misleading. The directive was approved by a large majority of 348 in favor, 274 against (spread of 74 votes).

Before that, there was a vote about whether to vote on individual amendments; that vote (about voting on amendments) is the one discussed in the OP and was indeed only defeated by 5 votes.

One individual amendment offered to delete article 13. It's possible that if that amendment had come to a vote it would have succeeded, but it's not certain -- and given the majority the directive enjoyed, it's quite unlikely.

This directive is still an absolute catastrophe, the effects of which will be felt for a very long time. But articles like these don't quite help the fight.

Yes, you right, this article is trying to mislead the reader in several sentences, but the title here on hacker news is actually totally wrong, I would categorize it as "fake news", first the wording "got legalized" is weird, but most importantly the part "Article 13 gets legalized because Sweden pushed the wrong button" is just wrong as there were two votes, sweden did a mistake while voting for the second vote, which was about "if amendments should get discussed"

I'm totally against so called article 13, I think it will be super bad for European startups, they will suffer the most, but trying to spread fake news just makes it worse because people you try to explain this don't take you serious anymore

we need a report fake news button on hacker news

OP here, while we're at it, there should be a possibility to retract an article after posting. I've fact checked this and it looks like you're right, however I have no possibility to kill the article at the current moment.

This is why you need some redundancy built into the voting mechanism, otherwise you're always going to get such mistakes.

In the British Parliament you have to physically walk into a separate Aye or No lobby to register your vote. Some might think this an anachronism, but you don't tend to mill around in a crowded room with a load of people you disagree with without realising.

It's nearly happened:

  A minister inadvertently found himself in the wrong lobby in a Commons
  vote after a mix-up with a glass of water.

  Lib Dem MP Andrew Stunell was filling up a glass from a washroom inside
  one of the Commons lobbies where MPs cast their votes, when the doors
  closed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16746389

Well, the Lib Dems have always struggled with which side of the House they're on, so in this particular case it's not that surprising!

You often have to enter your email address twice and click a confirmation link to sign up to even the most straightforward mailing lists.

But to vote on legislation affecting literally hundreds of millions of people for generations, just hit a button and there's no going back.

But there /is/ always going back. That's the thing. They can decide tomorrow, or next week, or next year that actually Article 13 is a bad idea and revoke it.

There are reasons to support a different mechanism for voting, but the idea that this is irrevocable and so needs safeguards to prevent mistakes is not one.

the EU parliament can't actually trigger a vote by themselves. I think it requires the EU commission to introduce the legislation. so if parliament believes it made a mistake and the commission won't support them then there is no going back.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/powers-and...

'A Member of the European Parliament, working in one of the parliamentary committees, draws up a report on a proposal for a ‘legislative text’ presented by the European Commission, the only institution empowered to initiate legislation.'

I guess in a way the EU commission has a similar Veto power that the US president has except it possible for the legislature in the US to override the President's Veto power.

Historically there was only one lobby (after all it's not usual to deliberately build rooms with two lobbies) and so parliament would do divisions like this:

When the question is asked, it would be decided which alternative most preserves the status quo. Supporters of the contrary opinion must leave their seats and go into the lobby, those content would remain. This way if everybody is too lazy to get up and vote, nothing happens.

But of course this makes it key to find ways to make your side of the question be the one that stays seated, as you'll thereby pick up all the lazy or incompetent votes.

So the rebuilt Palace has two lobbies, and remaining in your seat now is an abstention (you can also just vote twice, once each way, if you are concerned that some mischief will be attempted with the lists of voters, but though it's not forbidden this is a huge waste of people's time in tabulating the votes and so it's frowned upon).

Thomas Jefferson describes the old system because that's what was in place when he wrote about it.

Some MEPs are now saying they accidentally voted the wrong way because the voting order was changed and they were confused: Enough MEPs Say They Mistakenly Voted For Articles 11 & 13 That The Vote Should Have Flipped; EU Parliament Says Too Bad

13 of them registered a correction to their vote on amendments, with 10 of those intending to vote for amendments. However, the corrections aren't used to affect the outcome.

Edit: checking Techdirt's math:

Official vote: 312 for, 317 against, 24 abstained

MEPs that registered a voting correction (blank for abstain):

Name Voted Intended Gerolf Annemans for Johannes Cornelis van Baalen against for Dita Charanzová for Martina Dlabajová for Antanas Guoga against for Eva Joly for Jo Leinen ? for Peter Lundgren against for Michèle Rivasi for Kristina Winberg against for Marek Plura for against Marita Ulvskog for against Daniel Buda against After corrections: 320 for, 314 against, 20 abstained

So the vote would have had the opposite result if the corrected votes were used.

Here's an article that covers this info:

https://gizmodo.com/report-european-parliament-screwed-up-th...

Although I'm not sure if I'm not against the law here, linking a copyrighted material like a criminal

You didn't include any of the copyrighted article.

You summarised the contents in your own words.

You hyperlinked to the article just like the WWW is meant to work.

Now wasn't that easy, remaining compliant with Article 11? So what's all the fuss about?

The fuss arises from news aggregators who hate outbound links because they take eyeballs away from their own site of scraped content.

Actually the link itself includes a part of the article, and it's possible to tell what's the content of the article by looking at the link itself.

There is a nuance. They cast their vote any way they see fit, then change it to appeal to the public, knowing that changing vote won't change the outcome, yet PR would be good.

My first thought reading the headline was 'great, yet another "The Onion" article'.

Anyway, it seems that some German delegates pushed the wrong button too:

https://twitter.com/woelken/status/1110657088177487877

Evil to him who evil thinks.

Haha same here, I also thought it was an "The Onion" article

So, from what I read, it seems that rather large number of MPs pushed the wrong button.

I guess that more and more MPs would confess that "wrong button" was pressed since European Parliament election is just around the corner (end of May). Although voters memory is rather short, MPs are afraid that it might actually persist for next 2 months.

I am definitely going to vote by which button was pushed, not by which button was intended to push. A person who can't push the right button has no business being member of the EP.

According to Finland's national public broadcasting company, one Finnish MEP also pushed the wrong button.

https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10707635: "However, Pietikäinen later said she voted wrong accidentally. Her intention was to support the directive."

"Pietikäinen tosin kertoi myöhemmin äänestäneensä vahingossa väärin. Hänen tarkoituksensa oli ollut kannattaa esitystä."

It seems that it is very easy to press wrong buttons.

From what I understand, the voting order was changed last minute. I am not surprised people screw up in those circumstances.

The Swedish reps who pushed wrong said there were some changes last minute to the agenda, confusing them and in effect probably caused the wrong button press. Though I haven't been able to find for certain if this was the case.

I am glad most Swedish reps voted against but will definitely use my vote next election to try and remove the ones that voted for (yes there were some that voted for and not by mistake) and people incompetent enough to not know what button to press when it comes down to it.

> they can have the record amended to show what their true intention was, but the vote is binding.

Amazing rules, what a club to be in!

I don't think any parliament will allow a new vote because a member claims (s)he made a mistake. That would create too many problems.

I think in the US senate, a senator can request individual verification where each senator has to physically say and verify their vote.

I'm sure there are technicalities to it, but the Australian parliament allowed a new vote just this year.[0]

In short, the governing party voted in favour of a motion that "It's okay to be white". The vote failed to pass, but the next day (amid condemnation) it was claimed that the vote was due to an administrative error. A new vote was held and the motion was defeated again, unanimously.

I say there may be technicalities as apparently the vote was a "recommittal"[1], but on the face of it the parliament allowed a new vote because the members claimed to have made a mistake.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_OK_to_be_white#Australi...

[1]: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practi...

4chan really has a lot answer for when something that ridiculous gets voted upon in Parliament.

Maybe they should.

so what would you suggest if it's not binding, let people change their vote indefinitely for an infinite period of time? ;) It's sad article went through, but there is nothing wrong about having binding votes

It can be tricky with yes and no logic and how the issues are presented. I've read several proposals that were voted in my local city council, and without having excellent reading skills into the council jargon it would be really easy to vote wrong. To further negate the relations, there might be a vote for an opposing proposal, so if you want to support the original you vote no. I usually understand what I read relatively easily, including articles on complex algorithms, but had I had a seat in the city council these would've stunned me several times.

For things with big impact like state parliament and EU votes there should be a clear announcement before the vote to clarify which "side" the voting works out to be.

People having problems with choosing correct button are responsible for setting law about internet for millions. Just great.

No, the article title here on hacker news is "fake news"! there were several votes, the main vote about the law itself would have passed anyway, the "yes" won with a significant margin, even if sweden would have voted differently ... sweden just did a mistake when voting about the questions if amendments should be discussed

It would be a good way to vote the direction YOU wanted, and try to avoid the repercussions of it.

Who can tell why they pressed that button?

And such a coincidence that we're made aware of this "PEBKAC happens" when the law is a controversial one.

> The title is misleading. The directive was approved by a large majority of 348 in favor, 274 against (spread of 74 votes). Before that, there was a vote about whether to vote on individual amendments; that vote (about voting on amendments) is the one discussed in the OP and was indeed only defeated by 5 votes.

OP here, you're right about that after doing some fact checking. I just retracted the article by hiding. My bad.

Too bad that some of our representatives seem to lack the mental capabilities to handle the 3-button voting system.

On the other hand, who says that the reverse hasn't happened as well? I could imagine that there also were some 'yes' voters who accidentally pressed the wrong button.

Indeed that is the case. I read that 13 people wanted to vote 'yes' but pressed 'no' and 2 people wanted to vote 'no' but pressed 'yes'. So it does not even out.

At least among the Swedish MEPs two voted NO when they meant to vote YES and one voted YES when they meant to vote NO.

This summarizes the utter incompetence on both sides of the political spectrum in Sweden. Not a proud day to be a Swede.

So, now, if someone gets murdered in the city square (public domain), are city officials charged with murder?

Another decision against humanity - nice!

This happens when everyone just exists to gain more money and power.

You had ONE JOB.

"wrong"

You had one job...

I'd like to know why this is being downvoted.

One of the unofficial rules of HN is:

* No oneliners. Specialy memelike oneliners.

For example, if someone says "moon" and you reply "That's no moon...it's a space station." you will get downvoted.

One clear symptom is that someone else wrote the same comment (with allcaps, that breaks another rule). I'm not sure why that comment was not downvoted. (Note: I didn't downvote your comments or the comment of the other user.)

You can write oneliners in special occasions, but it's much safer to write a longer comment and give more details.

Another rule is:

* Don't complain about downvotes.

Luckily, your second comment didn't get downvote.

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