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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.

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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.

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.

> 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.

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