06-03-2012, 03:37 PM
Quote:(4) Chess playing parents who have a proxy vote for their U12 child. Excuse the maths interrrupting but isn't that 2 members 2 votes? This should continue.
Well, yes-ish. We don't let under-12s vote in national elections, despite the fact that they're unquestionably people. I'd say there are some pretty serious concerns here that children are likely to simply vote for who their parents tell them to. I'd certainly have voted for whoever my dad told me to when I was 11. Even if they believe that they've reached this decision themselves, they're disproportionately likely to have been convinced by parental argument, because that's how the parent-child relationship works, children, by and large, believe things their parents tell them, whether that's 'don't put your hand in the toaster because it hurts' or 'Joe Bloggs is clearly an unsuitable individual for Chess Scotland office'. I'm pretty concerned that it just means giving parents two votes.