I just don't get the US presidential primaries. What is the benefit of trashing your own party's candidate? In Finland, there is sometimes small scandals and dirt-throwing when presidential candidates are chosen, but for the most part the parties try to *hide* this from the potential voters to avoid having them vote another party.
In Finland, the official election days are on Sundays, but there is also a week-long 'pre-voting period' when you can also vote. On the election day, you have to go to your designated voting place (usually at a local school), but if you vote during the pre-vote, you can vote anywhere in Finland (or in its embassies), and there are usually voting booths at every post-office and supermarket to make voting easy. We don't have compulsory voting, but I think that all the parties try to encourage voting because they all believe that they would get those extra votes.
In general, we have very party-focused politics because we use the D'hont method, meaning that when you vote for a candidate, you also give your vote for all the candidates in their party. The method favours big parties (there are usually 3-4 parties that get the majority of votes), but the smaller parties can also benefit from it because the smaller the party, the less chance there is that they're going to have someone on their list who you absolutely positively do not want to give your vote.
no subject
In Finland, the official election days are on Sundays, but there is also a week-long 'pre-voting period' when you can also vote. On the election day, you have to go to your designated voting place (usually at a local school), but if you vote during the pre-vote, you can vote anywhere in Finland (or in its embassies), and there are usually voting booths at every post-office and supermarket to make voting easy. We don't have compulsory voting, but I think that all the parties try to encourage voting because they all believe that they would get those extra votes.
In general, we have very party-focused politics because we use the D'hont method, meaning that when you vote for a candidate, you also give your vote for all the candidates in their party. The method favours big parties (there are usually 3-4 parties that get the majority of votes), but the smaller parties can also benefit from it because the smaller the party, the less chance there is that they're going to have someone on their list who you absolutely positively do not want to give your vote.