Weekend Economists Salute Ruin July 3-5, 2015

[Demeter]

6. Organizational capacity and the Greek Referendum by Lambert Strether Naked Capitalism

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/200pm-water-cooler-7215.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

…. Putting together things I’ve read and heard over the last week or so (links on request):

1) A court challenge in Greece (Friday) will challenge the referendum’s constitutionality. (Among other things, the Greek Constitution prohibits referendums on fiscal matters, but I believe other issues are raised.)

2) The Council of Europe says the referendum is not up to world standards because voters are not given two weeks to decide.

3) There will be no international election monitors (that I know of, including the Council of Europe).

4) The ballot is a dog’s breakfast.

5) Only 40% of voters are required to vote for the referendum to pass.

6) If voters must travel a significant distance to get to the polls, some percentage of voters with cash flow problems will be effectively disenfranchised. (Readers will correct me, but I think this means the referendum would be heavily biased toward Athens, and against the villages and the islands.)

7) The “gold standard” (ugh) for voting is paper ballots, hand counted, in public (BradBlog).

a) The Greek ballot is paper. Good!

b) I don’t know how the counting is done, or by whom, or whether there will be observers.

c) Even under “gold standard” conditions, the Parti Quebecois attempted to affect a referendum result, with “scrutineers” throwing out a disproportionately large number of ballots with a vote they did not favor.

8) I recall hearing — unsure of this! — that Syriza altered the referendum law just a few weeks ago; for what purpose, I do not know.

All of which leads me to two conclusions:

#1: If the vote is at all close, the losing side will have many reasons not to accept the result as legitimate.

#2: As with so much else in this crisis, sloganeering and pom pom waving obscure the detail and the reality. “Yay Democracy!” and apple pie too, but this is not an especially democratic referendum, IMNSHO. In fact, I think it’s an outrage. (Cue the cries of Everybody already knows the issues!” Well, if that’s how democracy works, why have referendums with ballots at all?)