Facts and Arguments about the Introduction of Initiative and ...

items on the agenda themselves, and include items that are
brought up by the town administration and other committees
and boards.
The OTM participants are provided with several recommendations.
In some municipalities, the actual OTM is also
preceded by an informative pre-Town Meeting, at which
citizens can seek further information about the items on
the warrant. In the warrant itself, one can find recommendations
from various committees for many of the items to
be voted upon. The ‘town counsel’, a lawyer specialised in
municipal legislation, plays an important advisory role at
the OTM itself.
Voting is by a show of hands or by standing up, but for
delicate items there is a change to secret written ballots.
One problem with the written ballot is its time-consuming
character (typically three-quarters of an hour for voting and
counting). Nevertheless, the opportunity for secret ballots is
essential to avoid social pressure on controversial topics.
The OTM’s decisions can still be repealed via a referendum.
In Massachusetts, the signatures of 300 registered
voters are required, and the OTM’s decision will only be
repealed if a majority of at least 20% of the registered voters
opts for this. In special circumstances, additional OTMs
can be convened.
How many citizens attend the Town Meetings? In the USA
one has to register as a voter. The percentages indicated are
for the four states with full OTMs: Maine: 28.17%; Vermont:
26.03%; New Hampshire: 22.60%; Massachusetts: 11.89%.
In fact, these percentages should be increased by about 10%,
because around one-tenth of the names on the lists are those
of registered voters who have moved house in the meantime.
According to the survey by Zimmerman (1999), the
attendance level seems to depend heavily on the size of the
community. In communities with less than 500 inhabitants,
usually more than one third of them attend. In the Connecticut
towns with more than 20,000 residents, attendance is
around 1 percent (Zimmerman p. 165; figures for 1996). Seriously
low attendances have also been noted in communities
where the Town Meeting’s powers are limited.
Zimmerman (p. 173-174) polled municipal officials about
the quality of the debate at the OTM. In Massachusetts,
82% rated the quality as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, 16% as ‘reasonable’
and 2% as ‘dubious’. Zimmerman also asked them
to rate the quality of the decisions. In Massachusetts, 86%
of the officials considered the decisions ‘excellent’ or ‘good’,
14% ‘reasonable’ and 1% ‘dubious‘. The figures are similar
in the other states.
In the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, a novel system
for the direct-democratic preparation of the city budget
has been operating via public assemblies since 1989 (Abers,
2000). This system was introduced by the left-wing
Partido dos Trabalhadores (’Labour Party’), which won a
significant election victory in 1988. At public assemblies,
neighbourhood residents decide their priorities for public
service investment and then elect representatives who at a
higher level – district and city – organise and follow up the
decisions made with the municipal services. Besides local
public assemblies, there are also thematic meetings, for example,
about ‘education’ or ‘the economy and taxes’.
1
Public assemblies provide a very lively form of direct democracy,
and are certainly very workable at a local level.
Nevertheless, the public assembly also has some disadvantages
compared to the referendum. The absence of the secret
ballot is the most important basic objection. Moreover,
the public assembly requires an individual contribution
that is made at a single specific time and it therefore more
easily excludes some voters from participating.
2-2: Boycott with participation quorums
The municipal referendums in German abundantly illustrate
the destructive operation of participation quorums.
In Baden-Württemberg, the municipal referendum was
introduced as early as 1956 (it was not introduced in the
other German states until the 1990s). However, the Baden
legislation is very restrictive. One of the most serious restrictions
is the quorum rule: at least 30% of the electorate
must vote in favour of the citizens’ proposal, otherwise the
ballot is void.
This rule gives more weight to the votes of the opponents
of the citizens’ initiative than to the votes of its supporters,
because the ‘non-votes’ of the abstainers are added to the
‘no-votes’ of those opposed to the initiative.
The referendum in Reutlingen (1986), about the building
of an air-raid shelter, illustrates this effect strikingly. On 20
March 1986, the municipal council (CDU majority) had
decided to build a bunker for civil protection. A citizens’
initiative against this was swiftly set up, with supporters
including the Greens and the SPD, and on 18 April the necessary
signatures were submitted for holding a municipal
referendum on the issue.
The municipal council and the CDU mounted a deliberate
boycott against this initiative. Any participation in discussion
evenings and suchlike was systematically refused. In the very
last week before the vote, the CDU suddenly broke its silence
with an advertisement and a pamphlet that was distributed
as a newspaper supplement and was signed by the mayor,
among others. This contained a barefaced encouragement to
boycott the vote: “... professional and cool heads must now
act sensibly – not emotional, but smart voting behaviour.
So you can just stay at home this coming Sunday; after all,
you are only being asked to vote against the building of the
bunker. Even if you do not vote, you will be expressing your
approval of the decision made by the municipal council. You
have extensively placed your trust in the CDU for many years
in the elections. You can also trust us on this question.”
The result was that only 16,784 of the 69,932 registered
voters took part in the vote; only 2,126 voted in favour of
the bunker. The citizens’ initiative came to grief on the 30%
quorum, despite the fact that only 3.4% of the voters were
in favour of the bunker. The quorum rule ultimately enabled
a small minority of the people to have its way against a
large majority. Various other municipalities in Baden-Württemberg
held municipal referendums on similar plans for
shelters. Overall there was a large majority against building
such facilities, which people considered to be unnecessary.
(An opinion poll showed that 70% of the inhabitants of
Baden-Württemberg opposed the bunkers.) In Nürtingen,