One issue is the cost and logistics of it all. In Sweden we therefore have three different elections on the same day. Campaigning tend to focus on the national election, thus the others gets a back seat and quality suffers.
Also, I've helped some smaller parties with the ballot distribution. It's not a small task for a small party to ensure each an every polling place in the country has ballots. Just the physical logistics of it is hard enough, but then you also have to deal with all the people who seem to think that only established parties has a right to participate in the election in the first place. The barrier to entry is quite high. Perhaps that is a feature though.
I have a question: Does every party has to supply a seperate piece of paper and the voter then chooses which piece of paper to put into the ballot box? What do voters do with the non-chosen ballots, i.e. how is the secrecy of the vote protected?
The system I know from Germany is that there is one ballot per election and the voter puts a mark which party/candidate they choose with a pen on that.
Yes. Three actually, if you count the different elections. On the ballot is a list of names representing the party so you can vote for a particular candidate by marking the name.
Usually people pick a set of ballots for different parties to bring behind a screen where the choosen ballots are put in the envelope for the box. The non-choosen ones you can pocket to keep secret. Some people tend to leave them in the booth though.
Also, I've helped some smaller parties with the ballot distribution. It's not a small task for a small party to ensure each an every polling place in the country has ballots. Just the physical logistics of it is hard enough, but then you also have to deal with all the people who seem to think that only established parties has a right to participate in the election in the first place. The barrier to entry is quite high. Perhaps that is a feature though.