Third parties don't have a chance until you get rid of your egregiously corrupt gerrymandered FPTP electoral system.
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Third parties don't have a chance until you get rid of your egregiously corrupt gerrymandered FPTP electoral system.
azzaman333
meh
Something something guns?
sophie
Break My Heart
Use the proposition system. In 2008 California passed a proposition establishing a bipartisan committee to redraw all the Congressional voter districts in California. The result has been fairly successful.
Of course the best solution is for us to switch to a STV system entirely.
Well, I don't care if some other states want to play with non FPTP, but keep it the hell out of Missouri (and by extension the federal Presidential race.) FPTP is the way to go. There is no justification for anybody but the highest vote getter ever getting into office.
If there are 151 districts for the General Assembly (there are not, this is a hypo) in Missouri and Party A wins every district by 55%, then the total representation in the General Assembly should be completely made up of Party A. No other party deserves representation because.... I know, this is hard for some to grasp... they LOST in every district.
If there are 151 districts for the General Assembly (there are not, this is a hypo) in Missouri and Party A wins every district by 55%, then the total representation in the General Assembly should be completely made up of Party A. No other party deserves representation because.... I know, this is hard for some to grasp... they LOST in every district.
sophie
Break My Heart
So? Do you also think the solution to seeing a spider in your house is to burn it down (*)? Fix the gerrymandering issue. That has nothing to do what kind of vote counting system we should use. If gerrymandering is an issue, fix it. It's that bloody simple. The populace needs to keep the folks' feet to the fire that are in charge of it. Keep the pressure on. Vote them out of office if need be. And you know, if they don't do that, well that's their fault. Yes, the public's fault.
(*) - Might actually be if you live in Australia, given the hellspawn critters they have...
(*) - Might actually be if you live in Australia, given the hellspawn critters they have...
classical_hero
In whom I trust
We use IRV instead and that means your vote will count until the final two candidates.
sophie
Break My Heart
Eliminating gerrymandering while retaining FPTP would be like swatting one fly while keeping a rotting carcass in your house. You may stop the issue for now, but it's only a stopgap measure. FPTP creates a lot of problems. It discourages third parties, it encourages voters to vote for something they don't want in the interests of "voting strategically", it discourages people from voting altogether, and creates a situation whereby 49.99% of the population can be unhappy with their elected official. STV solves all of these problems.
Link to video.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
The Single Transferable Vote System really is not that great either.
In addition to problems with the independence of irrelevant alternatives and monotonicity, STV is computationally more complex and more prone to voter errors causing ballots to be spoiled. Some studies show that the number of spoiled ballots is very frequently more than the margin of victory in competitive races.
We ought to move to Range Voting, or maybe its proportional representation variant Reweighted Range Voting in multi-member districts.
By taking into account more information about the strength of each voter's preferences for every candidate, a cardinal voting system like range voting can satisfy all the criteria which Arrow's impossibility theorem shows are incompossible for ordinal systems.
In addition to problems with the independence of irrelevant alternatives and monotonicity, STV is computationally more complex and more prone to voter errors causing ballots to be spoiled. Some studies show that the number of spoiled ballots is very frequently more than the margin of victory in competitive races.
We ought to move to Range Voting, or maybe its proportional representation variant Reweighted Range Voting in multi-member districts.
By taking into account more information about the strength of each voter's preferences for every candidate, a cardinal voting system like range voting can satisfy all the criteria which Arrow's impossibility theorem shows are incompossible for ordinal systems.
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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I hate the useless sacks of shat that are our R's and D's Bh, that I'd be more than willing to consider proportional representation. I mean I loathe giving that much official dominance to the party system but srsly whateves, the two party system has been a crappy little wanna be feudal system for over 150 already. They can all suck lemons and die.
sophie
Break My Heart
Proportional is like the worst. Why would I want to put control of my representative in the hands of a committee operating thousands of miles away. It might work in a small country like the UK, but the US is just too geographically large and diverse for prop representation to make any sense.
FPTP does none of that. Voters do all of it. Nobody forces the voters to vote for one of the two parties. There are almost always more than 2 parties for every major race on the ballot, at least here in MO. And even if there are not, you can always write in your vote. Voters choosing to "vote strategically" or not vote because they don't care or whatever else is the cause of any issue you have with our system.
Voters taking personal responsibility for their votes, that is all that is required.
I don't think people approach third parties in the correct fashion in the US, nor do I think third parties approach the gerrymandered FPTP system correctly. I've been thinking about a longer post on this, but the short version is that "safe" districts should be heavily targeted for third party candidates instead of competitive high-profile seats where they could be spoilers. I live in a pretty safe D district outside of Boston, there wasn't even a Republican on the ballot. Where was the Green candidate? Or the Socialist or any other party that wants to get into the Congress for that matter. Likewise, if I was in a safe GOP district without a D candidate on the ballot, where is the Libertarian house candidate?
I'm in favor of doing something nationally. No offense, Cali, I love the experiment, but they basically disarmed unilaterally in the face of some of the most severe gerrymandering in decades in the Midwest. It's a big reason why the House is so tilted at the moment.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
Not all proportional representation systems do that.
Reweighted Range Version allows for proportional representation without even requiring party organizations to exist, much less placing power in the hands of party committees.
With Range Voting, each voter independently rates every candidate (or at least every candidate the voter wishes to rate) on some scale (1-10, 0-99, or whatever). Once all the scores are added up, whatever candidate has the highest sum wins. (Alternately you could use the highest median score, a truncated mean, etc.)
Reweighted Range Voting is the identical from the voter's perspective, but requires multiple rounds of vote counting. The first winner wins the normal way. After that, between each round of counting each ballot is given a weight reducing how much that ballot is worth based on how strongly that ballot supported the previous winner. Those who are already happy with their chosen representatives get less say in determining who will represent those who are unhappy with the previous winner.
The result is that the winners in a RRV system are proportional to the preferences of the electorate, regardless of party affiliation.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
The problem with FPTP is that it forces you to vote for the two most likely candidates that are going to win, rather than vote for the person you want to win, thus forcing you to vote some times against what you believe if you want your voice heard. In Australia with the instant run-off voting you can vote the way you really want and still have your vote count towards the person you prefer out of the two more likely to win. Here you can never throw your vote away, unless you donkey vote.
No, it does not force you to do anything of the sort. That frustrates me so much. Voters choose to do so even if they think there is another, better candidate. It is entirely on the voters, period.
Any voter who would prefer some 3rd person that isn't listed but votes for one of the two main ones instead of writing in their preferred choice, or even a 3rd person that IS listed but they choose not to vote for because they don't think the 3rd can win, is being untrue to themselves.
If there is a problem with our elections, it is because voters bring about the problems themselves.
Any voter who would prefer some 3rd person that isn't listed but votes for one of the two main ones instead of writing in their preferred choice, or even a 3rd person that IS listed but they choose not to vote for because they don't think the 3rd can win, is being untrue to themselves.
If there is a problem with our elections, it is because voters bring about the problems themselves.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
FPTP does not exactly force voters to choose one of the two candidates most expected to win, but it does create some terrible incentives that discourage doing otherwise.
It does force them to place themselves in one camp supporting only a single candidate (or none, if they stay home, cast a blank ballot, or in some states write in a name that was not previously registered with the secretary of state's office), rather than allowing them to express degrees of approval or disapproval for multiple options. Rang Voting remains far superior.
It does force them to place themselves in one camp supporting only a single candidate (or none, if they stay home, cast a blank ballot, or in some states write in a name that was not previously registered with the secretary of state's office), rather than allowing them to express degrees of approval or disapproval for multiple options. Rang Voting remains far superior.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
A problem is a split-vote situation. If there are two similar candidates, people may vote for the one who has a priori a better chance than their favourite so that a third party with far different policies won't win due to the vote being divided between two candidates on the other side of the spectrum.
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