Utilitarian
co-Cain Manager
Ok, I see what you mean now. I don't think that's feasible for us on a national level because of the importance of states. It could work within each state, however.Maybe I'm mistaken here, but I thought that the 3 methods I mentioned are different forms of PR. Is PR a specific form of voting?I agree that some alternative voting form would be the ideal, whether it's instant runoff voting, approval voting, or single transferable votes. There are numerous ways to legitimize third parties.The problem is, even if there were more representatives, most of those wouldn't get heard. The reality is that parties form policies.
In Germany you have six political parties. Traditional right, traditional left, center right, environmental left, further left and further right (not far-right or far-left, just further towards left and right than center parties and traditional parties).
Germany has a 5% cut off. Denmark has a 2% cut off point.
Denmark seems to have 10 political parties, 7 of which have over 5% of the vote. 9 have over 3% of the vote.
This is real choice.
With FPTP the US has two parties.
The UK has three political parties, two liberal parties fight each other and hand the Conservatives the win almost always. And then you have some regional parties, only one ever has an impact, which is the DUP who sometimes prop up an ailing Conservative Party and trying to get them to kill Catholics and save fetuses, or some nonsense like that.
India also has FPTP, instead of parties, it is alliances that are important. There are five alliances, though the third largest alliance got 25 million votes from 600 million cast, or 4% of the vote, they wouldn't even get elected in Germany.
Under a 2% cut off they'd have 4 alliances, though everyone knows there are only two alliances that can realistically win.
FPTP has been shown to benefit the larger parties, and destroy smaller parties, as it does in the US.
Yes, but PR is the best.
Firstly because it gives individuals proper choice. Choosing between two rubbish political parties is not choice.
Secondly because it makes the system much for flexible.
UKIP in the UK got 12.6% of the vote in 2015. They got one seat, and this was after fighting to get seats since 1993.
The AfD in Germany got 12.6% of the vote in 2017. They got 94 seats, and this was after being a political party for something like five years.
Germans wanted to send a message to the main conservative party that they didn't like the direction they were going in, but still wanted a conservative party. So they got their wish.
Thirdly there's far more oversight.
The least corrupt countries in the world use PR. It has more political parties attacking the main parties in charge of the government. It often forces political parties to negotiate policies in order to form coalitions, and the people can easily act against those they feel aren't acting in their best interest by voting them out very quickly.
Instant runoff voting is similar to what France does for the presidency, for example. That's where you vote for your #1 preference and then your #2 preference. Instead of having a second runoff election, your vote simply shifts to your #2 choice if your #1 choice wasn't among the top 2 vote getters at #1.
Approval voting is where you get to vote for as many candidates for an office as you want, and then the total vote tally is done. Whoever got the most votes in total wins. So, if 10 candidates run for an office, you can choose to vote for 1, 2, all 10, or any other number in between.
Single transferable votes are kind of like instant runoff voting. Australia uses this system, and it works like this: Single transferable vote - Wikipedia
Instant runoff or Alternative Voting (AV) is like FPTP.
It is better than FPTP, but still not great as it'll often be done at constituent level.
So, the larger parties still gain an advantage here, because they're most likely to win the smaller battles.
Say for example 10% of the population likes the Fundamental Fundamentalists Socialist Party (FFS Party).
Then 40% like the Center Left Party(CLP)
In a PR election the 10% of the population would get somewhere between 10.5%-11.5% of the seats.
With AV or run off they'd most likely lose every seat they run for, because the CLP will almost always get more votes than them.
So, 10% want the FFS party but they get zero seats because they cannot get above the number of votes in any one constituency.
If it's for the presidency then it'd be better. However unless there's a history of other parties doing well in the House, you'd still get Rep v. Dem at the end of the day.
Unless you have a system where the whole country votes together (rather than as constituencies) then you'll have the larger parties doing proportionally better than the people want them to.
But yeah, it would not be feasible for the presidency.