I’m hearing alot about the structural flaws of First past the post voting these days. Glad to see more people talking about the topic. Let’s start making plans to fix this once and for all so people are free to vote how they want.
I’m not from the US but we do have FPtP here. I propose that all political positions should be filled in a manner similar to selecting a jury. Grab a bunch of citizens at random, do some vetting, install those that pass into the various positions. Three year limit. All major national policy votes taken via a (digital, on your phone) referendum. I strongly believe the only way to save politics is to remove “professional politicians” from the mix.
I’m having a hard time understanding the distinction of the voting method how its outcome differs from popular. I kinda feel like I get that there is a difference, but it’s not clicking. I’m probably just too tired.
So imagine there’s three parties up for election. Party A gets 40% of the vote, Party B gets 30%, and Party C gets 30%.
In this scenario with first-past-the-post, Party A wins because they get the majority. This means 60% of voters (also known as the majority) had no impact on the election because their candidates are thrown away.
On the surface, proportional voting might look similar. But when you consider the highly gerrymandered state of voting districts, you start to realize that the deck is stacked in a very unfair way.
This is sort of how you wind up in a situation where a candidate wins the election despite not attaining the popular vote - although as I understand it that has more to do with the electoral college (which frankly, also seems undemocratic)
Another interesting fact relating to the presidential elections
States are slowly making a pact, once enough of them are on board; fuck the electoral college. Whoever wins the national vote, gets the “states’” vote.
CPP Gray: https://youtu.be/tUX-frlNBJY
I can’t see the red states ever getting on board with this, since the only way they’ve ever won is via the college and not the popular. They would be resigning their historical preference (based on history of the vote). Am I wrong? This seems to me to be how it stands.
We got RCV on the ballot in my village this year. Starting there.
Please do a post on how it goes. Lemme know ;)
Saving the post now for an update. The results will probably take a while, the local stuff always does.
#1 still first-past-the-post, but support the Nation Popular Vote Interstate Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
#2 support ranked-choice initiatives
#3 support abolishing the Senate
Well, my province made it illegal for cities to decide to use anything other than FPTP.
The province is likely to elect the same leader because we have a 30% voter turnout because people aren’t politically aware (and because our population is blaming Provincial problems on the Federal government).
Also because much of our population are apathetic idiots. There’s also that.
I’m pushing for the 127 DC States plan, https://www.vox.com/2020/1/14/21063591/modest-proposal-to-save-american-democracy-pack-the-union-harvard-law-review , wherever I can. Getting this through successfully is probably the best chance to replace FPTP at the national level, including for Presidential elections.
Top-two primary and/or ranked choice voting to start. I’d also like to see the popular vote compact come into play for the presidential election. Eventually, for Congress I’d like a hybrid system that accepts the existence of parties so it can manage their worst impulses and give representation to smaller constituencies.
For the remaining geographic regions, set a certain standard for mathematical compactness; this doesn’t have to be too aggressive, as a long thin district can be completely sensible, but we don’t need the devil’s fractals many places have now. Also/or require districting committees to try to draw districts that would roughly approximate the state’s popular vote percentages. We know they’re excellent at isolating voters by party, so let them, but force them to play around on the edges to get one seat here, or get out front of some changing demographics here, not the wholesale cracking and packing we see from both parties now.
It also all needs to be legislated at the federal level or even by constitutional amendment, but honestly we’re kind of fucked. The people who need to be reined in the most very much live in states where they are overrepresented in voting power, and I don’t see them giving it up.
I’m not from USA and where I live a two rounds system is used. That said, I wish that it got replaced with a ranked-choice system. Mostly because of the lower spoiler effect, and because going to the urns twice for the same election is a bit annoying.
