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[WealthyRadish]

But isn't that still what happens in 3+ party systems? Just with two big coalitions instead of two big parties.

On a given issue there will always be two main sides, but there's a big difference between a temporary coalition and a single party. To use an example with our two parties, if a person is anti-abortion but supports socialized medicine, they usually can't support one position with their vote without effectively directly opposing the other. A third party that holds both positions and will form a coalition when possible is obviously a preferable choice, hence politics becomes more reflective of issues than other factors. Of course the two parties we have aren't completely monolithic, there are different factions and individual representatives who vote against the party line sometimes, but you will only get to vote for those individuals by chance or geography; there's no national group with that platform, and the party organization and funding is a discouraging factor against them.

It seems preferable to what we have now. I know there are some issues where whackjobs occasionally get in because everyone hates the biggest parties (and people feel bregret over their choices), but it'd be a huge boost for third party vote share and I think would significantly increase voter turnout as well. Third parties suck right now, but they aren't going to get better by sitting on the fringe forever.

Or third parties continue to suck because everyone who cares about getting shit done adopts either the D or R label.

Seems like circular logic to me. If third party candidates could reliably get elected, why wouldn't competent people run with a third party?

If you want many small parties the answer isn't ranked ballot, it's proportional.  And proportional is better in all other regards too.

I agree, proportional representation would be best. But you didn't answer my question. Why do you think preferential voting is "horrible"? Do you think it's worse than what we have now?

[Rolepgeek]

If you want many small parties the answer isn't ranked ballot, it's proportional.  And proportional is better in all other regards too.

They're not mutually exclusive, you know. :/ And I've support proportional over FPTP, but I also still would prefer voting for a person to voting for a party. Unless I'm misunderstanding how PR works. I guess you could also more or less know who would be elected within that party too? Again, not as certain about that.

I like ranked ballot for getting away from extremist candidates, but I'm curious as to your reasons for disliking it.

Spoiler: sidenote (click to show/hide)

 I was not trying caricaturize the middle ages, but it certainly happened quite a bit. Feudal warfare and 'eh they're just peasants' does that. And they didn't put up with guerilla warfare by any means but slaughter, far as I know, if they weren't forced to by the people being nomadic. I disagree about the degee to which atrocities were foreign to folks, but I can see your point

[mainiac]

They're not mutually exclusive, you know. :/

Seems pretty mutually exclusive to me.

[Reelya]

You can have both proportional representation and vote for individuals. The ideas are not mutually exclusive.

In the Australian senate for example (where senators are per-state), any votes in excess of the minimum needed to get elected for an individual accrue to the next person on their party list. So you can vote for just one person, and have that vote count to elect another person in their party.

With something like MMP (mixed member proportional)  you could combine IRV ranking with proportional. e.g. the local member is chosen according to IRV ranking, then additional members of the legislature are appointed from party lists according to voter's first choices. A system like this might be the best of both worlds.

[Rolepgeek]

They're not mutually exclusive, you know. :/

Seems pretty mutually exclusive to me.

Well. I'm happy to say they're not. Though I wasn't actually quite aware of that before I looked it up (I was looking for pros and cons comparison).

[mainiac]

The mixed member system is both proportional and ranked but the rank doesn't actually determine the control of government, the proportional is the part that matters.  I honestly dont understand the STV.

[Reelya]

With STV they work out how many votes you'd need to get a place, and if you get more than that many votes, the spares get passed to the next person in line in your party. Obviously the cut-off point is based on how many votes were cast. So if someone gets double the share needed for a place, an extra person from their party gets elected.

[Starver]

In the Australian senate for example (where senators are per-state), any votes in excess of the minimum needed to get elected for an individual accrue to the next person on their party list. So you can vote for just one person, and have that vote count to elect another person in their party.

Problem, then, if you quite like Candidate A but don't like the trickle-down Candidate B (or C or D, if it has the potential to go that far). Or think A is too pretentious/whatever for your liking and can't be sure that you'll get much nicer B promoted by the list by biting the bullet.

Lists are a crap-shoot, whether primary or top-up in nature. I'd prefer dendrocracy.

[mainiac]

With STV they work out how many votes you'd need to get a place, and if you get more than that many votes, the spares get passed to the next person in line in your party. Obviously the cut-off point is based on how many votes were cast. So if someone gets double the share needed for a place, an extra person from their party gets elected.

So it's proportional with a primary on the day.  That sounds worse to me then proportional with the primary ahead of time.

[Helgoland]

With something like MMP (mixed member proportional)  you could combine IRV ranking with proportional. e.g. the local member is chosen according to IRV ranking, then additional members of the legislature are appointed from party lists according to voter's first choices. A system like this might be the best of both worlds.

It certainly works very well here in Germany.


Why stick to the concept of seats anyway? How about this: You give your vote to a representative, then all folks who were voted for a sufficient number of times (to exclude crackpots) form an assembly where the voting power of each representative is determined by how many votes they got. Votes are transferrable: If 900 people voted for me but I don't feel like becoming a representative, I can pass on those 900 votes to someone else. (It might be wise to restrict this practice to a degree to prevent a couple issues I can't think of right now.)

[Frumple]

... mostly because we haven't actually replaced our politicians with robots, yet. The seat thing's there to keep shit from getting too unwieldy. If all they were doing was giving a vote it wouldn't really matter much, but there's a hell of a lot more a representative is expected to do, and a lot of that involves interacting with other representatives. If there's fifty thousand representatives good goddamn luck with that.

[Loud Whispers]

Anyone donate to clinton who can verify whether they got overcharged sneakily on donations

*EDIT

Spoiler: pepe tax (click to show/hide)

[spoiler]

[mainiac]

Anyone donate to clinton who can verify whether they got overcharged sneakily on donations

*EDIT

Spoiler: pepe tax (click to show/hide)

[spoiler]

From a website that claims Clinton stole Nevada.  Suuuuuuure.

[Starver]

I wonder how that meshes with: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/trump-website-wont-let-supporters-cancel-donations.html ...?

(Seperately, there was also http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a48103/fake-trump-site-million/ as well...)

[Loud Whispers]

From a website that claims Clinton stole Nevada.  Suuuuuuure.

Is Carol lying or some shit

Spoiler: in other news (click to show/hide)

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