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[Akigagak]

Many Canadians are thinking of ousting the royal family once the Queen dies (I don't blame them... frankly while I held some regard for the Queen her hiers don't interest me)

Okay, that's it. Where the hell are you from?

[Flaede]

Many Canadians are thinking of ousting the royal family once the Queen dies (I don't blame them... frankly while I held some regard for the Queen her hiers don't interest me)

Okay, that's it. Where the hell are you from?

I'm wondering the same thing. We had enough of a trouble getting ahold of our own damned constitution. It took a sweepingly popular-despite-everything charismatic politician to finagle the last round of that whole deal.

smallest impediment to the whole ousting the monarchy thing: We'd have to change all our freaking money!

second: HELLO! Governor General! We're a freaking parliamentary system; no ultimate powers of the head of state vested in the leader of the winning party here. (let's ignore that stupid prorogue thing happening TWICE now) We'd have to rearrange everything. No one wants to do that. They barely want to have elections.

[Synzig]

I like this, actually.

Prior to this legislation, it was an unwritten rule that whoever had the best corporate backing would win a given election.

Now it's a written rule that whoever has the best corporate backing will win a given election.


lol democracy lol

[sonerohi]

It isn't corrupt and non-functional if a law supports i!

[Earthquake Damage]

Well, I suppose the system wins a point for honesty in that case.  Unfortunately, the only thing that will fix the campaign donation problem (assuming you think it's broken in the first place ) is some charismatic rabblerouser, um, rousing the rabble I suppose.  The folks in office rely on those donations to get elected and stay there, after all, so don't expect our elected representatives to get all worked up about it any time soon.

[mainiac]

The thing that really pisses me off about the American political system is the fact that 3rd parties are rigged out of the progress.  The founders simply could not have understood how 100 years after the constitutional conventions, the two party dominance would be solidified.  But the last time a third party rose to prominence was 1860, when the republicans showed up.  The last time a third party had any influence at all was around 1900 with the brief rise of the progressives and farmer laborers.

Proportional representation schemes for party selected representatives like they have in some European countries may not seem democratic, however they let a dissatisfied voter cast a vote for a third party and actually give some strength to that movement.  Whereas in the US, supporting the third party just gives us Bush vs. Gore.  (another lovely case of Supreme Court ass pulling.)  The unelected party representatives strikes me as far more democratic the Nadar saga.  I think a large part of why american participation in elections is so abysmally low has to do with the shutting out of the third parties.

My current representative's time in congress has been spent weakening the stimulus, obstructing cap and trade, obstructing HCR and opposing bank regulation, all things I fully support and he wouldn't even touch things like dont ask dont tell, passing gay marriage, repealing the tax breaks for the rich or putting string on funding to isreal.  He is far, far to the right of me politically.  But I don't have the slightest doubt in my mind that I'll vote for him come next election because the other guy looks like a nazi in comparison.  It would be nice if I could actually vote my beliefs instead of voting for the lesser of two evils.  In say, Germany, I could do that by casting my vote for the gay-socialism-rainbow party and bringing them one vote closer to having another seat.  Or possibly a first seat, I don't really follow german politics too closely.

[winner]

The thing that really pisses me off about the American political system is the fact that 3rd parties are rigged out of the progress.  The founders simply could not have understood how 100 years after the constitutional conventions, the two party dominance would be solidified.  But the last time a third party rose to prominence was 1860, when the republicans showed up.  The last time a third party had any influence at all was around 1900 with the brief rise of the progressives and farmer laborers.

Proportional representation schemes for party selected representatives like they have in some European countries may not seem democratic, however they let a dissatisfied voter cast a vote for a third party and actually give some strength to that movement.  Whereas in the US, supporting the third party just gives us Bush vs. Gore.  (another lovely case of Supreme Court ass pulling.)  The unelected party representatives strikes me as far more democratic the Nadar saga.  I think a large part of why american participation in elections is so abysmally low has to do with the shutting out of the third parties.

My current representative's time in congress has been spent weakening the stimulus, obstructing cap and trade, obstructing HCR and opposing bank regulation, all things I fully support and he wouldn't even touch things like dont ask dont tell, passing gay marriage, repealing the tax breaks for the rich or putting string on funding to isreal.  He is far, far to the right of me politically.  But I don't have the slightest doubt in my mind that I'll vote for him come next election because the other guy looks like a nazi in comparison.  It would be nice if I could actually vote my beliefs instead of voting for the lesser of two evils.  In say, Germany, I could do that by casting my vote for the gay-socialism-rainbow party and bringing them one vote closer to having another seat.  Or possibly a first seat, I don't really follow german politics too closely.

range voting solves the two party problem.

[Earthquake Damage]

Define range voting.

Two-party systems thrive amidst single-member district plurality voting systems.  Coalitions and other parliamentary shenanigans thrive on proportional representation.  Hell if I know what an "ideal solution" might look like, whatever that means (aside from, I suppose, "kill all hu-mans").  I do, however, like the idea of two-round voting (the first determines the candidates for the second -- and no, party primaries aren't quite the same since they're within a single party) or casting two votes (the first being who you want to win, but if they can't win the second is used instead -- so you may vote for a minor party but fall back on a major party, thus reducing the "I'll vote for a major party so I don't waste my vote" phenomenon).  IIRC the state of Washington does the latter for state/local elections at least, but you know how accurate hearsay is.  Anyone know if that's true and whether third parties have much success there as a result?

[winner]

the current voting system for primaries in washington is less than ideal because the old one which allowed anyone to vote for whoever they wanted without having to be registered with a party was disallowed. 

In range voting each voter rates each candidate with a number within a specified range, such as 0 to 99 or 1 to 20. All candidates can be and should be rated by each voter. The scores for each candidate are summed, and the candidate with the highest sum is the winner.

[JoshuaFH]

Which countries do this?

[winner]

as far as I know no countries use it.

[Earthquake Damage]

That sounds alright, except it probably won't work well in practice.  You'll get highly polarized votes of the "99 for one guy and 0 for all the rest" sort since people want the guy they vote for to win.  You have a strong incentive to cast an extremely one-sided vote because you figure/know/assume the major parties' supporters will do exactly that.

To clarify:  Suppose you have five parties on the ballot, two of which have been the traditional major parties (perhaps this is the first election you're using range voting for).  I suspect the supporters of the three minor parties will tend to rate their preferred party and the "lesser evil" of the two major parties both at 99 while rating all the others 0.  The result is that everyone voted for at least one of the two major parties, so the fact that they distributed their actual preference among all five parties doesn't matter.  The two major parties still get "100% of the possible vote" (so to speak) added to their totals, dwarfing the totals of any minor party.

[winner]

If everyone chooses vote strategically instead of of how well they believe that person would do, then we're no worse than we were before. (Although third parties would get a lot more votes than they would currently since there would be no harm voting for them if you don't think they could win).

[Realmfighter]

How would american politics change if  you abolished party's and had every man for themselves?

[Earthquake Damage]

How would american politics change if  you abolished party's and had every man for themselves?

I'd love to see how you intend to police that.  How do you prevent people from organizing unofficially?  How do you prevent interactions between individuals that function collectively as a "party" of sorts (up to and including political backscratching)?

Point:  That'd be extremely difficult to accomplish, notwithstanding the fact that parties are a deeply ingrained part of American politics.

I should also note that it's probably much easier to regulate party activities when they're official and out in the open.  Unofficial and more covert "parties" would certainly be more difficult to identify and manage.