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The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system where voters must vote strategically for candidates they don't suppor
by tveita 10y ago
The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system where voters must vote strategically for candidates they don't support to avoid their least-preferred candidate winning. For instance, you may prefer Bernie Sander's policies but still vote Hillary if you think she will have a better chance against Trump in the election. Or you may prefer other Republican candidates, but want to avoid Trump going independent, splitting the voter base and handing the victory to the Democrats.
I think this is a huge problem with the current system, as the lack of candidates they agree with make people get disillusioned and stop voting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
- alexc05 10y agoActually, the primaries are proportional.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- eru 10y agoThey still elect a single candidate at the end.
- braythwayt 10y ago> The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system Canadian here. I didn’t know that a first-past-the-post system virtually guarantees a two-party system.
- tveita 10y agoIt's more or less unavoidable if voters are voting strategically. The sad and undemocratic reality of FPTP is that voting for a third-party candidate with little chance to win is "throwing away your vote". I understand it that in Canada it's first-past-the-post per "riding", so I'd expect each riding to have a maximum of two viable parties. I'm sure it's messier than that in the real world, but I still think you'd be better off with something else than FPTP. For instance, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canadian_federal_election,_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canad..., is the Green Party accomplishing anything else than diverting votes from other parties?