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What astounds me the most is that party membership in the United States is actually very high compared to most other countries (except for India). Fewer than 2

What astounds me the most is that party membership in the United States is actually very high compared to most other countries (except for India). Fewer than 200,000 Australians would currently be members of any political party - representing less than 1.5% of the total voters (around 14 million) - and that's being very generous with estimates of party membership figures. Most AFL football clubs would have more members than the major political parties. Perhaps Australia is too different to compare the United States - compulsory voting (90% turnout this year), shorter campaigns (this year's 8 week campaign was twice as long as usual), elections being held on a weekend, preferential voting (third party votes are still valuable) and the parliamentary system (you never actually vote directly for the leader of the country) obviously result in a very different attitude toward elections and politics.

icc97 10y ago
I definitely agree. The article appears to be painting a very dark picture that 91% don't want the candidates. Where as this is just stating the obvious of what happens in every country that first puts forward a leader of a party that is contending to win the overall election.
- mtgx 10y ago
  It's a problem in the current context of how U.S. elections work, where those 91% of the people feel "forced" into voting one of these two parties or candidates, even though 50% of them are registered Independent. If the U.S. electoral system easily allowed for other parties to exist and thrive (such as with a proportional representation voting system for Congress, which drastically increases how well people are represented in Congress, and could lead to much less "gridlock") then this wouldn't be an issue. Because those 91% of the people could easily ignore the Democratic and Republican candidates if they were terrible (which seems to be the case this year), and just vote for another party's candidate in the general election. And they could very much still do that. The problem is there's both a legal and unofficial collusion between the two main parties to control the elections in various ways (such as making the rules for who gets to debate), and between them and the media, who normally completely ignore other candidates, and don't treat them nearly as fairly, so their chances greatly diminish. There are a lot of things that could be done to fix this. But people need to support politicians willing to overhaul this system. Larry Lessig (on who the DNC changed the rules mid-game so he doesn't get to make his case in a debate) had some great ideas [1], and so does the Green Party [2]. Jill Stein also supports ranked choice voting, and I believe multi-winner ranked choice voting, too, which is a form of proportional representation [3]. Unfortunately, you're not going to hear about all of these ideas from a media that has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and you'd have to rely heavily on the Internet and social media to grow this movement (and do it before Google/Facebook/Twitter start ramping up their censorship to help their favorite candidates, as we've already started seeing them do). [1] https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ [2] http://www.gp.org/democracy#demFreeSpeech http://www.gp.org/democracy#demFreeSpeech [3] http://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation http://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation
  - auganov 10y ago
    > Because those 91% of the people could easily ignore the Democratic and Republican candidates if they were terrible (which seems to be the case this year), and just vote for another party's candidate in the general election. Israel had proportional voting with a 1% electoral threshold (given there are 120 seats in the Knesset it's almost the natural threshold). They eventually raised the threshold more and more (3.25% now I think) because of the hyper-fragmentation which meant niche parties holding the coalition hostage. The degree to which a given electoral system represents voter preferences is highly election-specific. People are also usually not polled on their detailed preferences so it's hard to empirically determine which one is most likely to maximize the representation of voter preferences in a given country. Also the complexity of optimal voting strategies across electoral systems is different. An argument can be made that the simplest is the best. Say last year in Poland the mainstream consensus was that there's going to be a big coalition of all the parties against the biggest one. But some of the minority parties under-performed while the big one overperfomed giving the big one majority rule with just 37.58% of votes. If you'd redo the elections even the same week you'd probably end up with a much different result.
- afarrell 10y ago
  How many people in the UK chose Theresa May as Prime Minister?
  - jpt1 10y ago
    How many people have chosen any Prime Minister of the UK? Its just their constituents that vote for them, so ~50000 people at most.
    - chrisseaton 10y ago
      You don't need to be a member of the commons to be prime minister though, you could be a peer instead, so you don't need to have constituents.
      - Someone1234 10y ago
        Only in theory. No recent PM hasn't also been an MP (last one was 1830–1903, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil). I cannot imagine in this day and age that someone would be selected as PM without also being an MP. Now, I can imagine them losing their MP seat during their term as PM and staying on. The Tories and Labour know that the way the PM is selected isn't exactly Democratic, and they know that if they were to select someone who hasn't had a single vote that would be politically disastrous and likely result in a change to the way PMs are even selected. The UK's whole political system only works because of mass voter apathy and ignorance (see the AV vote for examples).
        chrisseaton 10y ago
        Unless this is an argument for literally direct democracy why do we need to vote separately for the prime minister? Do you want to vote for every minister individually? There are more than a hundred so it may take a while. Instead, we elect a representative, who groups together with like-minded representatives to form a government and run the country. Keep it simple. I think in UK politics talking about apathy and ignorance is often a nice way to talk about other people's ignorance of your better opinions, and their apathy for your better ideas.
- matwood 10y ago
  It is quite an interesting time. My liberal friends are all irked because Bernie got hosed by the DNC. My conservative friends are irked because the RNC did not do more to stop Trump. Talk about a role reversal with the party of the people and the party of the establishment. Personally, I see so many problems with both candidates that it makes me sick that I have to vote for the least worst one.
  - Alex3917 10y ago
    People aren't upset that the DNC was against Bernie, they're upset that they were against Bernie while telling the public they were neutral to solicit donations. I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds like felony wire fraud to me.
  - jjuel 10y ago
    Do you though? There are more than 2 candidates...
    - matwood 10y ago
      Of all of the candidates only two have a chance of winning. If I vote for someone other than those two, the one that I think is the worst may get elected.
      - Retric 10y ago
        The odds of you vote changing that is tiny. IMO, convincing others to vote for a 3rd party is a bad idea, but voting for them is just as 'meaningless' as any other vote in terms of changing who win. However, the power of voting is in the message not just who wins. Defacto third party's scare the primary party's so they are quick to gain the talking points as soon as those party gain any traction. Most recently Libertarian message was somewhat co opted by Tea Party Republicans. Though in a very mutated form that for example ignored their drug stance.
      - bluejekyll 10y ago
        This perspective is self-fulfilling. Vote for your best candidate, Dr. Jill Stein and Gary Johnson are real candidates, and could win, just like Bernie Sanders (which no one expected). We need to force the two parties to loosen their grip on the political machine in the US. The only way we do that is by supporting third party candidates. If you want to vote Green, go convince a conservative to vote Libertarian. I did this just last week in PA, a conservative that I don't agree with is completely upset about Trump and is going to vote for Gary Johnson.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  According to the polls, it's more like 60-65%. Only somewhat fewer than 70-80% would be willing to vote for either, and less than half of those who would vote for either candidate are voting in support of that candidate, rather than in disgust with the other one. The picture is dark. Voters are choosing between dynastic plutocracy and a carnival barker.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  91% are not engaged supporters of the two candidates that were nominated. Each nominee can claim no more than 9% of the population as having demonstrated engagement with their campaign. In addition to that it should be pointed out that the number of engaged voters who voted for a different candidate for nomination is almost as large as the number of engaged voters who voted for the winning nominee. There is a fundamental problem with the nominating process. Neither nominee has solid ground to claim that they represent the preferences of anything besides a small fraction of the electorate.
pessimizer 10y ago
In Australia or the UK, you can run without being a billionaire, and legislators who aren't members of major parties still have influence (sometimes disproportionate) on who is chosen as head of state.
- thomasfoster96 10y ago
  > you can run without being a billionaire It sure helps though, for example Clive Palmer in Aus in 2013. > legislators who aren't members of major parties still have influence (sometimes disproportionate) on who is chosen as head of state. Australia and the UK still have the same monarch, so the head of state is not chosen by anyone in either country - but if you mean the Prime Minister, then you are correct.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
I most of the reason is that in a lot of countries, you don't get as much choice in who leads the country. The prime ministerial candidate isn't chosen by a primary, and the PM can be deposed by parliament without much trouble (as we've seen with Australia). In New Zealand, you're considered a bit of a loon if you're a card holding party member. I think that a lot more of the population is flexible in who they vote for as well. An MP told me once that 1/3 of voters are independent.
- thomasfoster96 10y ago
  > The prime ministerial candidate isn't chosen by a primary Depends on the party. None of them have three or four months of primaries like America, but the Labour Party in the UK and the Labor Party in Australia both have the whole membership voting for the leader now. Others only have elected party members voting (equivalent to US super delegates). > In New Zealand, you're considered a bit of a loon if you're a card holding party member. I think that a lot more of the population is flexible in who they vote for as well. An MP told me once that 1/3 of voters are independent. I'd agree to an extent with Australia as well. Those who are party members are, in my experience, older, well connected within the community, more upper class and often involved in some sort of non-partisan activism. Unless someone is trying to be elected, they do avoid showing their colours.

icc97 10y ago

I definitely agree. The article appears to be painting a very dark picture that 91% don't want the candidates. Where as this is just stating the obvious of what happens in every country that first puts forward a leader of a party that is contending to win the overall election.

mtgx 10y ago
It's a problem in the current context of how U.S. elections work, where those 91% of the people feel "forced" into voting one of these two parties or candidates, even though 50% of them are registered Independent. If the U.S. electoral system easily allowed for other parties to exist and thrive (such as with a proportional representation voting system for Congress, which drastically increases how well people are represented in Congress, and could lead to much less "gridlock") then this wouldn't be an issue. Because those 91% of the people could easily ignore the Democratic and Republican candidates if they were terrible (which seems to be the case this year), and just vote for another party's candidate in the general election. And they could very much still do that. The problem is there's both a legal and unofficial collusion between the two main parties to control the elections in various ways (such as making the rules for who gets to debate), and between them and the media, who normally completely ignore other candidates, and don't treat them nearly as fairly, so their chances greatly diminish. There are a lot of things that could be done to fix this. But people need to support politicians willing to overhaul this system. Larry Lessig (on who the DNC changed the rules mid-game so he doesn't get to make his case in a debate) had some great ideas [1], and so does the Green Party [2]. Jill Stein also supports ranked choice voting, and I believe multi-winner ranked choice voting, too, which is a form of proportional representation [3]. Unfortunately, you're not going to hear about all of these ideas from a media that has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and you'd have to rely heavily on the Internet and social media to grow this movement (and do it before Google/Facebook/Twitter start ramping up their censorship to help their favorite candidates, as we've already started seeing them do). [1] https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/ [2] http://www.gp.org/democracy#demFreeSpeech http://www.gp.org/democracy#demFreeSpeech [3] http://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation http://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation
- auganov 10y ago
  > Because those 91% of the people could easily ignore the Democratic and Republican candidates if they were terrible (which seems to be the case this year), and just vote for another party's candidate in the general election. Israel had proportional voting with a 1% electoral threshold (given there are 120 seats in the Knesset it's almost the natural threshold). They eventually raised the threshold more and more (3.25% now I think) because of the hyper-fragmentation which meant niche parties holding the coalition hostage. The degree to which a given electoral system represents voter preferences is highly election-specific. People are also usually not polled on their detailed preferences so it's hard to empirically determine which one is most likely to maximize the representation of voter preferences in a given country. Also the complexity of optimal voting strategies across electoral systems is different. An argument can be made that the simplest is the best. Say last year in Poland the mainstream consensus was that there's going to be a big coalition of all the parties against the biggest one. But some of the minority parties under-performed while the big one overperfomed giving the big one majority rule with just 37.58% of votes. If you'd redo the elections even the same week you'd probably end up with a much different result.
afarrell 10y ago
How many people in the UK chose Theresa May as Prime Minister?
- jpt1 10y ago
  How many people have chosen any Prime Minister of the UK? Its just their constituents that vote for them, so ~50000 people at most.
  - chrisseaton 10y ago
    You don't need to be a member of the commons to be prime minister though, you could be a peer instead, so you don't need to have constituents.
    - Someone1234 10y ago
      Only in theory. No recent PM hasn't also been an MP (last one was 1830–1903, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil). I cannot imagine in this day and age that someone would be selected as PM without also being an MP. Now, I can imagine them losing their MP seat during their term as PM and staying on. The Tories and Labour know that the way the PM is selected isn't exactly Democratic, and they know that if they were to select someone who hasn't had a single vote that would be politically disastrous and likely result in a change to the way PMs are even selected. The UK's whole political system only works because of mass voter apathy and ignorance (see the AV vote for examples).
      - chrisseaton 10y ago
        Unless this is an argument for literally direct democracy why do we need to vote separately for the prime minister? Do you want to vote for every minister individually? There are more than a hundred so it may take a while. Instead, we elect a representative, who groups together with like-minded representatives to form a government and run the country. Keep it simple. I think in UK politics talking about apathy and ignorance is often a nice way to talk about other people's ignorance of your better opinions, and their apathy for your better ideas.
matwood 10y ago
It is quite an interesting time. My liberal friends are all irked because Bernie got hosed by the DNC. My conservative friends are irked because the RNC did not do more to stop Trump. Talk about a role reversal with the party of the people and the party of the establishment. Personally, I see so many problems with both candidates that it makes me sick that I have to vote for the least worst one.
- Alex3917 10y ago
  People aren't upset that the DNC was against Bernie, they're upset that they were against Bernie while telling the public they were neutral to solicit donations. I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds like felony wire fraud to me.
- jjuel 10y ago
  Do you though? There are more than 2 candidates...
  - matwood 10y ago
    Of all of the candidates only two have a chance of winning. If I vote for someone other than those two, the one that I think is the worst may get elected.
    - Retric 10y ago
      The odds of you vote changing that is tiny. IMO, convincing others to vote for a 3rd party is a bad idea, but voting for them is just as 'meaningless' as any other vote in terms of changing who win. However, the power of voting is in the message not just who wins. Defacto third party's scare the primary party's so they are quick to gain the talking points as soon as those party gain any traction. Most recently Libertarian message was somewhat co opted by Tea Party Republicans. Though in a very mutated form that for example ignored their drug stance.
    - bluejekyll 10y ago
      This perspective is self-fulfilling. Vote for your best candidate, Dr. Jill Stein and Gary Johnson are real candidates, and could win, just like Bernie Sanders (which no one expected). We need to force the two parties to loosen their grip on the political machine in the US. The only way we do that is by supporting third party candidates. If you want to vote Green, go convince a conservative to vote Libertarian. I did this just last week in PA, a conservative that I don't agree with is completely upset about Trump and is going to vote for Gary Johnson.
pessimizer 10y ago
According to the polls, it's more like 60-65%. Only somewhat fewer than 70-80% would be willing to vote for either, and less than half of those who would vote for either candidate are voting in support of that candidate, rather than in disgust with the other one. The picture is dark. Voters are choosing between dynastic plutocracy and a carnival barker.
metaphorm 10y ago
91% are not engaged supporters of the two candidates that were nominated. Each nominee can claim no more than 9% of the population as having demonstrated engagement with their campaign. In addition to that it should be pointed out that the number of engaged voters who voted for a different candidate for nomination is almost as large as the number of engaged voters who voted for the winning nominee. There is a fundamental problem with the nominating process. Neither nominee has solid ground to claim that they represent the preferences of anything besides a small fraction of the electorate.

pessimizer 10y ago

In Australia or the UK, you can run without being a billionaire, and legislators who aren't members of major parties still have influence (sometimes disproportionate) on who is chosen as head of state.

thomasfoster96 10y ago
> you can run without being a billionaire It sure helps though, for example Clive Palmer in Aus in 2013. > legislators who aren't members of major parties still have influence (sometimes disproportionate) on who is chosen as head of state. Australia and the UK still have the same monarch, so the head of state is not chosen by anyone in either country - but if you mean the Prime Minister, then you are correct.

toomanybeersies 10y ago

I most of the reason is that in a lot of countries, you don't get as much choice in who leads the country. The prime ministerial candidate isn't chosen by a primary, and the PM can be deposed by parliament without much trouble (as we've seen with Australia). In New Zealand, you're considered a bit of a loon if you're a card holding party member. I think that a lot more of the population is flexible in who they vote for as well. An MP told me once that 1/3 of voters are independent.

thomasfoster96 10y ago
> The prime ministerial candidate isn't chosen by a primary Depends on the party. None of them have three or four months of primaries like America, but the Labour Party in the UK and the Labor Party in Australia both have the whole membership voting for the leader now. Others only have elected party members voting (equivalent to US super delegates). > In New Zealand, you're considered a bit of a loon if you're a card holding party member. I think that a lot more of the population is flexible in who they vote for as well. An MP told me once that 1/3 of voters are independent. I'd agree to an extent with Australia as well. Those who are party members are, in my experience, older, well connected within the community, more upper class and often involved in some sort of non-partisan activism. Unless someone is trying to be elected, they do avoid showing their colours.