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In France we have two rounds. Each voter chooses one candidate during the first round and then only two candidates are selected for the second one. Having to c

by hv42 8y ago

In France we have two rounds. Each voter chooses one candidate during the first round and then only two candidates are selected for the second one. Having to choose amongst one candidate only is terribly bad because some candidates may have lot of similar ideas. However they may diverge on some points, such as they decide to make two parties. The votes get then divided between these two candidates, and they may not reach the second round, even though their idea may be more popular... The winning parties has never wanted to change the system since that makes them win I guess. Any other system would be a better idea than that one.

namdnay 8y ago
Yeah the french system is very strange. On the one hand, it forces a second round of "pragmatic voting", which so far has kept out the various extremists. On the other hand, you get a feeling that people only vote for these extremists as a kind of protest, because they know there's a second round. And one day maybe we'll end up with a second round with two extremists (imagine LePen vs Melenchon...). I think what also makes things strange in France is the rule that all parties must be given equal airtime, which leads to a few bizarre weeks every election cycle where complete loons are on TV and Radio 24/7
dtech 8y ago
Are the two candidates of the first round chosen by who gets the most votes? If so it has the exact same problem, as the votes from the 3rd+ most popular candidates will get syphoned off to the two predicted winners.
- yaantc 8y ago
  Yes, see [1] for details. The "syphoning" exists, but it's not as bad as in a one round system where each vote on a small party is in practice lost. With two rounds, we usually have two "big" parties, flanked by two "small" parties at the extreme. People can push to one side by voting on the extreme side to extreme dissatisfaction with their closer mainline party, and up to a point it won't change the result of the second round with the two big parties. That's typically what happens, and it adds some variety with 4 large enough parties (and more very small ones of course) in the media / national discussions. Then you have exceptional circumstances with many disgruntled people pushing for the extreme. Even then, two rounds can help. A one round system makes it very hard for the fringe to take control, but once this happen they're one of two. With a two round system only one side can go radical, with a likely result of the other side mainstream party winning. Both sides extremes getting stronger is possible, and it's really what happened during the last presidential elections. But we got lucky and one "center" candidate went through (by a very small margin), and as expected won the second round. But as in other places we had about half people disgruntled, it's just that it was evenly split between left and right extreme parties, and only one went to second round (but the other was pretty close). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system
rustybelt 8y ago
Isn't this the "Jungle Primary" process that's described in the article?
- magissima 8y ago
  The difference is that jungle primaries can have multiple candidates from the same party. In the French system, the individual parties have primaries and send their winners on to the first round of voting.

by hv42 8y ago

namdnay 8y ago

Yeah the french system is very strange. On the one hand, it forces a second round of "pragmatic voting", which so far has kept out the various extremists. On the other hand, you get a feeling that people only vote for these extremists as a kind of protest, because they know there's a second round. And one day maybe we'll end up with a second round with two extremists (imagine LePen vs Melenchon...). I think what also makes things strange in France is the rule that all parties must be given equal airtime, which leads to a few bizarre weeks every election cycle where complete loons are on TV and Radio 24/7

dtech 8y ago

Are the two candidates of the first round chosen by who gets the most votes? If so it has the exact same problem, as the votes from the 3rd+ most popular candidates will get syphoned off to the two predicted winners.

yaantc 8y ago
Yes, see [1] for details. The "syphoning" exists, but it's not as bad as in a one round system where each vote on a small party is in practice lost. With two rounds, we usually have two "big" parties, flanked by two "small" parties at the extreme. People can push to one side by voting on the extreme side to extreme dissatisfaction with their closer mainline party, and up to a point it won't change the result of the second round with the two big parties. That's typically what happens, and it adds some variety with 4 large enough parties (and more very small ones of course) in the media / national discussions. Then you have exceptional circumstances with many disgruntled people pushing for the extreme. Even then, two rounds can help. A one round system makes it very hard for the fringe to take control, but once this happen they're one of two. With a two round system only one side can go radical, with a likely result of the other side mainstream party winning. Both sides extremes getting stronger is possible, and it's really what happened during the last presidential elections. But we got lucky and one "center" candidate went through (by a very small margin), and as expected won the second round. But as in other places we had about half people disgruntled, it's just that it was evenly split between left and right extreme parties, and only one went to second round (but the other was pretty close). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system

rustybelt 8y ago

Isn't this the "Jungle Primary" process that's described in the article?

magissima 8y ago
The difference is that jungle primaries can have multiple candidates from the same party. In the French system, the individual parties have primaries and send their winners on to the first round of voting.