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I have experienced living in the UK (first past the post, you vote for a local rep, gerrymandered districts and all) and The Netherlands (full proportional repr

I have experienced living in the UK (first past the post, you vote for a local rep, gerrymandered districts and all) and The Netherlands (full proportional representation, you vote for your rep from the full list). The result is clear: politics in The Netherlands are a factor less toxic than in the UK. This is because there is actually a chance to choose the party who represent you. They don't? Small parties are still an option. In the end a coalition is created and all of the crazy ideas (muslim ban, communism) are quickly lost in the first round.. So far I've voted for VVD (Republican/Tory), D66 (Democrats/Libdems) and Green (doesn't exist in UK/US; the one party who get results on climate change). So basically full proportional representation would be the best single change you could make in the US and UK systems.

eru 8y ago
It would be quite a big change in the rules. And see some of the issues with Israel's parliament for how naive proportional voting can go wrong. (The German / New Zealand mixed-member proportional representation system works reasonably well in practice, but it's somewhat complicated.) For a smaller change to the rules (but still a big impact), consider approval voting or range voting. Range voting works like judging figure skating in the Olympics: every voter can give scores between eg 0 to 100 to the candidates, the candidate with the highest average score wins the district.
- ClayShentrup 8y ago
  Score Voting is what it's advocates call it nowadays.
icelancer 8y ago
We have the Green Party here. Democrats love blaming them for losing elections.
- Latteland 8y ago
  the reason it is compelling to blame tiny third parties for losing elections is because it can happen. if there a very liberal third party like the greens and their vote percentage is higher than the liberal (democratic) candidate lost by, then they probably kept the dem from winning. usually you don't see third party conservative alternatives. and the small third parties don't get any political power in the us system.
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    It DID happen. Check the numbers in both 2000 and 2016. The first time, it lead to a million dead Iraqis, the second time we are living through right now.
    - marnett 8y ago
      I thought the coup by the Supreme Court elected the president in 2000.
  - icelancer 8y ago
    Every voter is entitled to a vote for whoever they want. The idea that every vote for the Greens would instead go to the Democrats if magically the Greens didn't exist is nonsense. Republicans don't bitch that Libertarians exist. For example, if you take the logical conclusion that if all Green voters voted Democrat and all Libertarian voters voted Republican in the last presidential election, then Trump would have won the popular vote. Democrats don't get to have it both ways.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      I did not mean to imply that all green party votes are always wasteful, but there are cases where the green party vote lost the election, and if there wasn't a significant libertarian vote taking away republican votes it's clear that the 3rd party vote did cost an election. green party voters are generally thought to be very democratic if they weren't green. i've voted for green party candidates myself, otherwise i'm very likely to vote dem. libertairan voters seem to be more mixed between dem and r but lean r. Here's a washington post article that considers this issue. There are many other articles that looked into it and came to similar results, that green party voting cost hrc. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/green-party-votes-made-the-difference-in-the-presidential-election/2016/12/05/68899908-ba38-11e6-ae79-bec72d34f8c9_story.html?utm_term=.2f7462c90511 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/green-party-votes-ma... Even if you want to quibble with a particular article's analysis, with our system it's clear that in close races not voting for a primary party (d or r) could cost them the election.
raarts 8y ago
From the point where I'm standing (being Dutch), two-party systems look like inevitably ending up near 50-50 (because both parties keep adjusting their political viewpoints to get more votes), and in the process creating an us vs them mentality.
- radicalbyte 8y ago
  Yeah that's exactly it: I grew up in a polarised society. Voting - particularly for the young - made very little difference because most people already live in extremely "safe" seats. It was a culture shock coming here: suddenly politics matter, your vote matters. There is actual reasonable debate about the issues. Not the strawman stuff you see in the UK/US. There is a natural limit to the toxicity in politics; if you want to take part in ruling the country you have to be reasonable..

eru 8y ago

It would be quite a big change in the rules. And see some of the issues with Israel's parliament for how naive proportional voting can go wrong. (The German / New Zealand mixed-member proportional representation system works reasonably well in practice, but it's somewhat complicated.) For a smaller change to the rules (but still a big impact), consider approval voting or range voting. Range voting works like judging figure skating in the Olympics: every voter can give scores between eg 0 to 100 to the candidates, the candidate with the highest average score wins the district.

ClayShentrup 8y ago
Score Voting is what it's advocates call it nowadays.

icelancer 8y ago

We have the Green Party here. Democrats love blaming them for losing elections.

Latteland 8y ago
the reason it is compelling to blame tiny third parties for losing elections is because it can happen. if there a very liberal third party like the greens and their vote percentage is higher than the liberal (democratic) candidate lost by, then they probably kept the dem from winning. usually you don't see third party conservative alternatives. and the small third parties don't get any political power in the us system.
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  It DID happen. Check the numbers in both 2000 and 2016. The first time, it lead to a million dead Iraqis, the second time we are living through right now.
  - marnett 8y ago
    I thought the coup by the Supreme Court elected the president in 2000.
- icelancer 8y ago
  Every voter is entitled to a vote for whoever they want. The idea that every vote for the Greens would instead go to the Democrats if magically the Greens didn't exist is nonsense. Republicans don't bitch that Libertarians exist. For example, if you take the logical conclusion that if all Green voters voted Democrat and all Libertarian voters voted Republican in the last presidential election, then Trump would have won the popular vote. Democrats don't get to have it both ways.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    I did not mean to imply that all green party votes are always wasteful, but there are cases where the green party vote lost the election, and if there wasn't a significant libertarian vote taking away republican votes it's clear that the 3rd party vote did cost an election. green party voters are generally thought to be very democratic if they weren't green. i've voted for green party candidates myself, otherwise i'm very likely to vote dem. libertairan voters seem to be more mixed between dem and r but lean r. Here's a washington post article that considers this issue. There are many other articles that looked into it and came to similar results, that green party voting cost hrc. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/green-party-votes-made-the-difference-in-the-presidential-election/2016/12/05/68899908-ba38-11e6-ae79-bec72d34f8c9_story.html?utm_term=.2f7462c90511 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/green-party-votes-ma... Even if you want to quibble with a particular article's analysis, with our system it's clear that in close races not voting for a primary party (d or r) could cost them the election.

raarts 8y ago

From the point where I'm standing (being Dutch), two-party systems look like inevitably ending up near 50-50 (because both parties keep adjusting their political viewpoints to get more votes), and in the process creating an us vs them mentality.

radicalbyte 8y ago
Yeah that's exactly it: I grew up in a polarised society. Voting - particularly for the young - made very little difference because most people already live in extremely "safe" seats. It was a culture shock coming here: suddenly politics matter, your vote matters. There is actual reasonable debate about the issues. Not the strawman stuff you see in the UK/US. There is a natural limit to the toxicity in politics; if you want to take part in ruling the country you have to be reasonable..