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FPTP tends to lead to the same heavily divided two major party politics you already have, it just avoids the possibility of winning with <50% of the popular vot

FPTP tends to lead to the same heavily divided two major party politics you already have, it just avoids the possibility of winning with <50% of the popular vote. Something like MMP is probably a better system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...). Baby steps though.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> FPTP tends to lead to the same heavily divided two major party politics you already have, it just avoids the possibility of winning with <50% of the popular vote. No, it doesn't. FPTP is a synonym for single-member plurality, which enables wins with less than 50% of the popular vote when there are more than two candidates. You may mean majority-runoff (which the US already uses for a fair number of elections) or instant runoff, instead of FPTP, both of which require a kind of majority, but are otherwise very close to FPTP in their incentives and effects.
- p1necone 6y ago
  Oops yes I am mistaken about the non majority thing. It still leads to bi party politics though.
  - Beldin 6y ago
    Only if the election is per-seat. In the Netherlands, elections for the lower house (150 seats) are nationwide. The 150 candidates/parties with the highest number of votes get a seat. The party system makes it a bit more complex, but in the end, there's roughly proportional representation: a party with 10% of the popular vote occupies roughly 10% of the seats. No superwinning like in the UK (where 30% of the vote can get you more than 30% of the seats), no cut-off except you need at least 1/150th of the votes to get a seat.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      And, crucially: minority viewpoints actually tend to be accommodated as larger parties lobby smaller ones to support their agenda. Coalition government is a lot better than the see-saw you get otherwise with one party undoing what the previous one did.
Mikeb85 6y ago
Lol, Canada has FPTP and regularly features majority governments that win with 35% of the vote.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> FPTP tends to lead to the same heavily divided two major party politics you already have, it just avoids the possibility of winning with <50% of the popular vote. No, it doesn't. FPTP is a synonym for single-member plurality, which enables wins with less than 50% of the popular vote when there are more than two candidates. You may mean majority-runoff (which the US already uses for a fair number of elections) or instant runoff, instead of FPTP, both of which require a kind of majority, but are otherwise very close to FPTP in their incentives and effects.

p1necone 6y ago
Oops yes I am mistaken about the non majority thing. It still leads to bi party politics though.
- Beldin 6y ago
  Only if the election is per-seat. In the Netherlands, elections for the lower house (150 seats) are nationwide. The 150 candidates/parties with the highest number of votes get a seat. The party system makes it a bit more complex, but in the end, there's roughly proportional representation: a party with 10% of the popular vote occupies roughly 10% of the seats. No superwinning like in the UK (where 30% of the vote can get you more than 30% of the seats), no cut-off except you need at least 1/150th of the votes to get a seat.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    And, crucially: minority viewpoints actually tend to be accommodated as larger parties lobby smaller ones to support their agenda. Coalition government is a lot better than the see-saw you get otherwise with one party undoing what the previous one did.

Mikeb85 6y ago

Lol, Canada has FPTP and regularly features majority governments that win with 35% of the vote.