5 ms·

It has nothing to do with first-past-the-post. You can have 10 parties, 100 parties, in fact first past the post is designed for more than two parties. If you

It has nothing to do with first-past-the-post. You can have 10 parties, 100 parties, in fact first past the post is designed for more than two parties. If you have people in 5 parties to vote for in your riding(district?), then first past the post is the only way it works easily! Seldom will one of those 5, get 50.1% of the vote! And why would they? The most popular wins, the people have spoken.

slaymaker1907 6y ago
Why not have a runoff election or instant runoff voting? Additionally, why do we need to have a single representative for any individual instead of say 10 people representing a larger district?
- bbarnett 6y ago
  Why does someone need a magic number of 50.1% to be valid? Why is that "the number"? Because it's more than 1/2? You're thinking "two parties". If you're worried about "most people's support", then why isn't the number 80%? 99%? 100%? Why does '50.1%' make it 'OK' and less 'not'? I don't get this arbitrary fixation on "but, that guy didn't get 50.1% of the vote!!". So? Let's say there are 5 parties. One gets 40% of the vote. Yet if each party had equal votes, that would be 20% each. The party with 40% of the vote, received 2x the votes compared to the number of parties. Is that OK? Why not? I don't get what's wrong with a number less than 50%. I don't get why anything above 50% is fine. Let's say you have 10 people, and 4 plans. Plans to defend the city from invasion. Each plan has its merits. You ask people to vote. 2 abstain. The next 2 receive two votes each. The last receives 4 votes. 4/10 is less than 50%, yes? Yet, clearly it is the most popular. Must the 2 abstainers vote? Must those that don't agree, be forced to vote for a plan they don't agree with? How is this undemocratic? Were the people's voices heard? Was the most popular plan voted on? I literally don't get it, or understand the issue.
Groxx 6y ago
I... think you may have some reading to do. The subject is pretty well studied. The main reason FPTP ensures at most 2 parties is that, say you have parties 1, A, and B, where A and B are relatively similar to each other. And say A and B are together more populous than 1, like a 40/30/30 split. By splitting those 60% mostly-similar votes between A and B, both lose to the less-popular 1. It becomes in A and B's best interest to not cannibalize each other's votes, i.e. merge and dominate (or at least compete). The less fragmented ideology wins, not the most desired. It's even more compelling during the formation of new parties when there are only 2: by not voting for one of the two dominant ones, you are literally throwing your vote away because it has no chance, and it's worse for your ideology than if you had chosen the most-similar of the dominant party.
- jfim 6y ago
  > FPTP ensures at most 2 parties Canada uses FPTP, and yet there are five parties represented in the house of commons [0]. While it's true that two parties have the lion's share of seats (155 for the liberals, 121 for the conservatives), as there are 338 seats, the liberals can't just steamroll legislation unopposed; they have to get at least some approval from other parties. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_Canada
  - Groxx 6y ago
    Worth noting that Wikipedia uses Canada as its first example of "disadvantages" of the system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Disadvantages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Dis... But yes, Canada has soldiered on remarkably well in spite of it. USA used to be multi-party as well, the transition to 2-party takes time and there's nothing that truly guarantees it, just innately encourages. There are ways to slow it down / isolate sections... but the dominant parties can also whittle away at those over time.
    - int_19h 6y ago
      USA was never truly multi-party, except for very brief transition periods (like when Whigs collapsed and GOP appeared).
    - bbarnett 6y ago
      Yet Canada doesn't really have two dominant parties. Neither provincially, nor federally. For example, the Conservative Party of Canada: - formed from a merger between Progressive Conservative Party - and the Canadian Alliance Of which, the "Canadian Alliance" appeared entirely from grass roots. It started with the Reform Party, where the PC party lost all but two seats, but the new "Reform" party obtained significant seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Canadian_federal_election Which then morphed into the Alliance Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Canadian_federal_election Which then, after the merger, with what was left of the PCs, formed the minority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Canadian_federal_election And then formed the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Canadian_federal_election It should be noted that the merger between the older PC party, and the reform/alliance party was with the Alliance party at massive strength, in the House of Commons with a respectable number of seats, and 100% in charge of the future of the merged party. My point here is ; the willingness for people to embrace new parties, new ideas, and vote for people .. not parties, helps with real political renewal in Canada. Further, while some provinces aren't, most are MORE dynamic than the federal level at party change. Take Quebec, which has had new parties appear and then even form governments, in a period of two election cycles. FPTP does NOT mean 2 parties. At all.
greycol 6y ago
>first past the post is the only way it works easily The key word there is easily. Now that we have computers and instant communication we can do things that would be/used to be considered hard but give better outcomes. I'll also point out you don't need a winning party in an election you just need to be able to form a government and there's no reason 2 closely aligned parties can't work together or even traditionally opposing parties.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  Point #1 -- computers have no place in an election. Or voting. #2? Canadian parties do this all of the time. We have parties from coalitions, and then form the government.
int_19h 6y ago
Districts are drawn more or less arbitrarily, and so their residents don't necessarily represent a single coherent political bloc. In practice, this means that you can have a party getting 30-40% of the vote in literally every district, and end up with zero representation. Worse yet, because most FPTP elections only require plurality for victory, you can have a party get less than 50% of the vote in each district (but more than any other party), and still take all the seats. In which case you literally have the minority running the country - so much for "people have spoken".

slaymaker1907 6y ago

Why not have a runoff election or instant runoff voting? Additionally, why do we need to have a single representative for any individual instead of say 10 people representing a larger district?

bbarnett 6y ago
Why does someone need a magic number of 50.1% to be valid? Why is that "the number"? Because it's more than 1/2? You're thinking "two parties". If you're worried about "most people's support", then why isn't the number 80%? 99%? 100%? Why does '50.1%' make it 'OK' and less 'not'? I don't get this arbitrary fixation on "but, that guy didn't get 50.1% of the vote!!". So? Let's say there are 5 parties. One gets 40% of the vote. Yet if each party had equal votes, that would be 20% each. The party with 40% of the vote, received 2x the votes compared to the number of parties. Is that OK? Why not? I don't get what's wrong with a number less than 50%. I don't get why anything above 50% is fine. Let's say you have 10 people, and 4 plans. Plans to defend the city from invasion. Each plan has its merits. You ask people to vote. 2 abstain. The next 2 receive two votes each. The last receives 4 votes. 4/10 is less than 50%, yes? Yet, clearly it is the most popular. Must the 2 abstainers vote? Must those that don't agree, be forced to vote for a plan they don't agree with? How is this undemocratic? Were the people's voices heard? Was the most popular plan voted on? I literally don't get it, or understand the issue.

Groxx 6y ago

I... think you may have some reading to do. The subject is pretty well studied. The main reason FPTP ensures at most 2 parties is that, say you have parties 1, A, and B, where A and B are relatively similar to each other. And say A and B are together more populous than 1, like a 40/30/30 split. By splitting those 60% mostly-similar votes between A and B, both lose to the less-popular 1. It becomes in A and B's best interest to not cannibalize each other's votes, i.e. merge and dominate (or at least compete). The less fragmented ideology wins, not the most desired. It's even more compelling during the formation of new parties when there are only 2: by not voting for one of the two dominant ones, you are literally throwing your vote away because it has no chance, and it's worse for your ideology than if you had chosen the most-similar of the dominant party.

jfim 6y ago
> FPTP ensures at most 2 parties Canada uses FPTP, and yet there are five parties represented in the house of commons [0]. While it's true that two parties have the lion's share of seats (155 for the liberals, 121 for the conservatives), as there are 338 seats, the liberals can't just steamroll legislation unopposed; they have to get at least some approval from other parties. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_Canada
- Groxx 6y ago
  Worth noting that Wikipedia uses Canada as its first example of "disadvantages" of the system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Disadvantages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Dis... But yes, Canada has soldiered on remarkably well in spite of it. USA used to be multi-party as well, the transition to 2-party takes time and there's nothing that truly guarantees it, just innately encourages. There are ways to slow it down / isolate sections... but the dominant parties can also whittle away at those over time.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    USA was never truly multi-party, except for very brief transition periods (like when Whigs collapsed and GOP appeared).
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    Yet Canada doesn't really have two dominant parties. Neither provincially, nor federally. For example, the Conservative Party of Canada: - formed from a merger between Progressive Conservative Party - and the Canadian Alliance Of which, the "Canadian Alliance" appeared entirely from grass roots. It started with the Reform Party, where the PC party lost all but two seats, but the new "Reform" party obtained significant seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Canadian_federal_election Which then morphed into the Alliance Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Canadian_federal_election Which then, after the merger, with what was left of the PCs, formed the minority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Canadian_federal_election And then formed the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Canadian_federal_election It should be noted that the merger between the older PC party, and the reform/alliance party was with the Alliance party at massive strength, in the House of Commons with a respectable number of seats, and 100% in charge of the future of the merged party. My point here is ; the willingness for people to embrace new parties, new ideas, and vote for people .. not parties, helps with real political renewal in Canada. Further, while some provinces aren't, most are MORE dynamic than the federal level at party change. Take Quebec, which has had new parties appear and then even form governments, in a period of two election cycles. FPTP does NOT mean 2 parties. At all.

greycol 6y ago

>first past the post is the only way it works easily The key word there is easily. Now that we have computers and instant communication we can do things that would be/used to be considered hard but give better outcomes. I'll also point out you don't need a winning party in an election you just need to be able to form a government and there's no reason 2 closely aligned parties can't work together or even traditionally opposing parties.

bbarnett 6y ago
Point #1 -- computers have no place in an election. Or voting. #2? Canadian parties do this all of the time. We have parties from coalitions, and then form the government.

int_19h 6y ago

Districts are drawn more or less arbitrarily, and so their residents don't necessarily represent a single coherent political bloc. In practice, this means that you can have a party getting 30-40% of the vote in literally every district, and end up with zero representation. Worse yet, because most FPTP elections only require plurality for victory, you can have a party get less than 50% of the vote in each district (but more than any other party), and still take all the seats. In which case you literally have the minority running the country - so much for "people have spoken".