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What you've described often goes hand-in-hand with a two-party system. That way everyone finds themselves voting for what they believe to be the lesser of two e
by WillDaSilva 5y ago
What you've described often goes hand-in-hand with a two-party system. That way everyone finds themselves voting for what they believe to be the lesser of two evils.
Alternative voting systems (e.g. ranked choice systems) aren't some sort of political panacea, but they could help a lot with this issue. A populist thrives in an environment that does not support nuance. It would be harder for them to be successful if they were running against, say, 6 viable opponents rather than 1.
I hope we can address some of these major problems with democracy, because the alternatives generally aren't great.
- notriddle 5y agoThe original post is about the EU.
- andrepd 5y agoIndeed, bad voting systems are not an issue regarding the EU because the EU is not democratic in the first place.
- dijit 5y ago> the EU is not democratic in the first place EU Election system is _literally_ one of the fairest systems in existence[0] ensuring that every party get some measure of proportional representation. Compared to English First Past the Post (minority rule, and 2 party systems) or Scotlands Single-transferrable vote (which is still winner take all); but D'Hondts method means that people can be safe in the knowledge they'll be represented and it's proportional to the input. It's not "perfect" but it's _literally_ the best humans have come up with. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method [0.1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU CGP Grey did some videos on these: FPTP (England): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&list=PLNCHVwtpeBY4mybPkHEnRxSOb7FQ2vF9c&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&list=PLNCHVwtpeB... STV (Scotland): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI&list=PLNCHVwtpeBY4mybPkHEnRxSOb7FQ2vF9c&index=7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI&list=PLNCHVwtpeB... D'Hondt-esque (EU): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU&list=PLNCHVwtpeBY4mybPkHEnRxSOb7FQ2vF9c&index=3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU&list=PLNCHVwtpeB...
- notriddle 5y ago1. The voting system isn’t really important, if the voters themselves are restricted to a chosen few who are themselves elected using inferior methods. 2. Range voting is the best humans have come up with.
- Ieghaehia9 5y ago>It's not "perfect" but it's _literally_ the best humans have come up with. Picking nits, but isn't Sainte-Laguë better? Anyway, I think GP was arguing that no matter how fair your voting method, it's of limited use if important concentrations of power are not covered by it.
- marcus_holmes 5y agoI would agree with you, but Australia [0] is an authoritarian, privacy hellhole compared to the EU. [0] Mandatory voting, ranked choice, etc - Australia's voting system is as close to ideal as you can get