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Don't we want voters to be able to just honestly write that they like these small extremist parties? Are you suggesting that we want all the voters to vote for

by creata 5y ago

Don't we want voters to be able to just honestly write that they like these small extremist parties? Are you suggesting that we want all the voters to vote for one of the top two parties, out of a fear of wasting their vote?[0] Besides, those small parties are obviously eliminated almost immediately, so the only thing those votes are worth is a bit of money from the Australian Electoral Commission.[1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Electoral_Commission#Public_funding_of_political_parties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Electoral_Commissio...

bedobi 5y ago
I think the cost for voting for minority extremist parties and policies should be higher, not lower, yes.
- r-w 5y ago
  That's government by the majority, not the whole. Democracy is “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state” (OED; emphasis added).
  - bedobi 5y ago
    Just because you think the cost of voting for small extremist parties should be high doesn't mean you're in favor of absolutist majority rule? + liberal democracies have (at least in theory) unalienable basic rights that can't be taken away, even by majority. Eg just because a 90+% majority votes to revoke citizenship from all muslims that doesn't mean that it will go through.
    - vidarh 5y ago
      The effect of eg. FPTP is to effectively disenfranchise large portions of the population. A country with a voting system like that makes a mockery of the very term democracy. As for these "inalienable" right, I'm not aware of any system without a mechanism for altering their constitutional laws. To your specific example, the UK just had a government representing a minority of voters vote through a law that allows them to strip citizenship from millions as they please.
- Ar-Curunir 5y ago
  Who determines what is extremist and what is small? It’s not like the dominant parties dropped from the sky with their existing “bigness”. They too started out as small parties.
  - bedobi 5y ago
    > Who determines what is extremist we're not talking about some ambiguous grey zone stuff here * proposed a drastic reduction in immigration with particular reference to immigrants from Asia. * stated that African immigrants were bringing diseases into Australia and were of "no benefit to this country whatsoever" * called for a ban on Muslim immigration to Australia * announced policies including installing CCTV cameras in all existing mosques * stated "all terrorist attacks in this country have been by Muslims" it's safe to call the above extremist and xenophobic
    - vidarh 5y ago
      But you're not solving that problem by pretending they have less support than they do. A huge danger of systems that downplay the support for extremist parties is that they create an incentive for infiltrating the bigger parties instead.
- creata 5y ago
  In a single-winner election, why would you think that? The "minority extremist parties" are going to lose anyway, so why not try to let people vote more honestly, so that they don't need to strategize? For example, I don't want people who naively vote Green to end up wasting their vote just because they don't know how the voting system works.

by creata 5y ago

bedobi 5y ago

I think the cost for voting for minority extremist parties and policies should be higher, not lower, yes.

r-w 5y ago
That's government by the majority, not the whole. Democracy is “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state” (OED; emphasis added).
- bedobi 5y ago
  Just because you think the cost of voting for small extremist parties should be high doesn't mean you're in favor of absolutist majority rule? + liberal democracies have (at least in theory) unalienable basic rights that can't be taken away, even by majority. Eg just because a 90+% majority votes to revoke citizenship from all muslims that doesn't mean that it will go through.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    The effect of eg. FPTP is to effectively disenfranchise large portions of the population. A country with a voting system like that makes a mockery of the very term democracy. As for these "inalienable" right, I'm not aware of any system without a mechanism for altering their constitutional laws. To your specific example, the UK just had a government representing a minority of voters vote through a law that allows them to strip citizenship from millions as they please.
Ar-Curunir 5y ago
Who determines what is extremist and what is small? It’s not like the dominant parties dropped from the sky with their existing “bigness”. They too started out as small parties.
- bedobi 5y ago
  > Who determines what is extremist we're not talking about some ambiguous grey zone stuff here * proposed a drastic reduction in immigration with particular reference to immigrants from Asia. * stated that African immigrants were bringing diseases into Australia and were of "no benefit to this country whatsoever" * called for a ban on Muslim immigration to Australia * announced policies including installing CCTV cameras in all existing mosques * stated "all terrorist attacks in this country have been by Muslims" it's safe to call the above extremist and xenophobic
  - vidarh 5y ago
    But you're not solving that problem by pretending they have less support than they do. A huge danger of systems that downplay the support for extremist parties is that they create an incentive for infiltrating the bigger parties instead.
creata 5y ago
In a single-winner election, why would you think that? The "minority extremist parties" are going to lose anyway, so why not try to let people vote more honestly, so that they don't need to strategize? For example, I don't want people who naively vote Green to end up wasting their vote just because they don't know how the voting system works.