12 ms·

>The two biggest problems in US politics are the two-party system In terms of cause & effect, the USA's 2-party system is the effect caused by the voting syste

by jasode 4y ago

>The two biggest problems in US politics are the two-party system In terms of cause & effect, the USA's 2-party system is the effect caused by the voting system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law The game theory of voters not wanting to "waste their vote" on a marginal candidate -- and -- candidates naturally forming alliances and consolidating into fewer parties to have the best chance of attracting votes means.... the inevitable 2-party situation emerging organically.

plsbenice34 4y ago
Australia has a robust ranked voting system but still has very dominant 2 major parties. I think you're still correct but other factors can be powerful too. For example, people struggle to understand how ranked preferences work, so they are still irrationally afraid of 'wasting their vote' if they preference for a minor party that has no chance of winning. I suspect mandatory voting also encourages people that dont really care about politics (or understand ranked voting) to vote based on propaganda, reinforcing the major two parties.
- conz 4y ago
  > Australia has a robust ranked voting system but still has very dominant 2 major parties. Australia's top 3 parties achieved ~65% of the vote. That leaves about 1/3rd to minor parties and independents. Surely that's a great deal better than having just 2 parties with any real power.
  - plsbenice34 4y ago
    The actual seats that are won are a better indication of the results and who has power. Results seem to be that the major 2 parties won 90% of the seats: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal-election-2022-results https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal-election-2022-res...
    - gonzo41 4y ago
      It's slightly more complicated, it's more like there's 3-5-ish major parties. If you take the Liberal party, the Liberal National Party of Queensland and the National Party. Those form the Coalition conservative block. Then there's Labor who form the Center Left, and the Greens who are the progressive Left. Importantly whilst 90% of the seats may be in 4 distinct parties, that form two opposing sides, The Coalition suffered the loss of seats to independents recently. Labor voters in these electorates were able to vote 1 for the ALP and then send there preference to an independent in order to tactically vote against the liberals ruling party. This effect can be seen by the reduced labor vote in these electorates.
      - femto 4y ago
        "Tactical voting" means you vote for a less preferred candidate over your preferred candidate to achieve a desired outcome. This is not the same a giving a second preference to an independent. In your example, the voter has voted for their preferred (Labor) candidate over the independent. If the Labor candidate gets knocked out then their second preference says "if I can't have Labor then I would prefer an Independent over Liberal". That's the beauty of preferential voting, you generally don't have to vote tactically. You just vote for what you really want.
        plsbenice34 4y ago
        True, it is interesting from a game theoretic point of view. There is info about the algorithm's properties here in case anyone is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Tactical_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Tactical...
    - conz 4y ago
      > The actual seats that are won are a better indication of the results and who has power. Results seem to be that the major 2 parties won 90% of the seats: While true, that 10% allocation of parliamentary seats to independents/small parties allows for a great deal of negotiation on policy. The smaller parties, particularly if the hold a sufficient level of balance-of-power, can see some/many of their own policies reflected in the eventual policies which pass through parliament. [Edit: clarification]
- giantg2 4y ago
  In the US we have the opposite problem - low turnout. Especially in primaries, we see that a small minority (15% maybe) pick the candidates. This is because it's the most motivated (potentially extreme) voters that show up to vote in primaries. Also, different states hold primaries on different days, so many of the presidential candidates drop after just a couple states vote.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    > Especially in primaries The primaries are your problem - those are crazy. Why does the government run voting for the representatives of private political parties?
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Because they're not actually political parties like other countries have; they have no memberships, they have employees. You can't join e.g. the Democratic party and start paying dues, instead you declare your Democratic party allegiance to the government, and it allows you to participate in the selection of the Democratic party candidate. The two major parties created this situation through state and local legislation. It's absolutely bizarre that two private organizations who are responsible to no one but themselves have inextricably and exclusively bound themselves to the operation of US government. They avoided any constitutional questions by legislating locally instead of federally. I don't see how that's meant to be superior to a single-party communist system. Is adding a "primary" step so much more democratic than just putting all of the primary candidates into a single election?
      - femto 4y ago
        If they are private organisations, wouldn't it be fun if they could be hauled before the Federal Trade Commission? :-)
        giantg2 4y ago
        Now this guy's thinking.
- xorfish 4y ago
  Proportional voting for congress per state would solve this. If the 27 seats from New York would be distributed via proportional voting, then a party with just a few percent of votes can get some political power.
- femto 4y ago
  As of Saturday: HAD two very dominant major parties. Australia just had Federal elections, and the count is still in progress, but there is a chance we will end up with a "hung parliament" with neither (ex) major party having a majority. 16 seats of 151 appear to have gone to minor parties or independents. Forming government should be an easy negotiation, to the extent that the new Prime Minister has already been declared, as the new government will need support from only 1 or 2 independents. In this instance a hung parliament would be an excellent outcome in that the government would be stable due to the small number of independents needed to form government, and debate would have to occur in the parliament and not behind closed doors in a party room. The general view is that this change in voting patterns will be long term, as the majors' votes have been declining for years and it has just reached the tipping point. 10 independents elected is a record. In my opinion the Australian electoral system gets several things right: * Compulsory voting. You have to turn up to the booth and receive a ballot paper, but it's then up to you what you do with it. Most people use it to vote but some use it to draw a pretty picture or tell the counters what they really think of the government. The real power of compulsory voting is that it virtually eliminates disenfranchisement as those who are not marked as receiving their ballot are handed a small ($20) fine. This creates a paper trail and a disenfranchised voter can refuse to pay the fine, turn up to court and as part of their argument against the fine tell the judge how they were disenfranchised. * An independent commission (aec.gov.au) that sets voting boundaries and runs the election on a national basis. * Preferential/RCV voting makes it more likely (than FPTP) that the result reflects the will of the majority and is harder to game. Whilst RCV might not be perfect, it's better than FPTP. Things it gets wrong: 1) Lack of disclosure of political funding sources 2) This has lead to corruption, whereby the major parties put the interests of themselves and donors above the country, with rampant pork barrelling and looking after "mates". #2 is a big reason why the major parties are losing votes, and the new government comes with the promise of an anti-corruption commission "with teeth", and a bunch of independents who plan on holding the government to this promise. Amazingly in this instance the system seems to have self-corrected. With any luck, #2 being fixed will reduce the opportunities to put the interests of parties and donors above the country and lead to #1 also being fixed in the not too distant future.
  - hugh-avherald 4y ago
IgorPartola 4y ago
No, it is caused by the presidential system. A parliamentary system even with first past the post would give you more than two parties.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. The UK doesn't have a presidential system, but have first past the post and essentially have a 2 party system, with a small sprinkle of a third party.
  - bethling 4y ago
    And France, which is a presidential system, is not a two party system, with a large number of parties represented in their legislature. They have a different election system than the US.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    Arguably the UK is a good example of how FPTP can result in even worse dynamics than two broadly competitive parties as in the US (though I agree that it's FPTP doing the work; many fully functioning multiparty democracies have elected presidents). England has a de facto 2.5 party system, where the third party picks up a large fraction of votes but only a handful of seats and the governing party is rarely backed by much more than a third of the vote but usually picks up most of the seats. Worse still, the relative policy overlap of the two centre-left parties has meant the centre-right party usually wins elections even though generally a majority of the public votes for parties promising centre-left politics (yes there's obviously a lot more nuance and exceptions to that than can be fitted into a single sentence). Scotland has more recently shown shows that a single main representative of a losing minority in an independence referendum can win nearly everything against the multiple major parties on the other side. (Wales shows if your nationalist support is more lukewarm and unevenly distributed you get more unpredictable multiparty politics) Northern Ireland is contested only by local parties with a longstanding religious/national identity division leading to two major parties for each side plus, and ultra tactical voting based on trying to figure out which of your factions' parties to unite behind this time to avoid the embarrassment of the local minority faction getting their candidate elected (and the non-sectarian fifth party being squeezed out). None of the areas are particularly delighted with the results they are getting.
MrFantastic 4y ago
The 2 parties have also legislated to ensure only they can make it to the stage. For a 3rd party to participate they must be polling over 15%. Dems and GOP allowed on stage often only poll at 4%. https://www.debates.org/about-cpd/overview/ https://www.debates.org/about-cpd/overview/ 15% polling with the political machine of our News apparatus and the 2 parties is almost impossible unless it's a celebrity running.
- bluejekyll 4y ago
  While this is definitely an issue, it doesn’t change the fact that third party candidates still end up as spoilers in most cases due to candidates not being required to gain > 50% of the vote (which ranked choice and approval voting both do). Also, it would be great if we could make voting easy enough for people to do it every election. Focusing on just the presidency means that we have fewer candidates representing the will of the People in the off years.
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    Would be nice if we could make election day into a Federal holiday. We could move Veteran's day a week earlier, and maybe shift election day to a Monday which would also give a more sensible three-day weekend. It is absolutely stunning to me that we don't have unanimous agreement on this simple change.
    - jesterpm 4y ago
      I would actually expect worst outcomes if you turned it into a three day weekend. Why stay in town and vote when you could use the three day weekend for something more fun? With typical work weeks in mind, midweek makes more sense to avoid conflicting with weekends. (and here's why we don't have unanimous agreement—it's always the little details that hang people up)
      - bluejekyll 4y ago
        In most places you can vote before the election for varying degree of times (like 1-2 weeks). We don’t need a holiday for voting. What we need is the ability for people to get their ballot easily, return it when they want. Where I live, I get my ballot for every election in the mail, I fill out at home. I then walk it down to a secure ballot drop box a few blocks away. Everyone should have this experience.

by jasode 4y ago

plsbenice34 4y ago

Australia has a robust ranked voting system but still has very dominant 2 major parties. I think you're still correct but other factors can be powerful too. For example, people struggle to understand how ranked preferences work, so they are still irrationally afraid of 'wasting their vote' if they preference for a minor party that has no chance of winning. I suspect mandatory voting also encourages people that dont really care about politics (or understand ranked voting) to vote based on propaganda, reinforcing the major two parties.

conz 4y ago
> Australia has a robust ranked voting system but still has very dominant 2 major parties. Australia's top 3 parties achieved ~65% of the vote. That leaves about 1/3rd to minor parties and independents. Surely that's a great deal better than having just 2 parties with any real power.
- plsbenice34 4y ago
  The actual seats that are won are a better indication of the results and who has power. Results seem to be that the major 2 parties won 90% of the seats: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal-election-2022-results https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal-election-2022-res...
  - gonzo41 4y ago
    It's slightly more complicated, it's more like there's 3-5-ish major parties. If you take the Liberal party, the Liberal National Party of Queensland and the National Party. Those form the Coalition conservative block. Then there's Labor who form the Center Left, and the Greens who are the progressive Left. Importantly whilst 90% of the seats may be in 4 distinct parties, that form two opposing sides, The Coalition suffered the loss of seats to independents recently. Labor voters in these electorates were able to vote 1 for the ALP and then send there preference to an independent in order to tactically vote against the liberals ruling party. This effect can be seen by the reduced labor vote in these electorates.
    - femto 4y ago
      "Tactical voting" means you vote for a less preferred candidate over your preferred candidate to achieve a desired outcome. This is not the same a giving a second preference to an independent. In your example, the voter has voted for their preferred (Labor) candidate over the independent. If the Labor candidate gets knocked out then their second preference says "if I can't have Labor then I would prefer an Independent over Liberal". That's the beauty of preferential voting, you generally don't have to vote tactically. You just vote for what you really want.
      - plsbenice34 4y ago
        True, it is interesting from a game theoretic point of view. There is info about the algorithm's properties here in case anyone is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Tactical_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Tactical...
  - conz 4y ago
    > The actual seats that are won are a better indication of the results and who has power. Results seem to be that the major 2 parties won 90% of the seats: While true, that 10% allocation of parliamentary seats to independents/small parties allows for a great deal of negotiation on policy. The smaller parties, particularly if the hold a sufficient level of balance-of-power, can see some/many of their own policies reflected in the eventual policies which pass through parliament. [Edit: clarification]
giantg2 4y ago
In the US we have the opposite problem - low turnout. Especially in primaries, we see that a small minority (15% maybe) pick the candidates. This is because it's the most motivated (potentially extreme) voters that show up to vote in primaries. Also, different states hold primaries on different days, so many of the presidential candidates drop after just a couple states vote.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > Especially in primaries The primaries are your problem - those are crazy. Why does the government run voting for the representatives of private political parties?
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Because they're not actually political parties like other countries have; they have no memberships, they have employees. You can't join e.g. the Democratic party and start paying dues, instead you declare your Democratic party allegiance to the government, and it allows you to participate in the selection of the Democratic party candidate. The two major parties created this situation through state and local legislation. It's absolutely bizarre that two private organizations who are responsible to no one but themselves have inextricably and exclusively bound themselves to the operation of US government. They avoided any constitutional questions by legislating locally instead of federally. I don't see how that's meant to be superior to a single-party communist system. Is adding a "primary" step so much more democratic than just putting all of the primary candidates into a single election?
    - femto 4y ago
      If they are private organisations, wouldn't it be fun if they could be hauled before the Federal Trade Commission? :-)
      - giantg2 4y ago
        Now this guy's thinking.
xorfish 4y ago
Proportional voting for congress per state would solve this. If the 27 seats from New York would be distributed via proportional voting, then a party with just a few percent of votes can get some political power.
femto 4y ago
As of Saturday: HAD two very dominant major parties. Australia just had Federal elections, and the count is still in progress, but there is a chance we will end up with a "hung parliament" with neither (ex) major party having a majority. 16 seats of 151 appear to have gone to minor parties or independents. Forming government should be an easy negotiation, to the extent that the new Prime Minister has already been declared, as the new government will need support from only 1 or 2 independents. In this instance a hung parliament would be an excellent outcome in that the government would be stable due to the small number of independents needed to form government, and debate would have to occur in the parliament and not behind closed doors in a party room. The general view is that this change in voting patterns will be long term, as the majors' votes have been declining for years and it has just reached the tipping point. 10 independents elected is a record. In my opinion the Australian electoral system gets several things right: * Compulsory voting. You have to turn up to the booth and receive a ballot paper, but it's then up to you what you do with it. Most people use it to vote but some use it to draw a pretty picture or tell the counters what they really think of the government. The real power of compulsory voting is that it virtually eliminates disenfranchisement as those who are not marked as receiving their ballot are handed a small ($20) fine. This creates a paper trail and a disenfranchised voter can refuse to pay the fine, turn up to court and as part of their argument against the fine tell the judge how they were disenfranchised. * An independent commission (aec.gov.au) that sets voting boundaries and runs the election on a national basis. * Preferential/RCV voting makes it more likely (than FPTP) that the result reflects the will of the majority and is harder to game. Whilst RCV might not be perfect, it's better than FPTP. Things it gets wrong: 1) Lack of disclosure of political funding sources 2) This has lead to corruption, whereby the major parties put the interests of themselves and donors above the country, with rampant pork barrelling and looking after "mates". #2 is a big reason why the major parties are losing votes, and the new government comes with the promise of an anti-corruption commission "with teeth", and a bunch of independents who plan on holding the government to this promise. Amazingly in this instance the system seems to have self-corrected. With any luck, #2 being fixed will reduce the opportunities to put the interests of parties and donors above the country and lead to #1 also being fixed in the not too distant future.
- hugh-avherald 4y ago

IgorPartola 4y ago

No, it is caused by the presidential system. A parliamentary system even with first past the post would give you more than two parties.

cycomanic 4y ago
I'm not sure I agree. The UK doesn't have a presidential system, but have first past the post and essentially have a 2 party system, with a small sprinkle of a third party.
- bethling 4y ago
  And France, which is a presidential system, is not a two party system, with a large number of parties represented in their legislature. They have a different election system than the US.
- notahacker 4y ago
  Arguably the UK is a good example of how FPTP can result in even worse dynamics than two broadly competitive parties as in the US (though I agree that it's FPTP doing the work; many fully functioning multiparty democracies have elected presidents). England has a de facto 2.5 party system, where the third party picks up a large fraction of votes but only a handful of seats and the governing party is rarely backed by much more than a third of the vote but usually picks up most of the seats. Worse still, the relative policy overlap of the two centre-left parties has meant the centre-right party usually wins elections even though generally a majority of the public votes for parties promising centre-left politics (yes there's obviously a lot more nuance and exceptions to that than can be fitted into a single sentence). Scotland has more recently shown shows that a single main representative of a losing minority in an independence referendum can win nearly everything against the multiple major parties on the other side. (Wales shows if your nationalist support is more lukewarm and unevenly distributed you get more unpredictable multiparty politics) Northern Ireland is contested only by local parties with a longstanding religious/national identity division leading to two major parties for each side plus, and ultra tactical voting based on trying to figure out which of your factions' parties to unite behind this time to avoid the embarrassment of the local minority faction getting their candidate elected (and the non-sectarian fifth party being squeezed out). None of the areas are particularly delighted with the results they are getting.

MrFantastic 4y ago

The 2 parties have also legislated to ensure only they can make it to the stage. For a 3rd party to participate they must be polling over 15%. Dems and GOP allowed on stage often only poll at 4%. https://www.debates.org/about-cpd/overview/ https://www.debates.org/about-cpd/overview/ 15% polling with the political machine of our News apparatus and the 2 parties is almost impossible unless it's a celebrity running.

bluejekyll 4y ago
While this is definitely an issue, it doesn’t change the fact that third party candidates still end up as spoilers in most cases due to candidates not being required to gain > 50% of the vote (which ranked choice and approval voting both do). Also, it would be great if we could make voting easy enough for people to do it every election. Focusing on just the presidency means that we have fewer candidates representing the will of the People in the off years.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  Would be nice if we could make election day into a Federal holiday. We could move Veteran's day a week earlier, and maybe shift election day to a Monday which would also give a more sensible three-day weekend. It is absolutely stunning to me that we don't have unanimous agreement on this simple change.
  - jesterpm 4y ago
    I would actually expect worst outcomes if you turned it into a three day weekend. Why stay in town and vote when you could use the three day weekend for something more fun? With typical work weeks in mind, midweek makes more sense to avoid conflicting with weekends. (and here's why we don't have unanimous agreement—it's always the little details that hang people up)
    - bluejekyll 4y ago
      In most places you can vote before the election for varying degree of times (like 1-2 weeks). We don’t need a holiday for voting. What we need is the ability for people to get their ballot easily, return it when they want. Where I live, I get my ballot for every election in the mail, I fill out at home. I then walk it down to a secure ballot drop box a few blocks away. Everyone should have this experience.