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I used to think so. Yet I am not sure now that only the election system is to blame. Australian way to count votes was specifically designed to avoid favoring

I used to think so. Yet I am not sure now that only the election system is to blame. Australian way to count votes was specifically designed to avoid favoring a two-party system (basically, instead of selecting one candidate, you vote for multiple and give your preference order). Yet in effect Australia has a 2-party system, too. Why is that, I don't know.

lapcat 3y ago
> Why is that, I don't know. Big money, I suspect.
gilbetron 3y ago
Because the voting isn't the main resource required to get someone elected, it is all the time, money, and effort it takes to make a candidate known. Unlike with ranked choice or some other vote system that allows you to vote for multiple candidates, you can't put your time, money, and energy into multiple candidates at the same time. You have to split it between however many candidates you want to support, and splitting your resources like that means any one of those candidates has less of a chance than if you put your resources into a single candidate. Consciously or unconsciously, people recognize this, and so focus on a single candidate, one of two, to maximize their odds of getting their candidate elected. It is my depressing realization after wondering the same thing as you and discovering that these alternate voting systems actually don't help, in the end, with electing someone to a position of singular power. They seem to help in other situations, though.