You must be European. I admire your voting system.
But unfortunately, USA runs under FPTP. We do not have European Luxury.
Party A: We will make teeny tiny bit of progress
Party B: We will try to destroy every progress ever made
Party C: We will make a lot of progress
Election Results:
Party A gets 45% of the vote
Party B gets 48% of the vote
Party C gets 6% of the vote
remaining votes are incorrectly marked and therefore invalidated
Under first past the post rules, Party B wins, even when the majority wanted some progress, no matter how small, now the party of regression and destruction are in power.
Good job.
TDLR: Fuck FPTP voting system, we really need ranked choice voting system.
The problem becomes even more stark if you assume parties A and C win 25% and 26%. Heck, let’s make B even more unpopular with a 34-35-31 split. There is an incredible amount of movement required to make a new party dominant and competitive in our fucked up system.
Counterpoint to this is that you sacrifice your principles and vote Party A and they still wind up losing again and again leaving Party B to run the entire government. Your vote was a throwaway vote anyway, so what would have been the harm in voting Party C?
Perhaps with enough momentum, Party C can reinvigorate the 50% of eligible voters who don’t even bother to show up due to years of disappointment and apathy with both Party A and Party B. How many times are you willing to vote Party A if they keep backing terrible candidates who can’t win, and even when they do by razor thin margins, do little to stem the tide of destruction? What are you gaining out of this system?
I’d argue that your mentality only encourages poor performance out of our elected officials and these two parties since they can count on you, and those on the other side, to vote for them regardless of what they do or don’t do, how well or bad they perform, and whatever promises they may or may not keep. What is even the point of voting for candidates when all you’re doing is voting for a specific party? They might as well make the election automatic based on whatever party everyone registers as. What’s the difference?
To me, this mentality is no different than those apathetic voters who sit out every election because all you’re doing is keeping this fucked up system going and expecting things to get better without doing anything different to change the outcome.
You must be European. I admire your voting system.
But unfortunately, USA runs under FPTP. We do not have European Luxury.
Party A: We will make teeny tiny bit of progress
Party B: We will try to destroy every progress ever made
Party C: We will make a lot of progress
Election Results:
Party A gets 45% of the vote
Party B gets 48% of the vote
Party C gets 6% of the vote
remaining votes are incorrectly marked and therefore invalidated
Under first past the post rules, Party B wins, even when the majority wanted some progress, no matter how small, now the party of regression and destruction are in power.
Good job.
TDLR: Fuck FPTP voting system, we really need ranked choice voting system.
The problem becomes even more stark if you assume parties A and C win 25% and 26%. Heck, let’s make B even more unpopular with a 34-35-31 split. There is an incredible amount of movement required to make a new party dominant and competitive in our fucked up system.
Not European I live in the US.
Counterpoint to this is that you sacrifice your principles and vote Party A and they still wind up losing again and again leaving Party B to run the entire government. Your vote was a throwaway vote anyway, so what would have been the harm in voting Party C?
Perhaps with enough momentum, Party C can reinvigorate the 50% of eligible voters who don’t even bother to show up due to years of disappointment and apathy with both Party A and Party B. How many times are you willing to vote Party A if they keep backing terrible candidates who can’t win, and even when they do by razor thin margins, do little to stem the tide of destruction? What are you gaining out of this system?
I’d argue that your mentality only encourages poor performance out of our elected officials and these two parties since they can count on you, and those on the other side, to vote for them regardless of what they do or don’t do, how well or bad they perform, and whatever promises they may or may not keep. What is even the point of voting for candidates when all you’re doing is voting for a specific party? They might as well make the election automatic based on whatever party everyone registers as. What’s the difference?
To me, this mentality is no different than those apathetic voters who sit out every election because all you’re doing is keeping this fucked up system going and expecting things to get better without doing anything different to change the outcome.
FYI, primary elections exist, but most people don’t bother voting in primaries.
“Europe” isn’t a singular country with one voting system.
True. But most European countries have parliamentary democracies with more or less proportional representation. Then the details vary wildly.
(Although the UK has FPTP single candidate constituencies so they’re nearly as bad)