By Sectori
More fun randomness: alternative voting systems. I am strongly not a fan of plurality/first-past-the-post voting. It makes voting for candidates other than front-runners into a wasted vote. It is my opinion that a democracy functions better when more voices are heard, and the current two-party system, although it is true that each party is a fairly odd mix, is not conducive to that.
So, I propose two alternatives. My personal favorite system as an intermediary is approval voting. It works basically the same way as first-past-the-post voting, except that the "one vote per person" rule no longer applies. The reason it's called "approval voting" is that rather than voting only for one candidate, you vote for all candidates of whom you approve. This has the very beneficial effect of preventing a "third party spoiler" by allowing third-party voters to also vote for a mainstream candidate. Further, it allows those who are frustrated with the Democrats and the Republicans but don't want to "waste their vote" to vote for a third party candidate and a mainstream candidate. It allows third parties to shake the negative view that some Americans have of them, and also open the floor for a serious third party candidate. I think that more people than most people expect would vote for third parties if they felt it was a viable option. Continued: Click "Read More"
My personal favorite system as a radically different implementation of our voting system is the party list system. It's a multiple-winner system used in a variety of countries, including the Netherlands, Iceland, Spain, numerous Latin American countries, East Timor, Turkey, et al. Basically, one votes for political parties rather than individual candidates. Using the D'Hondt method (my personal favorite), the numbers of votes for each party are compared and divided by s+1, where s is the number of seats already allocated to that party (it's a parliamentary/legislative thing mostly: it would be useful for Congress). So, take this example (I've been creating a fictional government of New England, and this is my fictional voting data from the fictional 2005 snap elections) of a parliamentary election in Massachusetts:
D: Democratic Party of New England
R: New England Republicans
G: Green-Rainbow Party
U: American Union Party
P: Progressive Party of New England
Massachusetts
Population: 6.44 million (approx.)
Votes cast: 2.9 million (approx.)
Seats to be allotted: 13
Parties: Votes
So, in allocating seat 1, I divide each party's count by s+1. I'm going to drop the -,000 for convenience.
D: 1000
R: 600
G: 450
U: 310
P: 630
The Democrats get seat 1. Now I divide again:
D: 500 [1000/(1+1)]
R: 600
G: 450
U: 310
P: 630
The Progressives get seat 2. Divide again:
D: 500
R: 600
G: 450
U: 310
P: 315
The Republicans get seat 3, etc. You get the idea. Anyway, it's fun to allocate seats (yes, it's true, this is what I do with my free time). It's an entertaining system.
Just some things for you to ponder.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Voting Systems
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5 comments:
I concur, though the latter system of seat allocation that you mentioned could have one of two effects:
1. Congress becomes varied enough that Representatives vote in more of an individualized manner with minimal party influence.
2. (Unfortunately, this effect would be more likely in this country than others.) The varied composition of Congress incites a sort of hyper-partisanship where legislation is rarely passed.
It would require coalition governments. Although it is a noble goal, it is one of those things (like the elimination of the electoral college) that requires one side to expose itself to weakness in order to get accomplished.
If either of these things is to happen, both parties have to agree to accept it simlutaneously. Otherwise any change is unfair.
-The Young Sentinel
Unfortunately, Young Sentinel is right about the simultaneous agreement, and for that reason I don't think (unfortunately) that we'll ever adopt a party list system.
As to disciple of science, I really hope that the first would be more what would happen: my idea of a party list system is that it would be more likely to allocate a few seats to third-parties (even if only two or three nation-wide to begin with), opening the door for a more varied Congress.
You're right that there's a chance that it could just become über-partisan competition, but I hope that we would be able to take a leaf out of our northern neighbors' book, as well as the example of our main Western European allies with parliamentary systems.
The other thing to note is that there are ways of adjusting this system: in France, for example, the party with the overall plurality automatically gets a certain percentage of the seats to ensure that they are able to govern in a majority.
At any rate, I wouldn't recommend an immediate switch to a party list. I'd rather go to approval voting first, see how that goes, and if it seems to be working for people (and if more third-party candidates are getting elected), see about moving to this.
But, alas, it's never going to happen.
It's not going to happen because people are so used to the system now that changing it would be too much to deal with. There's a complete multi-party system in Brazil. In principle it works but it always ends up in an orgy of corruption and nothing ever gets done. If competent politicians were employed then it would work, but you'd have to have that sort of system to begin with.
As for Parliamentary systems, while they are 3 or more party systems, it's usually only 2 that are ever in contention. In England, for example, only the Tories and Labour are either PM or Leaders of the Opposition. Lib Dems, the next biggest party, haven't had a PM or Leader of the Opposition in years.
A similar situation exists in Canada with the Liberals and the Conservatives. My concern isn't that third parties will immediately overthrow the established two-party order, but rather that they at the very least get a voice in the government. Even though the Liberals and Conservatives are the main governing parties, the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrats also have a not-insignificant presence there.
Now, I understand that it's still fairly difficult for fifth-parties to break in (cf. the Greens), but that is still a much more significant variety of political views than is present in the United States, excepting Senator Sanders and to a certain extent Representative Kucinich.
So while it may be that only two parties are in contention for the Prime Ministry, multiple parties are in contention for a presence in parliament, and multiple parties get there. That's my point.
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