NPR:
Amid growing frustration with both major political parties, voters are open to some big changes.
A new poll, commissioned by supporters of election reforms and shared with NPR, shows there is significant support for upending winner-take-all U.S. House… Continue reading
The post “Voters are sick of the 2-party system. A new poll shows they’re open to big changes” appeared first on Election Law Blog.
One of the biggest issues I see on the ground is that voters aren’t stepping up. This is even at the local level. This is a problem all across the USA. Good people aren’t willing to run for a lot of these local offices. Nobody’s preparing the next generation / replacements to take over once older candidates age out or move up the chain. Then even if you get multiple people to run for a local office, these voters who are supposedly tired of the 2 party system don’t volunteer, donate, or even bother to show up to events where the candidates are making themselves available for dialog. They aren’t interacting with candidates’ social media. So realistically, if voters don’t change, nothing’s going to change about the 2-party system.
Challenge mutual exclusion in political parties. In the US we vote for the person, not the party. Why can’t I belong to more than one political party?
The problem I see is meaningful change to the voting system requires a constitutional amendment which is a high bar. Political parties are not in the constitution. Getting rid of mutual exclusion just requires a good legal argument…
Most people in the United States don’t vote for the person over the party they vote for the party. If the Republican and they have an r by their name that’s the person that’s going to get their vote no matter who etc.
Yes, these are the types of structural changes that need to be made before all the wishful thinking guiding people’s voting behaviors can amount to anything positive. Looking at the current landscape, ranked choice specifically, Democrats are receptive to the idea because they want leftists to at least put Democrats second while the GOP hates the idea so much they’re passing laws per-emptively banning ranked choice for more or less the same reason. There’s the path forward.
Never gonna happen. The duopoly is never gonna allow it.
Hey Democrats and Republicans, will you allow for the possible destruction of your parties? No? …oh
Remind me which party is the one that wants to send armed enforcers to voting places?
When someone on the internet ignores the spoiler effect: You miserable cretin! It’s been obvious since the 2000 election! You’re clearly a Russian LLM.
When someone running for office ignores the spoiler effect: This innocent flower just has so many bigger things to worry about. I’m sure they’d oppose FPTP if they only knew.
Ranked choice voting open to all.
RCV is just one of many alternative voting systems that has alot of warts. I think there are better options that should be explored:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison/_of/_electoral/_systems
It has already been preemptively made illegal in several states.
This can be done on local level but on national level you would need constitutional reform which is extremely unlikely.
Nonsense. The constitution grants states almost complete control over the handling of national elections. There’s nothing stopping them from doing ranked choice for president/Congress.
You’re technically right but the real issue is electoral college. For ranked choice to work on national level you would have to get rid of if. Which would require constitutional reform. Without it ranked choice and winner-take-all electoral college would result in a big mess. The most likely scenario would be for Republicans to organize and vote for one candidate while Democrats would split the vote between establishment Dem and some DSA candidate. To actually end 2-party system without giving the presidency to Republicans forever you would need ranked choice popular vote or 2-turn elections.
The 2 party system only works for business and power. We need a system that works for the people.
I prefer Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog
You, sir, are a mouthful.
Two parties? Who is the second party?
The two-party system in the United States consists of “Republicans” and “Everyone else”.
“Evil Light” I think.
Ranked choice pls
alaska has it and lets just say the independant candidates can be weird
GOOD.
You suggest that the main party candidates can’t be?
That’s why I established residency in a State with Rank Choice
There are only two states with ranked choice voting, I think: Maine and Alaska. A number of smaller municipalities also have it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked-choice_voting_in_the_United_States
Approval voting, please.
Anything clone-independent will make further reforms much easier.
True. Ranked choice is progress. My problem with it is that still makes polarizing politics an advantage.
Example: 3 candidates run, A is leftwing, B is more center (leftwing or right leaning), C is right wing. A and C both get 40% of rank 1 votes because they benefit from the polarized atmosphere, B only gets 20% of rank 1, so they are eliminated and their voters are run off to either A, C or dropped if they didn’t pick a second candidate.
Say after runoff A has 44%, and C has 45%. Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter. The winner doesn’t even have support of the majority of voters and polarized politics continues to be an advantage. But if you look at those who voted for A or C as their first choice, of the 40% for A 25% had B as their second, and of the 40% for C 18% had B as their second. So 43% of the voters gave a ranked 2 vote for B and 20% gave a ranked 1.
Approval voting is similar to ranked choice where you vote for every candidate you would be happy with. But you don’t rank them and there is not elimination and runoff. You just give 1 vote to every candidate you would approve of and the highest wins. So let’s look at the results with approval voting.
A has 44% approval. C has 45% approval. And B has 63% approval. B is the clear winner, despite being the first eliminated in Ranked Choice.
If the goal is to have a representational government that is approved of by the governed, where oppositional polarizing politics and manipulation holds less sway, then Approval voting is the goal to shoot for.
Few people want B over their extreme I think. They want their lesser desired B vote to run off to A. Approval disproportionately advantages the middle, least desired by all parties.
Well first, the middle is where it should be pushed if representational goverment is the goal. They should represent the most people. Not the most popular minority group on election day. Not your politics over everyone else’s no matter what. But also, it can work in favor of the the more extreme candidate too when the electorate feels like the more central, safer option has the better chance and vote accordingly.
Example, the Socialist candidate is charismatic, popular, and has good ideas, but the term socialism leaves people uneasy or unsure if they can get enough support. So under Ranked Choice, many hedge their bets and vote Democrat as their first rank and the socialist as their second. 12% for as first rank for the socialist, 55% for the democrat, and 33% for the republican. After runoff, the socialist is elminated and dems win. But with approval, 45% of the 55% of dems actually approve of the socialist. Now the socialist has 57% support. The results then entirely hinge on on how many socialist first voters also support dems.
In such a case, shouldn’t they have voted 1 social 2 dem? Approval voting is fine, it allows cross aisle winners which are impossible now, but definitely has the chance of being a weak middle that’s always walking on eggshells.
I personally wish we used issue voting: each candidate takes a test, then you take a test, and an algorithm matches your answers with the candidate to avoid a huge number of problems with media driven campaigns.
Drutman found that 6 in 10 Trump voters who have an opinion on proportional representation said they back it, too….
Okay, but like, what tiny percentage of those people could understand the concept, much less have an opinion about it? heh
Party principles have a history of changing over time.
I think we can still salvage “democrats”. We just have to make it far left.
If we do make a new party though, what animal or color ?
I mean white seems like the only option. But that’s kinda maybe problematic.
Can’t be part of the white party.
Rainbow?
Oh and animal. Hm.
Anything is better than a literal jack ass.Even if we stick with the Dems vs Republicans. Can Dems get a new mascot. ?
If we’re reconfiguring the system enough to have a third party, we can transfer white to the Republicans to align with their primary organizing principle.
Can’t be part of the white party.
WHITE POWER!!!..wait
They’re open to big changes because corporations have captured our political parties and neither party answers to the population, you know, like a functional democracy. Citizens United and deregulation of corporations is where things went wrong.
Not happening as long as we have a pay-for-play system. Both Dems and republicans profit from having a corporate- and AIPAC- financed winner-take-all voting system.
Let’s prioritize on dealing with the elephant in the room, instead of making Christmas wish lists to Santa.
