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And it will fail due to the current voting system. CPG Grey has a great explainer on why there will only ever be 2 political parties under the current system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ dbbk

It is so wild that your country is beholden to either one of two private organisations. What if one of them (e.g. the Republican party) goes totally off the rails? There is basically no mechanism to wholesale replace them because the inertia is too great.

⬐ badrabbit

This is only a problem because the president is an elected office, if it was appointed by the legislature and a 50% majority or coalition is required to form a government like modern parliamentary systems it would not be an issue.

Forgetting what could have been, a third party does not need to win the president's office or even have a presidential candidate. A handful of senate seats and a dozen or so house seats are enough to make a huge difference. It will essentially be the tie-breaker or "dampner" party that prevents extremists from wrecking havoc like they are now. Think of it as having a party of Joe Manchin's without the selling out to big coal part.

Not having a presidential candidate at all prevents voters from voting on party lines. They should also prevent the option where you check one box and that means you vote for only one party for all candidates. If you want to do that, do it one by one.

Also, I have a solution for gerrymandering: split a state into a square grid where the dimnensions are set based on a false assumption of equal population distribution. Then adjust the size of squares with less population than the presumed popularion under equal distribution by merging them with a similarly apportioned square segments of a neighboring square with the least population. The result would be a somewhat fairly divided grid where divisions are made by the algorithm and nothing else. Census adjusted of course every few years. What is wrong with this idea? Squares will have less people than others but the difference between them is minimized. The number of house seats depends on the number of squares(or rather square derived parcels).

⬐ saurik

> ...a third party does not need to win the president's office or even have a presidential candidate. A handful of senate seats and a dozen or so house seats are enough to make a huge difference.

How is this not the same problem? Are there a bunch of states that have better voting mechanisms for their federal representatives?

⬐ dbbk

I know Maine at least uses Ranked Choice Voting.

⬐ badrabbit

In some states it is always landslide win for one party, basically a one party system for some districts because the other side is always too extreme. People can vote for the guy they like the least for president and the guy they like the most for legislative seats because they address issues most relevant to their district.

⬐ magpi3

Yes. The mathematics make zero sense for a third party in the United States. But, I think Bernie Sanders showed that it is at least viable to form a wing in an existing party and have an effect on the platform even if your preferred party candidate loses. I think this is what the green party needs to do: become a wing of the democratic party. And I think anyone who wants to have a political voice in the U.S. needs to either work to change how we vote and how our representatives are selected (good luck with that), or work within one of the two parties in some way.

⬐ lapcat

> I think Bernie Sanders showed that it is at least viable to form a wing in an existing party and have an effect on the platform even if your preferred party candidate loses.

Has Sanders changed the policy of the Democratic Party in any way? I'm not seeing it.

If anything, Joe Manchin shows the real route to power: refusing your vote until they're forced to cave to your demands. Manchin is effectively the leader of the Democratic Party now and vastly more powerful than Sanders, even though they both have exactly one vote in the Senate.

Anyway, the Forward Party seems to be mostly Republicans. On the Democratic side there's Andrew Yang, who has never held office, Stephanie Miner, former mayor of Syracuse, NY, and... who else?

⬐ SahAssar

30 years ago a third party led the polls during the summer [1]. It all exploded after that, but I think that it shows that there is a possibility for a third to have an actual chance, although all the stars need to align. 30 years is a long time ago, but I think that the media landscape now is considerably easier for a third party than it was then (easier direct access to voters, national news intake is spread over more sources), and the current assumed candidates (biden & trump) unpopularity in the next presidential election seem to favor the possibility of a third party.

It might not be a probability, but I think it's a possibility.

1: https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/11/us/the-1992-campaign-on-t...

⬐ magpi3

I remember, but that wasn't really a third-party. That was just Ross Perot. I do think the two parties are slightly vulnerable to a strong enough, and rich enough, candidate surrounded by a cult of personality, but even in this case it would have been wiser had Perot simply challenged for the Republican nomination like Trump (another outsider) did 24 years later. He probably could have ousted Bush, and he really might have a won the presidency that way.

⬐ SahAssar

If en marche didn't win in france that would just have been one guy. Every party seems to be just one guy until it actually gains enough momentum an power to grow outside of that person and has to build an organization that survives them.

⬐ woojoo666

PBS Infinite Series had two great videos as well, though much more mathematical and technical [1][2]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoAnYQZrNrQ

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhVR7gFMKNg

> However one neat trick the EU has (and I promise I'm not trying to spin this as pro-EU, as it's only in one place): is that the direct votes are split proportionally. This means that lesser represented groups get a voice in the EU parliament.

That's pretty cool. There are a lot of voting systems that make a ton more sense than first past the post.

One of my favorites on the topic is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

CGP Grey's video uses animals and whatnot. It's cute, but then he talks about alternatives and it's clear anything would be better than first past the post.

In the US, this is one of many reasons why I'm cynical about the federal government. Everyone knows our voting system is useless--none more than the politicians in the system. But, once they're in the system, they're taking advantage of it and never bother with voting system reforms.

I also still mostly disagree with governments in general. A group of people shouldn't be allowed the rights a single person doesn't have. No matter the system, there are people in it that never agreed to be a part of it. That said, from a pragmatic standpoint it doesn't really matter. As you've mentioned, it's dog-eat-dog out there.

I've been fairly busy these past few days, but I'll make it a point to watch the videos you've linked today (not to exceed 1hr of viewing--I haven't checked the length, lol).

I'll start off with my prototype:

https://elegant-shaw-2cb49a.netlify.app/votevote

Anyone into electoral methods or game theory? If you've ever watched CGP Grey's videos on electoral methods or seen Nicky Case's *To Build a Better Ballot*,[1] it's very much in the spirit of that. It's mostly a toy that will run a single election in a large number of different electoral methods.

Currently I've implemented ~26 different electoral methods which is pretty neat. However, I've shied away from the methods that voting theory nerds love the most: Condorcet methods. I've implemented Copeland (although there's a mistake I haven't fixed yet) as well as Kemeny Young. However, Kemeny Young is implemented in the most brute force way possible and is O(n!) right now.

Mostly I think I'm just looking for people with a math/game-theory background that would be interested in helping out, but I'm open to anyone interested. I know there's a lot of optimizations I could make to the Kemeny Young algorithm, but I've been hesitant to do so because I can't find the right theorems to make sure certain assumptions are true. For example, I'm quite sure that a subset of weak Condorcet winners would be at the front of the winning path, but I haven't found a textbook that's stated this explicitly and it's been a long time since college so I'm kinda iffy on proving it to myself. I also don't think having to learn the proof everytime just to make sure my assumptions are mathematically sound is the best way to develop such a tool. Thanks

It's all open-source and won't have ads and will hopefully just be a static site so it's really just a hobby project.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

[1] https://ncase.me/ballot/

⬐ iamwil

What are the 26 different electoral methods? I only see three simulated.

⬐ culi

I haven't yet added visualizations for all of them. I realized a lot of optimizations that could be made while working on this so I decided to hold off on that until I rebuild it for the new site (gonna be at votevote.page)

But I do at least show the resulting winners of all 26 methods underneath the input section.

⬐ iamwil

This is pretty interesting. Have you connected with people doing token economics design or DAO governance? That would be pretty applicable.

Where did you source all the different electoral methods?

⬐ culi

Thanks! The only people I've really connected with are other voting theory nerds. There's a voting theory mailing list where a lot of academics hang out. Some of them are leaders in the field like Forest Simmons and some others I haven't interacted with as much. Maybe once I have more to show I could reach out to wider audiences

The electoral methods are sourced from various places. When I get the new site up and running I want to have a spec source for each of the methods' implementations since some of the names can be confusing. A lot of the methods were found on the electowiki[0] which is run by the same people who do the mailing list. Many others I just found from reading articles, publications, textbooks,[1] and even wikipedia. I've kept a list of ones I wanna implement so I've just been slowly working through them. But there's a strong bias towards simple to implement ones so far. The much-loved (by voting theorists) ones won't be implemented for a while until I figure out how to do things more efficiently

[0] https://electowiki.org/

[1] https://www.maa.org/press/maa-reviews/the-mathematics-of-ele...

That's incorrect. The will of the people cannot necessarily be expressed when it has to be channeled through exactly two parties. The fact of there being two parties is dictated by the first past the post system.

More detailed explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo (this is the famous CCP Grey video with the animals, for those who have already seen it).

Also, even if it WERE the will of the people, it's still wrong, and immoral.

Democracy is only as good as the demos is moral. I judge the American demos to be insufficiently honest and thus insufficiently moral. Basically, each half of the country thinks that about the other half; I simply agree with both sides.

⬐ TameAntelope

Yes, there are trade offs with the US government's system of electing representatives within its government, trade offs the country seems to be willing to accept, given its lack of mobility on electing people who would make changes to that system.

And while it's true that, on the margins, the will of the people can be nudged one way or another, you still have to find a whole lot of people to vote for you in order to get elected, and those are your fellow countrymen who do believe those wars you mentioned made sense at the time (for example). You may call those people as many names (e.g. "immoral") as you like, they're still entitled to their votes, exactly as you are.

There is no "them", it's just "us". The divisive rhetoric you're employing is, in my opinion, more problematic than the voters themselves.

⬐ javert

I don't agree with that, but let's not litigate it.

I only still reside in the US because I don't want to pay the exit tax to expatriate. I'm being kept against my will. But I'll make it out eventually, when I can make it make sense tax-wise. Good riddance.

By the way, I live in a US territory, so I have no federal representation, even in theory, personally, even though I pay federal tax. Which is OK, since when I lived in the states proper, my "countrymen" never elected people I believed to be reasonable.

The terrible voting system is mostly to blame here. The current government got a minority of the votes (43%) but that led to a huge majority in Parliament. (Obligatory CGP Grey video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo)

⬐ Veen

In 2019, their share was larger than any other party (Labour got 31%). Under which reasonably fair system would they not have ended up with a majority large enough to form a government? You may not like it, but the Tories were the choice of the UK population. And you may not like FPTP, but we had a referendum about switching to the Alternative Vote system in 2011—only 31% voted in favor.

⬐ rwmj

Quite obviously they should have got about 43% of the seats. They might still have got a majority by teaming up with other parties to making a grouping of over 50%, but they would have had to moderate their policies for that. (Almost every other party in the election opposed a hard Brexit and wanted a second confirmatory referendum so that would have been different, and better).

There was indeed a referendum and predictably many voted against because it wasn't pure PR, not realising that this would later be used against them, as you are doing now. This doesn't change the fact that FPTP is objectively the worst form of democracy.

⬐ Veen

> Quite obviously they should have got about 43% of the seats.

This doesn't seem quite obvious to me. Why should that be the case? In the UK, people vote for the person who will represent them in parliament. A person they can meet and go to with their problems. I think that's one of the best parts of our system: every MP is accountable to their constituency. The rest is a consequence of that: the party with the most representatives forms a government. Would you like to cut the link between directly elected consituency representatives and parliament?

> FPTP is objectively the worst form of democracy.

That's only true if you accept as axiomatic that the proportion of votes in the nation should exactly reflect the proportion of representatives in parliament. But I can see no reason why that supposed benefit should be priveleged above other benefits such as stability, direct election of local representatives, and so on.

Proportional systems tend to remove the connection between people and their representatives, and lead to situations in which the government is actually chosen through backroom dealing and favor-swapping between parties. We saw a little that in the UK when the Tories did a shameful deal with the DUP to get the necessary majority. I would not like to see that become the norm in the UK.

Are they willing, or is there simply no correct choice at the voting booth because of First Past the Post voting?

Our current electoral system: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

> All governments are aristocracies.

All states are. Not all systems of government are states.

> media manipulations of wide populous

The media is owned by the same "aristocracy" that controls the state.

In the US and other capitalist countries the aristocracy mostly consists of billionaires and a few political "clans" (usually with ties to "old money"). In the USSR the aristocracy was the Bolshevik intelligentsia and former capitalists that formed the bureaucracy. The problem isn't inherent to humanity, it's inherent to centralized systems.

The video you linked actually supports this somewhat: a ruler can't rule alone, they need a staff of advisors and delegates to carry out the ruler's orders. But this is only a problem if you try to have a ruler, or a committee of rulers.

The usual counter-argument is that decentralized systems don't work at scale. You can have small communities decide things with direct democracy but clearly that doesn't scale because it's harder to reach consensus the larger the group becomes. To address this I would invite you to read into Democratic Confederalism or watch Anark's aptly-titled video "after the revolution"[0] that explores a very similar anarchist/mutualist governance structure.

In most of these scenarios the answer to "direct democracy doesn't scale" is a delegate system and it's easy to mistake this for the same representative democracy we're used to but the important difference is that the delegation is not only proportional but voluntary and consent can be withdrawn, either generally or on individual votes. NonCompete's video[1] has some poorly aged off-hand comments about how technology might help with this but he gives a good explanation of how such a delegate system can work. CGP Grey actually also has videos on alternative voting systems[2][3] making such a system feasible.

The main difference with these systems is that they're decentralized in the sense that power is granted explicitly and voluntarily, i.e. it can be withdrawn at a moment's notice, making it impossible to hold on to it over technicalities (like receiving a minority share of the votes but then joining a coalition government that appoints your party leader as chancellor and then passes an Enabling Act to disempower the senate like in 1933). At first glance this may sound like sovereign citizens rejecting arrest by exclaiming "I do not consent" but the important difference is that a delegate's vote is only worth as much as the number of people backing them.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMoTWFZjoYA

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yuok9TQfpo

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

⬐ NiceWayToDoIT

Thank you for reply, I meant to say that abstraction of all currently existing political systems is aristocracy, democracies/communism/socialism what ever else label we are using is just aristocracy in disguise. Representative democracy is not democracy, as you pointed and I do agree, problem is centralization. You have gave me few valuable insights so I will try to explore more about the topic.

> the EU is not democratic in the first place

EU Election system is _literally_ one of the fairest systems in existence[0] ensuring that every party get some measure of proportional representation. Compared to English First Past the Post (minority rule, and 2 party systems) or Scotlands Single-transferrable vote (which is still winner take all); but D'Hondts method means that people can be safe in the knowledge they'll be represented and it's proportional to the input.

It's not "perfect" but it's _literally_ the best humans have come up with.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method

[0.1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU

CGP Grey did some videos on these:

FPTP (England): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&list=PLNCHVwtpeB...

STV (Scotland): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI&list=PLNCHVwtpeB...

D'Hondt-esque (EU): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU&list=PLNCHVwtpeB...

⬐ notriddle

1. The voting system isn’t really important, if the voters themselves are restricted to a chosen few who are themselves elected using inferior methods.

2. Range voting is the best humans have come up with.

⬐ Ieghaehia9

>It's not "perfect" but it's _literally_ the best humans have come up with.

Picking nits, but isn't Sainte-Laguë better?

Anyway, I think GP was arguing that no matter how fair your voting method, it's of limited use if important concentrations of power are not covered by it.

Okay, one more from Justin because it is a video: https://youtu.be/yhO6jfHPFQU

Of course, everyone already knows CGP Grey's videos, right? .. wait.. nobody's posted it yet? OK, here's his whole video set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&index=1&list=PLk...

The two party system is usually a side effect of first past the post voting systems. Since elections only allow voters to choose one candidate, a third party candidate end up splitting the vote and taking votes away from the candidate who is closest to their political stance.

People see that and decide the rational choice is to vote for the candidate that they hate the least with the highest chance of driving, and third parties merge to form coalitions that actually have a chance of winning. Rinse and repeat until you only have two parties. (CPG Grey did a great video on this https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo)

Check out Ireland for how to set up a voting system that doesn't converge to two parties

⬐ valarauko

> third parties merge to form coalitions that actually have a chance of winning. Rinse and repeat until you only have two parties.

I would suggest that this probably isn't the case. Since there is no requirement for a majority vote share in first past the post, the same results can be achieved by splitting parties. The parties have more targeted appeal, just enough to squeak past the other parties. This is the case in India, for example.

⬐ dragonwriter

> I would suggest that this probably isn't the case.

It is; both the theoretical and empirical support for this being the effect of FPTP is overwhelming.

> They can be acheived by splitting other parties, but while Party A can choose to form a superparty eith Party B, it can’t choose to durably split Party C instead. Parties in FPTP will, to the extent that they can get away with it, funnel support to minor party candidates that will split the vote of their major opponent, but that’s a short-term tactical rather than long-term strategic maneuver.

> The parties have more targeted appeal, just enough to squeak past the other parties. This is the case in India, for example.

It’s really not, though India is complicated by being a federal system (which means a bunch of different electoral area with different and interacting party systems) and being in the middle of a long realignment from, at the national level, a dominant-party system under Congress (and looks a lot like at least temporarily to a dominant party system under BJP, again at the national level.)

I like CGP Grey on this issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

I completely agree as far as voting methods are concerned and do think it would be a better system, but I still don't like giving a group of people rights to commit acts considered immoral when done by an individual.

⬐ munk-a

I wanted to first address the question of being overridden. When you enter into any sort of relationship - dating, marriage, inhabiting a city, living in a country - you are agreeing to compromises to grease the wheels of society. Some people are always going to lose sometime - ideally those aren't always the same people and nobody loses an excessively burdensome amount but... If you live in a city of three million you probably fervently disagree with a few hundred thousand of the other residents on some issues you consider particularly important.

On the topic of actions considered immoral (or I'll start with illegal) when done by an individual - war actually only fits into this category in some countries, in a lot of areas murder in self-defense is legal and if 100 ninjas tried to murder you and it was clearly a case of self defense where all other actions were barred your actions might be legal in the US - they would probably be universally recognized as moral by everyone except the most staunch utilitarians which I assume would respond: "Dude - take the trolley in the face, duh - even if they started it it's 100 vs 1 lives lost".

That all said, war is frequently not a case of self-defense and is often abused for silly things like resource acquisition and prestige. Better representation allows us to severely punish governments that either look like they're going to go against the societal will or remove them after the fact - buuut there will be times when a country goes into unpopular wars justly due to either domestic misinformation or classification of information creating a different breadth of knowledge between law makers and the populace - with the former seeming more likely and the latter being pretty repulsive. And the freedom to act in response to aggression is one we need to keep separated from the slow response time of something like a pure democracy. This was actually the case in Athens where Strategos were free to act during their term (assuming an agreement between the then Strategoi) and were only subject to removal during regularly scheduled sessions.

I am strongly against war myself but I would be pretty happy with the US entering and occupying posts in civilian areas on both sides of the israeli/palestinian border to dissuade both parties from continuing attacks - I'm similarly okay with cypric occupation since that situation seems similarly unresolvable. War is pretty complicated but I don't think it's all that distinct from other issues a nation needs to deal with, poor representation leads to actions that go against the public will.

Check out this video, it helps explain why diversity of thought has little to do with the number of political parties that form in a system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Dem/Rep are just two big coalitions in the US, and with first past the post voting, it's nearly impossible to have more than two parties in the long term.

Aren't you blaming the victim of our mathematically flawed electoral system, First Past the Post?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Say for example you voted for Andrew Yang in the iowa democratic primary. He drops out super Tuesday (IIRC). You no longer have any say in the Democratic primary. If we switched to a more representative electoral system, these people can still have their vote count.

These people could still put Yang during the general election, while still having their vote count for the candidate with the better chance to win.

There is also no reason for our multi state primaries to occur over many days. This ensures the media has maximum influence on the results.

"I often wonder if it's possible to encourage lawmakers to pass laws in the opposite direction"

How can you encourage them to do anything when people "vote #color no matter who"?

Our First Past the Post electoral system [1] encourages this blind tribalism. Attempting to vote outside of the two party system puts #otherside in power.

Representatives have no incentive to be anything other than not the other political party.

People are forced to vote against someone they don't want in office, rather than for someone they do want in office.

(1) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

> Congress is paralyzed for some reason having to do with the new atmosphere of microsecond attention span and single-issue voting.

I'd blame First Past the Post voting. [1] It's mathematically always going to lead to a stagnant two party system.

When people are forced to vote against someone they don't want in office, representatives have no incentive to be anything other than "not #otherside".

There is also no longer a reason to have voting in primaries at different times for different states. Having it setup this way means the results are influenced by various special interests (and not just through the media).

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Sorry if this comment was to political in nature for HN.

⬐ ravi-delia

I used to believe that, but realistically the problem goes much deeper. Game theory is at most a small part of the problem, a lot of the issue has to come down to the Ingroup-Outgroup dichotomy. With one ingroup and one outgroup, there will only ever be two real types of person, politically speaking. Be they split among two parties or twenty, the coalitions will never be unclear.

⬐ swsieber

I think you're both right, but if I had to pick one thing to fix it would be the first past the post. Encouraging the in-group/out-group mentality is an act of self-perptuation by the two dominate parties. Without a clear "enemy" the party risks fracturing and demonizing the other side, as well as being demonized by the otherside is something that both parties want because it keeps them in power.

⬐ ravi-delia

But that's exactly the thing, no one has ever needed a party to tell them who their enemy is. With more parties, there would just be clear coalitions, one conservative and one liberal. To the extent that parties switch allegiance, it will be because different people are members, not because existing members changed their political tribe.

⬐ filoeleven

> With more parties, there would just be clear coalitions, one conservative and one liberal.

Multi party coalitions don’t line up this way when considering individual issues, which is the problem we’re discussing here: the paralysis of the US Congress.

Imagine if the Libertarian Party, the Ds, and the Rs each held a third of Congress. On things like finance and gun laws, the Ls would vote with the Rs. But on things like abortion and drug laws, the Ls would vote with the Ds.

The meaningful representation of a single third party thus already throws a wrench in the “conservative vs liberal” ideology. “Us versus them” might still exist, sure, but it shifts per issue instead of being a polarized dichotomy. It’s a step in the right direction.

⬐ ravi-delia

My suspicion is that such a situation wouldn't come about for two reasons:

- People's desire to have a defined in and out group would prevent any party that changes coalition by issue from ever existing in the first place

- Even if such a party came about, shifts in the local overton window (if that's not an oxymoron) of the Rs or the Ds would push the newly formed Ls away until they wound up effectively a part of the other. They wouldn't even give an advantage to the party they wound up with, they'd just compete for the same naturally occurring 50% of people.

On the other hand, I'm in kind of a leftist bubble. I find our typical factiousness endearing most of the time, but it probably skews my view.

⬐ swsieber

I'd like to posit that if we had something other than first past the post we wouldn't have had Trump. And Trump definitely fueled the us vs them mindset.

⬐ ianai

The us/then dynamic is an artifact of the human condition. It worked when we were tiny groups of individuals with no global influence or presence. Which is precisely the sort of thing we should be designing modern social systems to mitigate.

⬐ ravi-delia

The only way a social system could mitigate that is to imitate the time that it worked; self determination for as many small communities as possible. Whether or not that's worth the price is up for debate.

⬐ ianai

That’s the opposite of what I said. We need people to think of themselves as all part of the same people at some level requiring them to have basic civility and respect toward one another.

⬐ ravi-delia

It is indeed the opposite, one might even say we disagree. As swell as it would be for people to be essentially decent, they aren't and they won't be ever. But hey, it would be awesome if I'm wrong! No doubt we need better.

CGP Grey has excellent videos on this. Here's one that discusses the problems with the system the US uses now (in most states): https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ hacknat

Plenty of other governments have first past the post voting and viable 3rd parties. The only argument where this holds water is with executive elections (president, governor).

⬐ andrewflnr

Executives are pretty much what we're talking about with RCV, yes. We may be paying too much attention to those, but that's a bit of a different problem.

⬐ DFHippie

> The only argument where this holds water is with executive elections (president, governor)

If you concede this point then I don't think there's much more to argue about. Nobody argues about the many third parties in the US that just endorse some major party candidate for the chief executive positions. When they run their own candidates for these positions is when they become spoilers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

If someone is looking for a good explanation i must recommend this playlist by CGP Grey explaining different voting systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&list=PLNCHVwtpeB...

To answer your [0], here is a video from CPG Grey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

CGP Grey - The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained (section The Spoiler Effect): https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?t=300

http://enwp.org/Ralph_Nader#Spoiler_controversy

The voting system does determine how many and what types of parties you end up with.

FPTP as in the US will always yield a two party system in the long run as thats the only way you can “win” in it.

More elaborate systems would get you an equilibrium of multiple parties, with much better overlap of what people want to their representatives.

Grouping would indeed always happen, but you wouldn’t need to go to 50% of society to get what you want, so the wants and political speech can be much more varied and relevant.

The best explanations of how it all works I’ve seen were from CGP Grey’s videos https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ pmyteh

This is one of the more famous results in political science: Duverger's Law. It's normally phrased as "in a first past the post system, the number of effective parties tends towards two".

It's... a useful model. It turns out not to work in practice everywhere, though, as there are complicating features with geography and ideology that tend to add parties. Canada, for example, has 2 and a half effective parties (Liberal, Conservative, NDP) in general, and more in Québec. The UK also has two and a half (Con, Lab, Lib Dem) plus powerful Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties, plus an entirely different party system in Northern Ireland. So 'tends towards' is going a lot of work.

⬐ hippich

I think we start seeing that in the U.S. with younger congress members not being satisfied with lumping them all together with more traditional politicians. Who knows, maybe we will get that here too.

EDIT: Also, if the system tries to equalize at two parties, why we do not see a similar process inside parties themselves?

⬐ pmyteh

If the parties have stable factions and their internal elections are FPTP, then sure. The two right-wing factions of the British Labour party just rolled over the party's left-wing by running a joint slate of candidates while the left slates split the vote.

Having said that, electoral politics within parties doesn't tend to be as important as other things: bureaucratic control of the party machinery, for example.

⬐ throwaway41920

> FPTP as in the US will always yield a two party system in the long run as thats the only way you can “win” in it.

I don't think that's true. If you simply removed the de facto state endorsement of parties - if you only listed candidates by name on the ballot and moved to a California type open primary instead of having partisan primaries - you probably wouldn't end up with two parties like we see today.

Party primaries are a good example of this. They're also FPTP, but that hasn't lead to the emergence of two subfactions because such a thing is hard when it's not entrenched in the ballot. Instead primaries have much more loose coalitions of groups and endorsements that shift around in every election. Even in a particular election there are often more than two.

⬐ seer

Well there are of course always tweaks, but FPTP just has those incentives and you inevitably trend towards those bad outcomes and problems.

I mean the video explains it way better than I ever could, and there are a bunch of other political systems and the maths behind them explained ELI5 style.

⬐ pasabagi

I think personalities would probably be a more dangerous thing to attach votes to than parties.

How important is this privilege if I can maliciously control how you vote?

Now imagine the good we can do with real electoral reform (Democrats idea of repealing citizens United is a meager start, but weak lip service to real reform)

What we have now - First Past The Post Voting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Range Voting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Single Transferable Vote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

Alternative Vote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

Mixed-Member Proportional Representation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

Electoral reform is just step 1, something we can all come together for. Something no one could possibly be against.

How about if I control who can be voted for?

Of course it matters - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Erph1L_XwVQ

bonus video:

This video will make you angry -https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

Reform the electoral system to achieve the representation we all deserve.

The electoral system we use now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Alternatives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

We can start introducing these to everyone at the state and local level to build momentum for electoral reform at the federal level.

A good old fashioned general strike until we get what we need from our "representatives".

At that point you're basically discussion voting systems. Using first-past-the-post with three options, two of them being breixt, would heavily rig the vote towards remain.

Improving voting systems would be great (especially looking at the US, if you ever want more than two real parties), but doing it on the back of such an important decision would be problematic at best.

Here is a cutesy video for those new to FPTP voting issues: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ Vinnl

True, I guess - voting systems in general is a topic that interests me. For the sake of not going too far off-topic, let's leave it at that :)

Elections are supposed to be bloodless revolutions. If you can't effect change through the electoral system, then the non violent solution is to revolutionize how we vote.

Relevant videos (IMO)

First Past The Post Voting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Range Voting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Single Transferable Vote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

Alternative Vote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

Mixed-Member Proportional Representation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

Bonus video

This video will make you angry - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

⬐ boomboomsubban

I hate to be a downer, but that would require an amendment that drastically hurts both parties. Just try and imagine it passing, remembering that you would be asking your elected representative to give up some of their power.

⬐ idontpost

No it wouldn't. Voting methods and how presidential electors are chosen are entirely up to the states.

Compared to the common “first past the post” voting, yes it is a good thing. This is because the common voting system encourages a “two extremist parties” system where everyone is effectively voting “greater horrible evil vs lesser horrible evil”.

https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ xvedejas

Here's the problem though; IRV doesn't really do the thing you want it to. It can actually make an extreme candidate win even when voter opinion is centered around a moderate candidate. It's very obvious in this visualization (from the site linked a few comments ago): http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png

⬐ tree_of_item

What is obvious about that image?

⬐ ChristianBundy

> It's very obvious in this visualization (from the site linked a few comments ago): http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png

Just a friendly note: this visualization means nothing without context, and is far from "obvious". Unfortunately, I'd place this in the category of "things that are obvious to people who already believe it". Is there a better way to go about explaining your idea?

⬐ xvedejas

Sorry, I should have mentioned again the above link, which provides context: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim

To paraphrase, this is a simulation which places candidates and voters on a two-parameter preference space. This is useful because two dimensions are easy to visualize, but the same intuitions apply to higher-dimensional spaces.

Each point is colored to answer "which candidate wins when the popular opinion is normally distributed about this point?". That means the fractured visualization shows IRV's non-monotonicity, and how even when popular opinion is close to a centrist candidate (here in red) it might be that the voting system results in the election of an extreme candidate (green).

⬐ baddox

I don’t think the problem with having only two viable parties is that they will both tend to be extreme (and that doesn’t strike me as empirically true at the US federal level). Rather, I think the problem is that parties have aggregate power, which means that individual policy preferences get bundled together in ways that may not match an individual voter’s preference. What if I prefer one policy that’s only part of the party X platform, and another that is only part of the party Y platform? Or, another way to think about this party aggregation: what if I prefer the candidate from party X for my local congressional district, but I can’t stand the thought of the likely Speaker of the House of party X?

No, if Germany would switch to the US voting system, those two parties would quickly absorb all others on their respective "sides". [0] is a 6min youtube video for those unaware why FPTP voting is bad. And just like in the US today, we'd end up with a vote for smaller government also be a vote against brown immigrants. Yeah, i prefer our current system.

Or any system were politicians have to pander to a large block of voters in the middle instead of to extremists.

Yes, the swastika is a touchy subject as a result of what happened under it. I have little problem with it being banned. I understand it can be annoying, especially when the cut version of the game only includes german audio. Thankfully the USK seems to ease up a bit on swastika usage recently.

I'm sure there are lots of cases of stupid law leading to stupid situations. Then press will report about it and the law gets improved... hopefully.

But you were claiming "In Germany, they ban ideas.". With they exception of rewriting ww2 history (as mentioned a touchy subject), what is an idea I'm not allowed to communicate a civil manner?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=39&v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ leereeves

I've given you quite a few examples, criticizing foreign leaders, blasphemy, blood and gore in games, even dancing on Good Friday. And that's without even touching on "hate speech" laws.

Can you call Mohammed a pedophile? The fact that that's not allowed in Austria was big news recently.

I've also heard that you can get fined for insulting a civil servant.

This discussion could go on a long time, but it seems clear that you don't have free speech in Germany. You're only allowed to say what the government permits.

⬐ Faark

> you can get fined for insulting a civil servant

Not really a thing according to wikipedia [0]. But doing so is dumb in the same way you shouldn't sue a lawyer... he is fighting on home turf.

> Can you call Mohammed a pedophile?

The recent Elon Musk case has shown you shouldn't just call someone that under US law as well [1]

I never claimed there is "free speech" in Germany, where "free speech" is defined being allowed to say the same or more than the united states government permits. Germany choose a more restrictive approach that will probably lead to better outcomes for society. That doesn't make your claim "In Germany, they ban ideas." less wrong.

It is kind of telling to me that my understand of "free speech" is the freedom to criticize (especially the government), while you apparently value the freedom to insult.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamtenbeleidigung

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michellefabio/2018/09/18/why-el...

The real problem is both main stream political parties don't represent around 45% of the country.

First Past The Post Voting- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Range Voting- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Single Transferable Vote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

Alternative Vote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

Mixed-Member Proportional Representation -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

Some tweaks I'd make:

Corporate structure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Electoral system:

What we have now - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Range voting - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Alternative vote - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

Single transferrable vote - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

Marx wrote about the theory of societal evolution; That there are certain phases civilization must pass through. The communism he wrote about would have to be very far down the road, 100+ years (IMO). This does not mean people sit back and do nothing, we still would have to work towards it. (Most) Capitalists profit from the status quo, and work to keep in place systems to maintain their spot in the hierarchy. Thus the antiquated electoral system in the USA, and the top heavy power/pay structures of business.

TL;DR: give the average person more of a say/choice in the world they live in (politics/workplace), and they will find their way forward. (IMO)

It may be amusing, but it's a natural result of how voting is done in the US https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=EC7679C7ACE93A5638&v=s7tW...

First Past the Post voting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Range Voting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Single Transferable vote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

Do away with voting booths, attach voting to everyone's tax forms. Give everyone a $5 tax credit for voting. People who don't do taxes can go to a public library and just pull the voting portion off of the tax forms there and mail it in.

Break up corporations in every sector of the economy and either resell the chunks back to the market or turn them all into 100% worker owned and operated co-ops.

"bad electoral system."

First Past The Post Voting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Range Voting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Single Transferable Vote - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

Perhaps because powerful people don't want to find a solution; The powerful is exactly who is represented in our flawed electoral system:

http//i.imgur.com/Uc6kX8G.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system?

The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness. [1] [2]

Since the American system forces people into two camps/parties based on ideology instead of the delivered results, the results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

⬐ 324343245

> Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system?

Almost certainly. The US was doing fine for most of the 20th century.

Globalism is what has brought wages down. Globalism combines the economies of the richest countries with the economies of the poorest in an attempt to "help" poor countries. As rich countries and poor countries combine economies, they move toward economic-equilibrium, which means the people from the poor country get brought out of poverty at the expense of the people in the rich countries. This is fine for the "1%" on the coasts of the united states, but if you're part of rural America you're getting hit very hard by globalism.

⬐ jameshart

The idea that globalism is an attempt to 'help' poor countries needs evidence to support it - I think there are plenty of ways in which globalism has benefitted wealthy countries at the expense of poor ones. In fact, the idea that globalism is 'an attempt' to do something, i.e. a conscious agenda to change the world, rather than just something which just emerged out of commercial activity, also seems a bit of a leap.

⬐ raverbashing

India and China beg to differ

⬐ ptaipale

I think that we can once again be reminded that there is only one thing that is worse for poor nations than being exploited by global capitalism.

It's that poor nations are not exploited by global capitalism.

Then you can look up TED talks by Hans Rosling, and the follow-up reports for UN millennium development goals.

⬐ Karellen

Can you give a few examples of poor nations that are not being exploited by global capitalism?

⬐ maxerickson

North Korea and Cuba have been pretty well isolated from capitalism.

You could also look at countries in Africa that don't have extensive resource extraction (compared to those that do).

⬐ SimbaOnSteroids

As an asside North Korea does ship workers abroad to work as slave laborers.

⬐ ptaipale

Partially that scheme seems to be an attempt to engage DPRK in some kind of dialog to prevent an unstable dictatorship with nuclear weapons and a lot of artillery that can reach Seoul from causing bad damage.

But given that utilising or even tolerating slave labourers on the ground in democratic nations is such a shameful thing, it might be better to actually let DPRK be completely isolated from global economy and not allow any of these arrangements. Even if that results in more misery for the people in DPRK.

⬐ SimbaOnSteroids

iirc a bulk of these workers find themselves in Russia or China so hardly on democratic lands.

If you know of other instances of this that'd be a fascinating topic to read up on.

⬐ flerchin

Zimbabwe, Venezuela, North Korea.

⬐ None

None

⬐ ptaipale

Zimbabwe, North Korea. And of course many poor African nations where global capitalism doesn't operate that much and which are therefore largely in a subsistence economy.

Venezuela wasn't a poor nation to start with, but is becoming one in its urge to fight global capitalism.

⬐ jameshart

right - there have been massive improvements in poverty in developing countries as a result of globalization. But that doesn't mean that Rosling-style improvements in life outcomes for people in the poorest nations were a goal of globalization; just a side effect. And benefits have accrued to wealthy nations too - cheap gas, cheap electronic devices, expanding investment markets. If policy supporting globalization had a goal it was probably more driven by those outcomes.

⬐ ptaipale

The unpleasant, unintended side effects of many "good" policies often surprise activists: protectionism and orthodox equality leads to decreased trade and removes incentives to increase productivity. This is a surprise to many people who then try to deny the existence of these side effects because they think they are only advocating "good" policies so the bad results are someone else's fault.

The pleasant, unintended side effects of globalist capitalism and economic liberalism are in fact not that much a surprise. Just look at the track record. Is it bad if good outcomes follow as unintended consequences?

Arbor ex fructu cognoscitur.

⬐ fsloth

The claim that globalization is an attempt to help poorer countries is controversial and would require elaboration.

The stereotypical example of a global economic pattern is a t shirt factory providing goods for a western brand that operates in a third world country because the economic equilibrium is such that raw material acquisition, labor and transport to market costs in total are lower than if the factory was situated for example next to the brand owners head office. I don't see where a will to help someone steps in there.

⬐ wcummings

Globalism doesn't "attempt" anything, its not designed and it doesn't have agency.

⬐ sharemywin

I don't 100% agree with that. doesn't have agency true. not designed not so sure. There are plenty of treaties and other contracts between countries that effect how money etc. flows to countries. world bank and others.

⬐ rpiguy

You are correct, globalism is in fact designed and it is not inevitable. While as a broad concept it may lack agency, it certainly is driven by financial interests, and I am happy to assign the "agency" to them.

⬐ wcummings

Globalization is happening with or without those policies, though. Even if you don't like it, it's an unhappy reality.

⬐ ricw

Whilst your point is true, you're wrong in thinking it is a zero sum game. It certainly isn't. In stark contrast to the USA, it has largely been a win-win situation in Europe for blue collar workers.

What has been devastating for the mid-west is that the exporting of jobs was politically and financially supported. Companies would receive subsidies to "globalise".

⬐ arethuza

Part of the UK have been very badly hit by globalism - which arguably was one of the major factors in the Brexit vote. Similarly, the support for National Front in France was, as far as I understand it, largely in areas where there have been steep downturns in traditional industries.

Edit: I was a Remain voter - but I can completely why so many people were angry and wanted a protest vote. Just that I don't think the EU really caused many of the problems people were complaining about so that coming out of the EU is unlikely to actually resolve this issues.

⬐ simion314

So if you force Apple to make iPhone in USA with USA workers and materials then you know the other countries would also do the same and will not buy the iPones or but a huge tax on them, then you get less iPhones made so in the end you don't get that many wrokers/materials used. For Apple case it may be possible that much more money are extracted from non US countries then put from US in those countries, problem is where the profit is spent.

⬐ sharemywin

If it were 100% globalism than why is tech so concentrated?

⬐ jstanley

Globalism isn't an "attempt" to do anything. It's just markets naturally tending towards efficiency.

> but if you're part of rural America you're getting hit very hard by globalism.

i.e. if you're part of rural America, you're being out-competed by superior market participants located in poorer countries.

It's not that unfair. It would be much more unfair to apply protectionist policies to subsidise the rural Americans at the expense of the truly-impoverished people in poorer countries.

⬐ sharemywin

completely disagree. Why is china expanding faster than most "democratic" countries. India is focused on technology which should be easier to outsource yet, Knowledge workers are doing fine in the US. It's because china is coordinates its activity like a giant company, in my opinion, to exploit markets. investing heavily in infrastructure, stealing trade secrets, destroying the environment, exploiting children and criminals, manipulating currency for decades. I could go on but you get the point

⬐ ashark

> It's because china is coordinates its activity like a giant company, in my opinion, to exploit markets.

Same thing Japan did after WWII. Works great if you can pull it off.

⬐ rpiguy

Japan didn't just "do it." The US allowed it and encouraged it. The US wanted a strong, capitalist ally in the region to counter Communism and Japan fit the bill. The US willfully ignored Japan's protectionism while allowing them high levels of access to our markets.

For example, the end of Kodak began when Fuji film infringed on their patents and the US government did nothing, still allowing Fuji to sell their film in the US.

You can look at that in two ways. The government broke up a near monopoly on print film that Kodak had, created competition and lowered prices for consumers. But ultimately it started an employer of 200K people on the path toward extinction. Yes it would have been eclipsed by digital anyway, but wouldn't it have been nice if those 200K people had their jobs a little longer?

I am personally torn on issues like this. I see the benefit of competition and globalization, but also the cost to local economies and industries.

⬐ jasonlfunk

The constitution we have now isn't the first version. It was created with the ability to be changed with the process of amendments. We have 27 of them so far. More could be added to change the voting system or whatever else, if there was political will to do so; but currently there isn't.

(And this is ignoring the idea of the judiciary reading into the constitution new rights that weren't there to begin with.)

⬐ kristofferR

My initial instinct were to agree that while changing the voting system is obviously theoretically possible, it would never happen. Why would the parties vote for solutions that would destroy the duopoly they currently enjoy?

Then I actually researched it a bit, and it turns out that quite a few countries have actually moved away from FPTP. [1] That's interesting, and something to be hopeful about.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Lis...

⬐ sqeaky

> Why would the parties vote for solutions that would destroy the duopoly they currently enjoy?

One can a imagine a situation where Democrats think the change will be safe for them and Republicans will be cast into chaos and in that same situation Republicans think they will be safe and Democrats will be cast into chaos.

⬐ unityByFreedom

> it turns out that quite a few countries have actually moved away from FPTP

Yeah, to bring alternative ranked voting to the US, it needs to happen at the local level first, as done in Maine.

⬐ phkahler

I think most of the division in US politics comes from the way representatives are influenced. By co-locating them all in Washington we enable destructive lobbying while keeping them away from the people they are supposed to represent. The party system is also destructive - I advocate against any legal recognition of political parties and against campaign ads funded by anyone outside the state a person is running in. These issues will not be addressed by the people in power though because they are part of the structures that need to be eliminated.

⬐ wastedhours

The current US party system might be destructive, but am a believer in party politics - mainly because without it, to get anything done would take the form of voting blocs which can lead down the path to more backroom "scratch my back" deals.

⬐ sqeaky

Isn't "backroom deals" just a negative way to describe cooperation and collaboration? If not please explain it to me and pretend I am really dumb on this topic, because I am.

⬐ unityByFreedom

> By co-locating them all in Washington we enable destructive lobbying while keeping them away from the people they are supposed to represent

Representatives do spend time in their own states. They also need a central place to meet. No country or system does this differently.

> The party system is also destructive - I advocate against any legal recognition of political parties and against campaign ads funded by anyone outside the state a person is running in.

I think rolling back Citizens United, which allowed corporations to donate unlimited amounts to candidates' [unaffiliated] campaigns, would be a big practical step in this direction.

⬐ bitwize

Citizens United wasn't about campaign donations. It was about whether a corporation had the right to broadcast its own material endorsing or denouncing one or the other political candidate within a certain time window of an election.

⬐ naasking

> They also need a central place to meet.

Not anymore. I'm sure the last 20 years of technological advancement hasn't escaped your notice. I think eliminating colocation is an idea that deserves serious consideration.

⬐ walshemj

Yeh right no offence but face to face debate does not work very well over teleconferences you need to have everyone in the room.

Having a president having to do PMQ's and maintaining the confidence of the house and senate might be a good thing.

⬐ naasking

I don't know know if you've ever watched C-SPAN, but in person debate already doesn't work. In fact, the wisdom of the crowds effect works best when each actor in the crowd makes up their own mind without the influence of external actors.

⬐ walshemj

Well the US house and senate are some what unreformed 18th century institutions one senator /congress man commented that the house of lords was more democratic - the is pre removal of most of the hereditary pears.

⬐ unityByFreedom

I'm a software engineer, working remotely, and still prefer face-to-face conversation over phone or internet-video chats.

I'm glad that our representatives meet to discuss things. If they didn't, I imagine there would be more miscommunication about what's best for America than there already is.

⬐ votepaunchy

You can't just "roll back" Citizens United other than amending the Constitution or having a future Supreme Court overturn the ruling.

⬐ alistairSH

In addition to rolling back Citizens United would be to re-introduce pork-barrel spending. With changes to the legislative process in the 90s, Congressional leaders lost a strong carrot to keep the rank-and-file members playing along. In the current system, with no carrot, legislators are more inclined to follow the wishes of their constituents. And with extreme gerrymandering, those constituents can be very extreme.

⬐ unityByFreedom

Pork barrel spending is special interest funding. It's not viewed as a good thing

⬐ ethbro

There was a pretty strong article a while back (and I assume parent likely also read) that sunshine laws and a decrease in special interest spending ultimately increased partisanship and decreased compromise.

Reason being that previous periods of American legislative politics were characterized by back room deals unknown to the public. This afforded politicans an opportunity to strike bargains with the opposition without having a spotlight trained on them (and being crucified in the next primary for "working with the enemy").

The check was that every 2/4 years voters still had an opportunity to toss out the incumbent based on his or her track record of results. (Admittedly without knowing how the sausage was made)

While I agree that transparency is a good thing, I'm humble enough to admit that the US legislative / election process is complex and has a lot of feedback. So the article's thesis seems plausible.

Which do you want more: non-partisan cooperation or absolute-transparency?

⬐ naasking

> Which do you want more: non-partisan cooperation or absolute-transparency?

Except you can have both as long as you ensure factual standards for news reporting.

⬐ alistairSH

Can you?

With the American primary election system, legislators are driven to cater to their most extreme constituents. With transparency, they can't work across the aisle AND also win a primary. At least with pork barrel, they get a tangible thing to point to while campaigning to attempt to appease constituents.

⬐ naasking

Legislators are driven by extreme positions because of the perception that these positions represent enough voter sentiment to influence elections. In fact most constituents are more centrist, which factual reporting standards would highlight.

⬐ blackbagboys

'Most' constituents may be centrist, but the constituents who vote in primaries generally are not.

⬐ alistairSH

I'm not sure that's correct for primaries.

Primary elections are by party, so are by definition more extreme than general elections. A candidate must win over an average Democrat OR and average Republican, not an average across all voters.

Further compounding the problem, many states/districts hold closed primaries and/or caucuses, which limits participation to those with a strong interest in elections (either enough interest to join a party and/or enough interest to give up half a day or more of time to join a caucus).

⬐ maxerickson

Yes, private organizations shouldn't have special methods for placing names on ballots, the rules should be the same for everyone.

Groups can still endorse candidates in that world, it just doesn't impact the names that show up on the ballot.

⬐ ethbro

You can only have both as long as you have a dispassionate electorate driven by logic and willing to research issues with the aid of a well-funded and independent press.

Given that I don't think we've ever had those conditions... lesser transparency for more cooperation seems a decent bargain.

⬐ naasking

Like I said, mandate factual reporting standards and the news agencies will do the research for the people. That's their purpose after all.

Studies have shown that moderate positions need evangelists just as much as extreme positions, as people tend to cluster around the positions with evangelists. Mandating factual standards ensures evangelists at least have justifiable reasons for their positions.

⬐ gnaritas

> Like I said, mandate factual reporting standards and the news agencies will do the research for the people.

You can't mandate factual reporting and still call it a free press as those enforcing the "fact" standards now control the press. You seem to think that you can't lie with facts, but it's quite easy, watch fox news they do it all day long. Free press and free speech mean just that; free and that includes lying and the supreme court has affirmed this to be true. You're talking about essentially removing the right to a free press.

⬐ naasking

> You can't mandate factual reporting and still call it a free press as those enforcing the "fact" standards now control the press. You seem to think that you can't lie with facts, but it's quite easy, watch fox news they do it all day long

They're often quite non-factual actually. And you can't call it "press" unless it's factual, free or not. You can't just ignore one factor in favour of the other.

Furthermore, you seem to be assuming quite a bit about what I mean when by factual standards. Anyone can broadcast whatever opinions they like, so free speech remains intact, but to call yourself a news organization requires satisfying stricter criteria on fact checking, data sourcing and biased presentation.

Perhaps one thing that's ignored a lot: equal time/space should be given to retractions due to factual errors. That better aligns the incentives to get things right the first time.

⬐ gnaritas

I sympathize with your goal, but you can't legally enforce journalistic ethics. And yes of course Fox is often non-factual, my point was one can be misleading with nothing but the truth and they demonstrate that constantly, stopping them from lying isn't going to stop them from misleading their audience.

The solution to bad speech isn't to ban it, it's just for others to put out better news. However, people don't seek out real news, they seek out confirmation of their existing beliefs so no amount of fair and accurate fact based reporting is going to change that, they'll still seek out whatever organization offers them confirmation of their biases whether it's called news or not. Fox is popular because it lies. The audience doesn't want real news; they want to believe what they believe and have it confirmed, nothing more.

⬐ naasking

> And yes of course Fox is often non-factual, my point was one can be misleading with nothing but the truth and they demonstrate that constantly, stopping them from lying isn't going to stop them from misleading their audience.

Solving a problem doesn't always mean requiring something bullet-proof. Good enough can be enough. It won't stop some people from misleading with the truth, but a lot more people will be better informed than they are now, which is an important step.

> However, people don't seek out real news, they seek out confirmation of their existing beliefs so no amount of fair and accurate fact based reporting is going to change that, they'll still seek out whatever organization offers them confirmation of their biases whether it's called news or not.

Exactly, which is why factual standards are important to classify as proper journalism. They can still seek out their confirmation, but it will be more difficult to find it, and more difficult to convince others of their distorted realities.

⬐ sqeaky

What about ignore how report works and fixing the gerrymandering?

I don't know how, but lets presume there is some way to fix gerrymandering so that a legislators constituency was a statistically fair representation of their region/state. Then the extreme views would be canceled out and the best way to win a primary would be to win a primary would be to appeal to the moderates.

⬐ naasking

I agree, gerrymandering is also a big problem. John Oliver did a good segment about the justification behind bizarrely drawn districts, which kind of makes sense, so the real problem is leaving this power in the hands of the people who have an incentive to abuse it for their own benefit.

⬐ sqeaky

Fair elections are supposed to the check on abuse. If constituents fairly re-elect people who line their own pockets, presumably that is what they want.

No amount of fair or unfair reporting will sway the minds of left wing or wing right loyalist entrenched in their view that their team is correct. A mix of opinions is required to get a different result on a given issue in a Democracy.

I don't know of any fair way to do it and I see the potential for abuse, but it makes want a poll test of some kind. No voting without critical thinking and a basic understanding of the issues you are voting on. But that can't work without abuse in anything like our current system. Fixing districts and voting methods is probably the best we can do until we see what problems that raises.

⬐ alistairSH

That's true, which is why efforts were made to do away with it. However, as noted in the sibling, several political scientists have posited that the result was worse than the previous state of affairs.

In the previous system, if a legislator worked across the aisle on some big project, he might get a relatively small kick-back. A new bridge, funding for a pet project, whatever. At election time, he could point to that and say "hey, I worked across the aisle, and got this thing for you!"

Now, that pet project doesn't get funded. So, at election time, if the legislator goes across the aisle, he gets crucified by more extreme opponents. There is nothing to point to and say "I got you THIS!" The only incentive is to cater to the most extreme constituents to ensure a primary victory.

⬐ lordnacho

It's a big piece of it, seemingly.

The US has an interesting constitution:

- First past the post. Such systems tend to favour fewer parties. The UK (also FPTP) barely has more than two parties. In most of continental western europe, there's considerably more, due to proportional representation. On the continent you end up having a bunch of different opinions, and you don't have to squish every issue onto a liberal/conservative axis. For instance you get socially conservative big state parties. Or socially liberal big state parties. Or socially liberal small state. And there's other axes too.

- A separate executive. In the UK even though they have FPTP, they have a government formed by the leader of one of the parties, and they "whip" the MPs to vote according to the party line, subject to various forms of sanction depending on how important an issue is. In the US, you choose two legislatures and a separate president. If they're not in agreement, it de facto entrenches the existing status quo by making it hard to change the law.

⬐ joveian

I think the seperate executive could be more a strength than a weakness in that it could allow a congressional system where stable coalitions are unnecessary and different issues could result in different coalitions. Possibly this happens more than I would think in systems that require coalitions, but it seems to me like not needing them would be more likely to change the simplistic us vs them narrative.

The other issue is which system to change to. There doesn't seem to be a single ideal system. IMO, in terms of the voting itself, ability to resolve an election in one ballot, limiting the usefulness of strategic voting, and getting at least close to a Condorcet winner would be the most useful properties.

I recently started to try to put together something based on five value range voting but I'm not sure it is even possible to derive a system from that which has the above properties. I haven't found any existing methods that seem to fit the above properties well, although some are much closer than others. Another option, easier in a lot of ways but more expensive, would be two ballot elections.

There is also the structural part. IMO, a parallel system has more appeal than mixed member proprotional, but it has some significant disadvantages as well. Anytime a significant change is proposed there will be strategic maneuvering for a system that benefits particular interests.

As someone else mentioned, states need to change first. The west coast in general would be a great place for that and I think Oregon may be taking the lead in political disfunction at this point (well, on the west coast at least, even though California is very innovative in that area)...

⬐ usmeteora

"results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced"

exactly. The most disconcerting part about the state of American politics is the focus on a predecided ideology of the other party being wrong.

proving the other party wrong is apparently worth everyone suffering over.

When each party is increasingly controlled by less people, then we now have a country where 300million people are willing to shoot themselves in the foot in the name of their party, with the ruling groups of each party having the interests of neither in mind.

Now youve just created an ideology of sacrificial progress in the name of a party.

There is more loyalty in this country to ones party than there is to the country and the progress of the country. The emotions and irrationality of attachment, and continual degredation of the other party just to be in the right, approaches religion.

The only thing more demoralizing than this is the fact that this conversation is continually broadcast on two news stations each owned by billionaires, who curate the "news" themselves. The biggest progress I've seen in news lately is Bill Oreily being fired for 11 pending and accumulating harrassment lawsuits. Must be nice to get paid $75million to be fired. True journalism shines through again.

It's extremely....disconcerting.

⬐ jhbadger

There's nothing in the Constitution about political parties, two or otherwise. In fact, the initial idea at the time was that the US wasn't going to have political parties and that voters would focus on individuals instead.

⬐ stult

The parent comment was referring to mathematical properties of the voting system itself which tend to give rise to a two party system almost automatically (specifically, the combination of a first past the post voting system and single-representative districts)[1]. The Founders were not aware of these effects and could not compensate for them, so their vision of a party-free democracy did not prove relevant to how the system actually functions in practice.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

⬐ PeterisP

Given the "rules of the game" set in US Constitution, a two-party system is a natural outcome, all other situations and fluctuations converge back to that - as shown both by game theory and practical historical evidence. Intent doesn't matter here - if you want different systemic outcomes, you have to change the rules.

⬐ None

None

⬐ tom_mellior

Whether or not the Constitution says anything about political parties, it establishes a "winner takes it all" voting system that has the effect described above. The Republican party should long ago have split into a loony Tea Party fraction and a conservative fraction, and half of the Democrats would politically be more at home in the Green party.

But these things are not realistic with a first-past-the-post system, so there are two large, internally divided, dysfunctional parties that "represent" a lot of people whose voices are ultimately not heard and whose interests are not represented by anyone.

⬐ unityByFreedom

> while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness.

Disagreement is a human condition, not a democratic one. Democracy is just a way to let some ideas win some of the time.

There isn't a system in the world that's freed people from disagreement. Humans like disagreement. We want to be creative, original, and unique at times. That requires setting your own path.

⬐ yorwba

Disagreement != divisiveness.

E.g. I disagree with you on that point, but I'm not using my hypothetical army of sock puppets to downvote every single of your comments into oblivion from now to eternity. Sometimes, US politics feels more like the latter.

⬐ unityByFreedom

You're splitting hairs. They're related terms

I have no control over an army. I just have me and my own opinion

⬐ xg15

Not a US citizen, but my understanding is that the two-party system is not mandated by the constitution, or even encouraged. It's something that developed on top of it, as a consequence of some bad rules (first-past-the-post as you say) but also other factors (campaign financing)

Because the beneficiaries of the system get to make the rules, there is also a push to change regulations more and more to favor the two-party system.

There are other parties (e.g. greens) it just doesn't make any practical sense to vote for them.

⬐ kristofferR

Your first and your last sentence contradicts each other, in my view. The reason why it doesn't make sense to vote for the greens is the system laid out in the constitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

⬐ adrianN

I agree that first past the post is stupid, but the strong divide between Repulicans and Democrats seems to be fairly recent.[1] They used to vote less along party lines. So maybe the rise of mass media is to blame?

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

⬐ rbanffy

At some point someone discovered that reporting on a fictional version of reality that confirms the audience's biases was more profitable than reporting on actual facts.

⬐ MichaelBurge

> it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness.

It doesn't have anything about parties in it at all, and leaves it up to the states to decide how to choose their electors. If California or any other state wanted a different system, it could decide to use ranked choice voting right now just like Maine chose last election.

⬐ lyschoening

That could make a difference in the House, but not in the Senate.

⬐ jacobush

Still, pretty nice though?

⬐ mcv

I think it could be reasonable to have system where the House represents the people (making proportional representation necessary) while the Senate represents the states. As long as the role of the Senate is sufficiently limited and not the core of the legislative process, that could be very reasonable. But it's vital that the people are more important than the states.

For example, the House could decide on the laws, with the Senate only deciding whether this is an issue that belongs on the federal level at all. And maybe double checking whether the law is constitutional and in line with existing treaties.

If they do the same thing, it makes no sense to have them both.

⬐ jstewartmobile

Our problem is the rural/urban split, and how the rural areas have a much more powerful per-person sway over policy and election outcomes.

Two senators per state is pretty kick-ass if you live in North Dakota.

⬐ wtbob

Our problem is the cities, and how they have many more people. Representation in proportion to population is pretty kick-ass if you live in New York.

It's a little less kick-ass if you live in North Dakota, and wonder why a few coastal congressmen are able to pass laws which interfere with your lifestyle.

More seriously, our problem is a metastasised federal government. Very little should actually be a federal issue (read the enumerated powers of the United States in the Constitution!), and yet almost everything now is. As a result, every issue becomes winner-take-all: the entire country must comply with me, or the entire country must comply with you. There's no room to allow Massachusetts to go wrong and right in its ways, and to allow North Dakota to go wrong and right in its ways.

⬐ jstewartmobile

I wasn't really trying to get into the whole liberal/conservative/size-of-government debate.

My experience with most rural towns is that it's like entering a time machine to 1985. When those places set the agenda, we are going to be "behind" when it comes to the metrics economists use (regardless of how relevant or misleading those metrics may be).

When it comes to letting places go their own way (like sanctuary cities, medical marijuana, gay marriage, etc.), I totally agree with you!

⬐ gnaritas

> It's a little less kick-ass if you live in North Dakota, and wonder why a few coastal congressmen are able to pass laws which interfere with your lifestyle.

And which laws would those be? I'm curious because the fact is a vote in North Dakota is worth several votes in New York so you're already getting far more power than you deserve in any fair system and the only issues that tend to go federal are issues of civil rights which affects the lifestyle of the oppressed, it isn't oppressing you or anyone else in North Dakota.

⬐ unityByFreedom

> Very little should actually be a federal issue (read the enumerated powers of the United States in the Constitution!), and yet almost everything now is. As a result, every issue becomes winner-take-all: the entire country must comply with me, or the entire country must comply with you. There's no room to allow Massachusetts to go wrong and right in its ways, and to allow North Dakota to go wrong and right in its ways

Saying everything is this way is too much. More like, a few issues such as gay rights and abortion pissed off enough church-going folk to the point they began to rally against federal government overreach.

There are plenty of other things that are managed by states. You don't hear about many differences between state and federal because they aren't contentious. States and the fed are happy with plenty of state laws.

⬐ pjc50

Don't forget the racism. Some of the weird structural elements date from the "three-fifths compromise", like the electoral college.

⬐ adamnemecek

There's also a cultural aspect. E.g. Note how people in the us don't protest much, much to their detriment.

⬐ bcook

Aren't there better ways than protesting to affect change?

⬐ adamnemecek

There actually aren't. Not as immediate and direct. Occupy Wall Street made a lot of people in power really uncomfortable. Also see the recent president Park protests in South Korea.

⬐ vacri

> The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution

The US is not the first democracy or democracy-style entity. The US constitution was certainly something interesting and with new stuff for its day, but democracies had been around in various forms for a while. But yes, a large part of the problem in US politics is the inevitable two-parties, which engenders a 'with us or against us' mindset. I wouldn't lay the blame for 'most of the problems' on that, but it seems to be significant.

⬐ JediWing

> The first version of something is rarely the best version

Second, actually

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation

As another comment mentioned, it's arguably greater if you include subsequent amendments.

The US Constitution has its share of flaws, but it ignores quite a bit to call it a first version.

⬐ TorKlingberg

It's not something we like to hear, but I think most people prefer to keep first past the post elections. The U.K. had a referendum to change it and 68% voted "no".

⬐ None

None

⬐ pmorici

Two party system isn't in the constitution. If you go back and look at us history politics have always had periods that look nutty and disfunctional.

⬐ 9090local

The problem is not the constitution or the existing system. The problem is there is a privileged class that don't follow the rules of the law. And privilege is one of most inefficient thing in a system!

⬐ mac01021

Who is not following the rules of the law?

Which rules?

⬐ vowelless

I generally agree with your point but it is worth pointing out that almost any democratic system will have flaws which can lead to unexpected results. See Arrows impossibility theorem.

⬐ arethuza

The UK seems to having similar problems - so I don't think it is related to the specifics of the constitution/democratic system.

⬐ s_kilk

And what's the common denominator?

Neoliberal Capitalism.

⬐ arethuza

Indeed, and a slavish adherence to Neoliberal Capitalism as the ideological answer to all questions.

⬐ DarkKomunalec

But the UK also has a first past the post system.

⬐ kristofferR

The UK also has first-past-the-post though.

⬐ vorotato

Ah but you're assuming that the problem is not enough wealth when actually America is incredibly wealthy. The problem isn't the democratic system, it's income inequality.

⬐ kristofferR

How did I even imply that the problem is the America doesn't have enough wealth? My comment didn't touch on anything of the sort.

My point was actually this: In a better democracy the people who believed income inequality was a big problem would vote for the "Bernie Sanders Party" instead of being forced to vote for Clinton. Let's say that just 20% voted for the BSP while 31% voted for the Hillary Party.

They would be forced to govern together, and create the best solutions in order to retain or grow their parties. The constantly changing dynamic between all the different parties would in turn lead to better solutions for the voters instead of the current solution in the US - where people on the left are practically forced to vote democratic and the people on the right are forced to vote republican, no matter the job performance.

Since the US forces people into camps based on ideology instead of the delivered results, the results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced.

⬐ H4CK3RM4N

I feel like this is a more general symptom of attempting to apply a democracy where every citizen's is valued equally in a very large population. At some point, it's simply impossible to have a whole population which is both properly educated and able to voice it's opinion. This line of reasoning is a large part of the reason that Rousseau suggested that societies would be best served by an educated aristocracy[1].

America has an aristocracy emerging in it's political/business class, but it still attempts to have every voice heard in elections, and as a result you'll always have people who feel hardly done by attempting to rebel against the status quo.

I'm also going go take the opportunity to share CGP Grey's videos on First Past the Post voting[2] and the electoral college[3], and the issues with those. He also has videos directly the electoral college, without his opinions, if you need some background[4].

[1]http://www.bartleby.com/168/305.html

[2]http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-problems-with-first-past-the...

[3]http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-c...

[4]http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/how-the-electoral-college-works....

⬐ xg15

> societies would be best served by an educated aristocracy

And what goals and principles would that aristorcracy govern by? Who is deciding about the goals and who makes sure they are actually enacted?

What if said leaders decide that, in order to combat overpopulation, parts of the "surplus class" need to be removed?

The reason many people migrated to the US centuries ago was to get away from aristorcracy. So how do you avoid repeating the problems?

⬐ H4CK3RM4N

How do you propose ensuring a democracy doesn't fail? In the first passage I linked, hereditary aristocracy is referred to as "the worst of all governments", it suggests that "the wisest should govern the many", and Rousseau even acknowledges that aristtocracy "demands others which are peculiar to itself; for instance, moderation on the side of the rich and contentment on that of the poor".

⬐ xg15

But representative democracies - the wide majority of current-day democracies - absolutely follow "the wisest should govern the many": Most things are not decided by general elections but by specialists. Only the questions of what exactly constitutes a specialist and what the goal of their work should be are resolved via elections. (At least that's the theory)

⬐ unityByFreedom

> At some point, it's simply impossible to have a whole population which is both properly educated and able to voice it's opinion

Are, it's impossible to have that at all points. The point is to strive for it, not achieve perfection.

If we don't strive, then with people like DeVos in charge of federal funding, public schools will be gutted and the problem worsens.

⬐ makosdv

The vast majority of education funding comes from the states, so cutting federal funding won't really have much impact.

"That means the Federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is about 8 percent" - https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html

It really makes me wonder what we need the Department of Education for...

⬐ unityByFreedom

> It really makes me wonder what we need the Department of Education for...

According to DeVos, we need it to undermine public schooling by directing tax money to private schools.

⬐ Kaizyn

First of all, it is a republic and not a democracy. The difference is quite important. Secondly, to attribute the problems to the constitution is mistaken. That founding document is the only thing standing in the way of a complete and total disaster for the country.

Nearly all the problems can be traced back to where politicians are ignoring the constitution in part or in full and thereby eroding the public protections built into the republic.

⬐ Brakenshire

On the other hand, the US has a legalistic style of politics which you could blame on people relying too much on the constitution. The US is like an oppositional court room, with each side tearing at each other to get as much benefit as they can. It does diminish the shared duty to do what is right and good for the country and the democracy.

Although of course the US is also a relatively fractured country by its nature, so perhaps can't rely on a vague, shared sense of what is good and decent, in the same way as a small European country, with more or less a common ethnic and cultural identity.

⬐ Kaizyn

The purpose of the constitution is to protect the public from the tyranny of the government. And within the public, to protect the minorities from the majority.

⬐ gnaritas

> First of all, it is a republic and not a democracy.

That's like saying it's a dog not an animal; our republic is also a democracy, they are not mutually exclusive terms so please stop saying this nonsense.

⬐ Kaizyn

No, we have a republic. Fundamentally different animal.

In a democracy, the public could vote to do something that would be considered wrong such as stripping voting rights from everyone who likes country music. And with majority rule, that would pass and become law of the land.

In a republic like ours, the constitution governs what can and cannot be enacted by the majority. Since such an act would take away guaranteed minority rights, the constitution prevents the majority from doing something like that.

⬐ gnaritas

> No, we have a republic. Fundamentally different animal.

No it's not, and it's really sad and tiring such a simple concept escapes so many people. Please take a course in government and learn the difference between these things you're conflating. Republics don't have to have constitutions and constitutional governments aren't necessarily republics. Republics can be democracies or not, ours is, not all are.

Our minority rights are protected because we're a constitutional government who has protections for those things; that has nothing to do with our being a republic.

⬐ Pulcinella

First of all, a republic is a type of democracy...

⬐ gnaritas

No, ours is, but not all republics are democracies. Republic just means we don't have a monarchy and leaders are chosen by some other means. It doesn't mean that means is a democracy.

⬐ Kaizyn

No, it's a republic because it has a constitution that sets out the rules for what the government is and is not allowed to do. Democracies give the people absolute rule, whereas the constitution denies a majority from enacting certain laws that violate the constitution.

⬐ gnaritas

Having a constitution just makes a country "constitutional", it doesn't make it a republic. You're conflating being constitutional with being a republic, they are different things; we are both of those things, but they are unrelated things. We are a republic because we don't have a monarchy, that's all it means. Our minority rights are protected because we're a constitutional government who has protections for those things; that has nothing to do with our being a republic.

⬐ eevilspock

Taxonomies are not always mutually exclusive.

The other answers remind me of my son as a toddler: FURIOUS as he explained: "It is NOT green. It is ROUND!!"

"It is not a democracy, it is a republic" is every bit as mistaken.

Read the rest at: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-a-dem...

⬐ danieltillett

This is a bit of a hobby horse of mine, but the reason is the number of elected representatives has not kept pace with the population growth. When the USA was founded there were about 20,000 electors per representatives and now in some seats there are over a million.

If you want representation you need to be able to meet and talk to your rep - more importantly they need to be able to acquire your vote without the need for advertising. Remove the need for advertising and you remove the need for money and the corruption that flows.

⬐ anovikov

How about starting from the other side? Decreasing the number of electors to be more the way it was when USA was founded? So people with no income earning property ('passive income' as it is called here), do not vote? Before 1820s, they didn't.

⬐ nkohari

If you're interested in fixing the problem the article discusses, this is pretty much exactly the wrong approach. You would actually be hard-pressed to find a solution more diametrically opposed to fixing the problem.

⬐ anovikov

My belief is that post-scarcity society with very high technological unemployment and universal democracy are fundamentally incompatible. People who are net recipients from the government, should not vote, or they will vote the society into collapse. Can they ever vote for anything but more free stuff?

Other problems are fixable with more attention/funding to law enforcement, and yes using all the AI toys: crime prediction, drones, etc.

⬐ cavanasm

America largely disproves this already. The highest proportion of net recipients of federal government benefits are from poor rural deeply conservative states that form a substantial part of the base of the Republican party, which has made rolling back those benefits a primary goal.

⬐ noxToken

Never mind that most people who have to use welfare for cash assistance actually hate it, and they would rather earn their own living wages via work. Welfare queens are very few and far in between.

⬐ prawn

If the remaining voters then don't vote in the interests of those net recipients, where will that lead? A medicated underclass?

⬐ nkohari

I think it's safe to wait until we can envision a truly post-scarcity society to envision how we might go about destroying it.

⬐ pjc50

If it's truly a "post-scarcity" society, people can have all the free stuff they want. If they can't, then it's still a scarcity society.

More law enforcement is rarely the solution to any long-term problem: that's how you end up with the East German situation where 1/4 of the population was Stasi informers.

⬐ ant6n

The stasi informal informers where there to monitor attitudes of people, not prevent crimes and either way the system wasn't particularly effective. Overall in East-Germany, people were not very afraid of police ('friend and helper'). Police didn't randomly shoot people.

I'd say the US is a better example of a police state than the GDR.

⬐ pjc50

> Police didn't randomly shoot people

Well, unless they went over the wall while trying to leave.

The GDR has been synonymous with "police state" for my entire life, although it's not the place that coined the phrase. The US has colonial policing and people who believe that slavery should not have been abolished.

⬐ ant6n

Well plenty of people got shot crossing the wall, but that's not really a "random shooting". Certainly much less random than "walking while black" or something.

Apparently there were 139 wall-victims in 29 years, so less than 5 per year, or about 0.03 deaths per 100k people per year. Apparently, twice as many people died of natural causes while crossing the border.

The US seems to have about 1000 shootings by police per year [2], which would be about 0.3 deaths per 100k people per year.

So the US has 10x more police-shootings than the GDR had wall-deaths per person.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todesopfer_an_der_Berliner_Mau... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

⬐ graphitezepp

That would be the fastest way to regress back into feudalism, you know if that is what you are in to.

⬐ ab5tract

I agree fully! Apparently they stopped adding representatives when they filled up the space in the capital building. I've been intending for ages to pull up the ratio mandated by the constitution to see how many "missing" representatives we have today.

⬐ Doe22

It looks like Article 1 Section 2 has what you're looking for, specifically "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative" [1]

Wikipedia also seems to provide a good summary of the issue. [2]

[1] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_ap...

> What is the point of this statement?

I think he means that it's not spying or infiltration when the data is already there for everyone to see. It's about influence on one area that will affect the whole human species, not just one country, and people (esp politicians) are still very misinformed about the issue. It's about informing everyone, just the opposite of spying.

> am I participating honestly in the political process?

You make it sound bad, but it's a much better proposition than what it is actually happening: People don't discuss politics, they fight it. It's not treated as a complex set of opinions that have to be reasoned over, but as a sport teams [0].

Furthermore, the way the voting system is designed, there won't be true parties in a specific position, but they're always reduced to two catch-all options with a very wide and overlapping set of opinions among their members, basically resulting in everybody be unsatisfied with the result [1].

And the point of the parent is that, since politics are broken, one can contribute to work around it from within. In fact parties evolve this way. The party of Obama was white supremacist related to KKK, and the party of Trump was Lincoln's which freed the slaves of the south. That sounds backwards, doesn't it? It's as if politics wasn't made of two opposing opinions, but of hundreds. (edit: snowwrestler above said it better, parties are not elected, are not part of the constitution and there's nothing inherently wrong or dishonest in trying to change them from within)

Climate change is not inherently anti-republican or anti-capitalist. The debate is whether to believe it or not, and it is absurd because there is a lot of evidence that it is happening. Humans heavily relied on a stable climate for ~15,000 years to create civilization and still relies on it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pS4x8hXQ5c

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ alphapapa

> I think he means that it's not spying or infiltration when the data is already there for everyone to see.

You're not thinking clearly. It is infiltration because the person in question is pretending to be a member of Party A while actually being a supporter of Party B. The person is intending to deny members of Party A the ability to vote for the candidate of their choice in the actual election, forcing them to nominate a candidate that is closer to Party B's platform.

The scientific "data" you're talking about is completely beside the point.

> It's about influence on one area that will affect the whole human species, not just one country, and people (esp politicians) are still very misinformed about the issue. It's about informing everyone, just the opposite of spying.

Again, you're not thinking clearly. Informing people entails honestly discussing your views with them, presenting them with evidence and attempting to rationally convince them of the superiority of your position. In the context of a party primary, that could entail picketing with signs, having a non-violent protest outside, handing out pamphlets to those entering, etc. But that is not what the OP advocated. The OP effectively advocated abandoning that approach and instead opting to deceptively manipulate the political process, undermining the ability of others to honestly participate in it.

You seem to be letting your presuppositions cloud your judgment. You seem to be convinced that those who disagree with you are simply "still very misinformed," and so you're justified to "inform" them by whatever means necessary. (Apologies if this is mischaracterizing your view; please correct me.)

> You make it sound bad, but it's a much better proposition than what it is actually happening: People don't discuss politics, they fight it. It's not treated as a complex set of opinions that have to be reasoned over, but as a sport teams.

You seem to be missing my point. The OP is advocating exactly fighting over discussing. He's saying that, since enough people can't be convinced of his opinion, that those who agree with him should infiltrate the opposition's parties and deny them the use of candidates that disagree with him on this issue by voting down those candidates before they have a chance to be nominated. That's underhanded and dishonest, even a tactic used in espionage.

> Furthermore, the way the voting system is designed, there won't be true parties in a specific position, but they're always reduced to two catch-all options with a very wide and overlapping set of opinions among their members, basically resulting in everybody be unsatisfied with the result.

This is true. So what?

> And the point of the parent is that, since politics are broken, one can contribute to work around it from within.

There are two different ways to work "from within." See below.

> In fact parties evolve this way. The party of Obama was white supremacist related to KKK, and the party of Trump was Lincoln's which freed the slaves of the south. That sounds backwards, doesn't it?

No, it's not backwards, it's the historical reality. And, in fact, many people, including prominent blacks, consider the Democrats' policies to be against the black community's interests today. Of course, such people are derided as "Uncle Toms," rather than engaging seriously with their views.

> (edit: snowwrestler above said it better, parties are not elected, are not part of the constitution and there's nothing inherently wrong or dishonest in trying to change them from within)

Again, there are two ways to work from within. One is to recognize that a party is closest to your own political views, to join it, and then work to convince its members to advocate views closer to your own. Another way is to recognize that a party is closest to your own political views, join it, and then go to the opposing party's primaries, pretend to be one of them, and vote against candidates that are farthest from your own political views. This is the crux of the argument.

> Climate change is not inherently anti-republican or anti-capitalist. The debate is whether to believe it or not, and it is absurd because there is a lot of evidence that it is happening. Humans heavily relied on a stable climate for ~15,000 years to create civilization and still relies on it.

You seem to be missing the point. This thread is not about climate change. If you still think it is, that suggests that you're advocating an ends-justify-the-means approach, which is, again, the whole point: that one side is advocating participating dishonestly, because they think it's justified.

⬐ DiThi

You're missing the point too. Your argument is that it's dishonest. Honesty is a moral concept, therefore subjective.

But we'll assume you're right and that such action is objectively dishonest. An ends-justify-the-means approach means there's good parts, bad parts and a price to pay. The price is eternal remorse for such action. Now let's see the good and bad parts:

Good:

- We get science and belief out of the political whims. Science is not a competition. Science exists to serve us all equally.

- People learn about the issues instead of believing baseless tweets.

Bad:

- We're making the candidate think they have chances to win presidency, displacing other candidates of the party... I guess? I can't really think of a negative side to this. Nobody's hurt in the process. We're not breaking any law. The party still has the same overall views.

And the price to pay is based on one's feeling, not on any real consequence or law. It's not ends-justify-the-means. It's just "wrong" because you feel like it is.

And everyday politics are already much more dishonest than this.

⬐ alphapapa

I'm afraid I don't follow your line of reasoning at all.

> You're missing the point too.

What I mean is, you're missing my point. Maybe I'm missing yours too, in which case we're talking past each other and should try to get on the same page.

> Your argument is that it's dishonest. Honesty is a moral concept, therefore subjective.

My argument is that the democratic process is built upon certain requirements of integrity or honesty. If these are undermined, the democratic process is undermined, and therefore the ability of the people to rule themselves is undermined.

My observation is that certain groups of people think that their undermining the democratic process is justified, because they think that their ends are worthy, and that their political opponents are unworthy of participating in the democratic process.

That, of course, is enormously arrogant, and dangerous to the long-term stability of the government. And by doing that, they endanger their own ability to participate in self-rule.

> An ends-justify-the-means approach means there's good parts, bad parts and a price to pay.

I think the "price to pay" includes "the bad parts." Of course, what belongs in which category is subjective.

> We get science and belief out of the political whims.

This is where I begin to not follow you. What do you mean? Everything we do is based on beliefs. Science is based on beliefs as well. Maybe by "beliefs" you mean "religion," in which case you should use that word.

> Science is not a competition.

Again, what do you mean by this? The scientific process is not a competition, but the practice of science in the world certainly involves competition at many levels.

> Science exists to serve us all equally.

Again, what do you mean by this? I think you are confounding ideals with reality. Science is essentially a method, a set of steps. It is up to the practitioner to apply it in a useful, ethical way.

> People learn about the issues instead of believing baseless tweets.

Again, not following you. By what means does this happen? This thread has been about (further) corrupting the political process by participating dishonestly. Are you saying that by doing that, people "learn about the issues instead of believing baseless tweets"?

> We're making the candidate think they have chances to win presidency, displacing other candidates of the party... I guess? I can't really think of a negative side to this. Nobody's hurt in the process. We're not breaking any law. The party still has the same overall views.

I'm rather floored by this. Do you actually not understand how corrupting the democratic process hurts everyone? You can't think of a negative side? There's not a law against it so it must be good? I feel like you're proving my observations correct...

> And the price to pay is based on one's feeling, not on any real consequence or law. It's not ends-justify-the-means. It's just "wrong" because you feel like it is.

I'm not sure if you're being facetious, casually dismissing my arguments as "feelings," or if you really believe that. If the former, you're being quite rude; if the latter, then I wonder if it's even possible for us to communicate, because you must be either unable or unwilling to comprehend what I'm saying. Unfortunately, it does not seem uncommon for those on the political left to dismiss their opponents arguments so casually.

But if you are here for honest, rational discussion, then I look forward to your reply.

⬐ DiThi

> If these are undermined, the democratic process is undermined

Assuming it's being undermined, I need an explanation of how.

> and that their political opponents are unworthy of participating in the democratic process

When was ever suggested the opponents are unworthy of participating? They will hear the fight for climate change and they can react appropriately. Either joining the cause or explaining why it shouldn't be joined. The kind of dialog the political system needs.

> Science is based on beliefs as well.

Last I checked, it was based on proofs and data.

Belief may be a catalyst to start the process and elaborate a hypothesis, but just that. If one gets stuck on belief, it's not science.

> Maybe by "beliefs" you mean "religion," in which case you should use that word.

I mean beliefs, like climate change being a hoax. That's not a conclusion of any study. That's a lie someone made up for political gain.

> The scientific process is not a competition,

That's what I mean. People don't decide what's the truth. Or at least they shouldn't, because the truth doesn't change when you change your beliefs.

There may be competitions against teams for a specific goal. But science is inherently non partisan, and the goal benefits us all.

> It is up to the practitioner to apply it in a useful, ethical way.

And what is unethical about preparing for a likely event that affects us all? What is ethical about preventing it?

> Again, not following you. By what means does this happen?

People believing Trump when he said climate change is a hoax.

> Do you actually not understand how corrupting the democratic process hurts everyone?

We have different meanings for "corruption". In my definition, it involves favoring a candidate for hidden interests. HIDDEN interests. Because the people wouldn't approve. Dishonesty. But if I go and tell everyone what I think about climate change, how is that dishonesty? How is that lying?

You see my point? Yes, I do agree honesty is important. But also subjective and I don't think this would be remotely dishonest.

And then you dare to talk about corruption, which caused this very issue we want to solve!

> casually dismissing my arguments as "feelings,"

Because it's a subjective interpretation. Dishonesty implies lying. And it would be a "lie" that offsets actual damaging lies wildly spreading around.

In any case, assuming it's unethical, we might be facing a dilemma, where we have to choose to deviate a train to kill one person (a very bad one and condemned to death, but a person after all), or not to touch the lever and kill 100 innocent people.

I think you're doing the latter by inaction, and condemning the former because it's unethical.

Vote is secret for a reason.

Electoral reform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erph1L_XwVQ

⬐ pubby

None of those ideas solve the problem of campaign financing being legalized bribery, the problem of politicians lying and flip-flopping to gain votes, or the problem of wealth, power, and the establishment deciding who can't win by manipulating the press.

The only system I know of that avoids these problems is to hold randomized lotteries for government positions and skip the election process entirely.

⬐ karmelapple

It does not directly address those, but it does allow people to vote for a candidate that they may think has little chance. Their vote is not "wasted" when it falls back to the next-best candidate, and gives a third party more potential to be taken seriously.

The changes are not mutually exclusive, either. Let's reform voting and reduce influence by money in elections.

⬐ intended

You want to solve your country's problems ?

Simples steps, clearly communicable steps, and one step at a time.

Start by Reducing the impact of money on elections. Politicians themselves will thank you.

The ability to flog oneself on the airwaves, to call and reach out to people and keep targeting newer and newer potential voters. These abilities force politicians into a monetary arms race.

The easiest thing here is funding, and curtailing it.

The issues are creative ways to get on the air without resorting to using money.

But one step at a time.

"For example my desire as a buyer would be to purchase an awesome steak for about a dollar but the failings of our society have again let me down."

"Lobby" congress to right these wrongs perhaps?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Here are my favorite videos on electoral reform:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Elections were (IMO) meant to be bloodless revolutions. its just the 1% has captured both primary political parties.

Also, the flawed first past the post electoral system discourages competition (IMO to keep it cheaper for the 1% to own the whole process). I'll post some videos from people smarter then me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erph1L_XwVQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

   electoral system that supports more than two viable parties

This would be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Explanation of USA's FPTP count as root cause of a two party system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ astrodust

Other countries have multiple viable parties because that's just how they roll.

Canada uses the shitty FPTP system and while at the federal level it's mostly been two parties, several other parties have held significant clout over the last century. It's not impossible for it to work, it's just difficult. At the provincial level you see a lot more variety because they don't need to appeal country-wide, they can focus on local issues (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parti_Québécois, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildrose_Party)

Sadly electoral reform here has recently been put on hold much to the frustration of many as it was an election platform issue.

I'm sure part of the problem with reform is there's too many options and some of them are so dizzyingly complicated to explain that most people prefer the "simple but busted" FPTP method to something more mysterious and formula-based.

⬐ dragonwriter

No, it wouldn't be IRV, except maybe for a minority (e.g., chief executive) offices whee single winner is hard to escape. It would be something proportional for legislative offices (which might use a ranked choice system like STV, or might not.)

⬐ _archon_

I think instant runoff voting is optimal, but it's too confusing for an idiot in a hurry. I'd be content with simple approval voting. Every candidate has a checkbox next to their name on the ballot. If you approve of the candidate, check the box. Most checks wins. Ballot will have a lot of names, but that's the price of democracy.

⬐ dragonwriter

> I think instant runoff voting is optimal

It's very nearly the worst actually proposed single-member ranked ballots system; I can't imagine any way in which it is optimal. It's better than FPTP, but that's a pretty low bar.

⬐ ScottBurson

I too think AV (Approval Voting) is the best. It's bog simple to explain [ETA: and to implement using existing voting equipment], and completely immune from both strategic candidate selection and strategic voting. Its only downside, IMO, is reduced detectability of vote count tampering: there's no simple relationship between the number of voters and the number of votes, as there is with plurality voting or even IRV. So if you're going to use AV, you have to have an auditable paper trail. That's a very good idea anyway, of course, and lots of places are moving in that direction, so I don't think this is really a barrier.

(For very small numbers of voters, such as for elections within an academic society, Rating Voting is even better, but its advantages fade as the number of voters increases. AV is just the limiting case of RV with only two values.)

⬐ vinay427

> there's no simple relationship between the number of voters and the number of votes, as there is with plurality voting or even IRV

This problem still exists in FPTP where some voters may opt not to vote for any candidate for a position.

⬐ manicdee

Single Trasferable Vote is a far better system, allowing for much more nuance in voting than simply "Team A or Team B".

Note that choice of voting systems don't matter so much if you only have one representative per electorate.

⬐ rrradical

Just an observation-- every time the topic of alternate voting systems is brought up on HN, or anywhere really, the discussion devolves into an argument over which alternative system is the best. It's quite obvious to me that if we are ever going to actually move on from FPTP we need to change the conversation to "this one works; it's better than FPTP; let's implement it". Unfortunately, I don't know how we get there, because anyone that cares about this stuff loves to debate the merits of their chosen system. And to top it all off, you can prove that no system is the best in all circumstances!

⬐ iainmerrick

What's needed (to put it in programming terms) is gradual refactoring, not a brand new system. We need to figure out small changes that can make things better. Once we have more confidence in the system we can start thinking about how to make bigger changes safely.

Here are a couple of small tweaks that will help a bit:

1. Ditch the electoral college, elect the president by popular vote. There's a concrete proposal for doing that, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...

2. Fix gerrymandering in congressional districts and state senates. Again, there's a concrete proposal, which recently won an important legal battle in Wisconsin (Whitford v Gill): http://www.fairelectionsproject.org

Neither of those helps bust open the two-party system, but they'll at least help level the playing field so that the big two parties don't have artificial incentives biased towards special interests.

Fixing voter suppression is very important. Anyone know of any good efforts afoot there?

As for third parties, I think that's probably best done first at the state level. If one or more states adopt a more proportional system internally, and show it can work well, that would provide a blueprint for implementing it nationally.

I guess Trump could get away with some really radical proposal, like using PR for the Senate. Both parties would almost certainly resist that though. He would need substantial popular backing, whereas every bungling decision he makes right now is making him less popular.

⬐ dragonwriter

Actually, the problem is there is a difference between alternative voting systems (which IRV is) vs. broader changes to the electoral system (eliminating single-member districts for legislative bodies in favor of something that can provide more proportional representation.)

Since the latter is what is empirically shown in real democracies to be strongly associated with both satisfaction with government and ability of a system to support multiple viable parties and multidimensional debate on policy in the public sphere (see, e.g., Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy), I'm as disinterested in wasting time with the former as I am with wasting time with any other method of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic of American democracy, like fiddling with how district lines are drawn for single-member districts.

⬐ jpfed

This set of simulations ( explanations: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dzt-q6Gb8PHAgkLBv2j7Uhii... , graphs: http://rpubs.com/Jameson-Quinn/vse3) shows that basically anything is better than FPTP.

(It also shows that IRV is only marginally better; while "worse is better" sets my teeth on edge, if IRV is the doable option I'll take it rather than wait for people to come around on score methods).

⬐ dragonwriter

Score methods are worse for a reason that doesn't show up in most simulations, because mapping of expected utility to an an externalized score isn't consistent between individuals, but instead highly variable (both among individuals within groups and, particularly, along ethnic and other cultural lines), which has been shown in many studies of score-based rating systems.in many domains.

Most simulations assume consistent mapping from preferences to ballot markings, which is reasonable for ranked, but not score, voting.

⬐ karmelapple

Have links to any of those studies? I am unfamiliar with the terminology but would like to learn more.

⬐ iainmerrick

Exactly, score voting is just as vulnerable to tactical voting as any other method for that reason.

For example, if the scoring range is 1-10, it's better for me to use the full range even if none of the options on offer is really a 1 or 10. Using the full range gives my opinion more weight in the result.

I strongly suspect score voting tends towards ranked voting when people vote tactically, which they always will, just with extra noise and randomness. (I don't know of any studies on this, though.)

⬐ karmelapple

Maine just passed it this past November [1], so I'd suggest we use them as the starting point.

There are many versions of it, but let's go with Maine for now, since it got acceptance and will soon have a track record.

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Maine_Ranked_Choice_Voting_Initiativ...

⬐ Buttons840

We may never agree on which voting system is best. But maybe we can agree on which alternative systems have been most easily deployed elsewhere. So I agree, rather than argue over small differences we should probably just try to get everyone to do what Maine did.

⬐ SmellyGeekBoy

Not just on HN but in real life too. In the UK we had a referendum on switching to a ranked voting system known as "AV" a few years back. It was defeated with 68% voting against.

Of the people I asked, the older more politically conservative people opposed it because of the perception that it would make it more difficult for their party of choice to win (I heard this argument on both sides of the political spectrum) and the younger, more liberal voters opposed it because it "wasn't good enough". Less than half of the population even bothered to participate. So we're still stuck with FPTP.

The only chance we've had to completely overhaul our election system and people voted overwhelmingly against it. Ho hum...

⬐ iainmerrick

I was bitterly disappointed in that too. The universal lack of interest was just appalling. I felt particularly betrayed by Labour's lukewarm support -- a proposal for a big, permanent change and they were fretting over how it would damage them in the short term.

I found this video really interesting. I knew that the current US system, first past the post, has a lot of problems from watching CPG Grey's [1] videos on it. I didn't know that the alternative systems, like ranked voting, had all these other weird problems.

It's depressing, really.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ warmwaffles

What I think would solve some issues is to have a last option on the ballot that says, "None of the above" and if that wins, then the current president if they reached their term limit, steps down, and the vice president takes over for the next term. IE pretend the head of state has passed away and move everyone up in succession.

Basically it removes the "lesser" of two evils from the equation. Yes one could argue, the party in power could stay in power if every year the party abstains from voting but I don't think that would be a likely outcome because, lets face it. The VP probably wouldn't be a leader everyone likes come the next election cycle. They could also abstain from running in the next election if they choose.

EDIT: Also puts a lot of emphasis on selecting a good VP for either party since they could possibly succeed after 2 terms.

⬐ logfromblammo

I would prefer a "none of the above" option that is not actually implicitly choosing a specific person.

If "none of the above" wins, then the sensible thing to do would be to re-start the elections process from the primaries, wherein any person who was a candidate in the previous iteration(s) is ineligible to run again. Mid-November to January is more than enough time to re-do the entire election cycle.

⬐ warmwaffles

You start to run into issues if you don't allow the same candidates to run again. Issues being that you are suppressing the right to run for office. Now, if the party made the candidate ineligible then that's a different story. Also no clue why I was downvoted without a reason.

⬐ ianai

You run the risk of the exact same outcome running every body again.

⬐ warmwaffles

We have that risk now, yet it doesn't happen.

⬐ thwarted

Issues being that you are suppressing the right to run for office.

Their ability to run for office isn't being suppressed, they ran for office the first time and lost. They could possibly run again at the end of the next term. This is no more suppressing a right to run for office than the 22nd amendment suppresses a right to run for office.

⬐ filoeleven

This makes sense to me, excepting the timeline perhaps, only I'd also modify it to mean only that whichever candidates were the finalists in the previous iteration are ineligible to run again. In other words, my party may have picked a candidate that the nation as a whole rejected, but it does not mean that another candidate who ran in my party's primary would be rejected by the nation as a whole. Otherwise I think you may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

⬐ logfromblammo

The public story of the primary races is that they select for the most desirable candidate of those running. If the electorate decides that the "best" of those candidates is not suitable, isn't it reasonable to assume that none of the rest could beat the "none of these" option, either? Do you really want to force vote after vote of people saying "no" before trying an entirely new crop of candidates?

You're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You're throwing out the unidentifiable goo, the dirt clod, the rotting fish, and the floating turd. The "none of these" result is a clear indicator that there is no baby worth saving in the entire tub full of bathwater.

⬐ filoeleven

If we had open primaries everywhere, I'd be more inclined to agree with you here. As someone who lives in a state with closed primaries, the way it looks to me is that the candidate selected as "most desirable" by a party's base is not at all necessarily the one who will be "most desirable" for the country as a whole--especially when combined with the much lower percentages of people who come out to vote in the primary elections, hence my hesitation to toss 'em all out. The ones most likely to succeed are the ones who pander the most to their hardcore base, to the distress/distaste of much of the rest of the population, especially those outside the party in question.

I am however on the record elsewhere as saying that a necessary part of the path to improving Washington is, in fact, to throw them all out, so I won't fight you too hard on this!

⬐ Asooka

Personally, I would rather choose a random sample of all politicians within the country to put into power. Over time, this should tend towards a compromise for everyone.

Failing that, each party having a number of seats proportional to the number of votes they received is not that bad of a system.

⬐ quicklime

While it's true that every voting system has paradoxes, I don't feel that this makes every system equally bad.

The US has what I would consider a big systemic problem, which is that the first-past-the-post system leads to spoiler effects, and the result is a two party system. When I've talked to some people about this, the response I got was "well all voting systems have problems so we can't fix it without introducing new problems".

But the monotonicity paradox for elimination voting doesn't seem quite as serious. It seems to only be likely to come up when the two major choices are close anyway. If all voting systems are evil, it's the lesser evil.

If the US could implement elimination voting, we could remove a big problem (the two party system) and replace it with a smaller one: an occasional wrong choice between the two major parties. But this can happen anyway, for other reasons, eg one candidate wins the popular vote and the other wins the electoral college.

I'm aware that the Democratic and Republican parties benefit from the two party system, so they might not want this, but it seems to me that this is what voters should want.

⬐ anderskaseorg

This might interest you if you think that elimination voting solves the spoiler effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ

⬐ Terr_

I'd like to add that changing the "front-end" of voting (having people rank choices rather than pick-one) enables a whole slew of potential better-algorithms, because the input data is fundamentally better.

Here's an analysis of the problems with First Past the Post which nearly always generates a two party system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ sampo

USA gets some slack for being more or less the first (still existing) democracy in the world. But in the modern world, First-Past-the-Post should not be considered full democracy anymore, but only some level of proto-democracy, since proportional representation systems are so much better.

It's like, democracy-wise, Americans are all still driving around in Ford T-Models.

⬐ mvid

Is there a way to have proportional representation for a single person elected office? I understand how it works in parliament or multiple person offices, but isn't there still a necessity for a direct voting mechanism when you are electing a single person?

⬐ SapphireSun

You may not be able to have a proportional representation, but you can at least offer something like instant runoff or approval voting to ensure that you can vote for candidates you actually like rather than have to vote strategically for a major party candidate exclusively.

⬐ Retra

The US used to take second place as Vice President, if I understand it correctly.

⬐ sampo

> Is there a way to have proportional representation for a single person elected office?

No. (Well maybe runoff voting would be a slight improvement.)

My point was that with proportional voting, you get more than two viable parties in the parliament, and thus the whole political landscape will be different. And more than two parties will be putting forward their presidential candidates, too.

As with Title I vs Title II and other crap like this, this is just a symptom of a bigger problem: we have only two choices. Both times, YC got dragged into a situation where people demand they sever ties and punish people for their political views.

In our first-past-the-post system, even if Hitler and Mao were the nominees of the 2 parties, would the 3rd party get even 15% of the vote?

https://twitter.com/GregMozart/status/788448482264768512

I am very happy with YC's decision not to sever ties with people based on their support of a political position that a large (over 20%) portion of the population seems to have. The way that was done with Brendan Eich at Mozilla. There should be some separation between the workplace and a person's personal politics.

These people themselves are not killers, rapists, they do not exercise their own power to coerce others etc. They don't endorse every single bad thing their candidate does.

For the record, I think Trump is not very interested in learning about nuances, half the time it's not clear what he is really saying, almost never reconsiders his position, instead he just easily disavows his own statements, and that alone disqualifies him. But should I cut business ties with every Hillary supporter because I believe they are for brinksmanship and escalating the threat of a nuclear war with Russia? Many are. But that has such a small effect on the good we can do together, in the actual sphere of our collaboration. If I want to do something about the doomsday clock, cutting ties with my coworkers is very, very far down the list of effective things to do.

Even in your personal life, realize that arguing about politics is like arguing about astronomy -- the odds are overwhelming that you can't really change anything in the current election. So if your significant other likes a different baseball team, that's not nearly as important as shared values about how you're going to raise your children, or basic respect to human beings, or other things in your real life.

I don't live in California, and I know New York State (where I live) will vote Democratic as it always has, same as Cali. But we embrace political diversity much more than California, it seems. It may be more OK to publicly disinvite Douglas Crockford from a conference for his own personal behavior (I personally think it is ridiculous, but still), than to disinvite someone for mainstream political views or support for another candidate.

But as I said, this is all a symptom of our first-past-the-post system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

It's an inevitable result of winner-take-all, first-past-the-post voting. This video explains the situation very well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Short of revolution, we aren't ever going to see a representative democracy here, because the two parties in power have us perfectly divided 50/50, and the status quo benefits them both greatly.

⬐ gondo

this seems to be a problem of presidential democracy (voting for 1 man). parliamentary democracy, where people are voting for a party and even specifically for multiple people nominated by the party, is solving this problem.

⬐ byuu

Right, but how do we get the US to move to a system of proportional voting and power? We're never going to get a president+congress that is controlled by one party to vote and pass new laws / ratify new amendments that change the system such that they'll no longer be in control. And we can't get the current two parties to agree on whether the sun is hot or not, let alone on radically changing the way our democracy works.

The cynic in me suspects that, despite all the fiery rhetoric, both parties are in fact very happy with the status quo and the partisan divide that exists in this country. Aside from a few battleground states/areas, most seats are perfectly safe. Mississippi isn't going blue, and California isn't going red.

⬐ nathanaldensr

I don't think your opinion is cynical. Don't be afraid to draw logical conclusions. Don't allow political correctness to make you feel sorry for, you know, using your brain. You're not the problem here; the red-vs-blue crowd is.

⬐ abecedarius

The most obvious avenue is to promote ballot propositions to change the voting mechanism, in states that allow this, like California. California recently changed to "open primaries", for example. (A bad idea, that one, but approval voting or score voting could go through the same way.)

It'd need to get pushed from outside the major parties, I guess by someone genuinely public-spirited, since the benefit is very diffuse and long-term. Unless some Machiavelli can figure out an angle -- I sure can't. Once it's had a toehold in a couple states for a few election cycles, though, I think there's a good chance it'd spread, because it seems hard to argue against once it's on the table as a serious option. (Maybe the strongest move then for the parties would be to muddy the waters with instant runoff voting and other such complications.)

(I think approval voting is more 'American' than proportional representation and haven't really thought about how we'd move to proportional rep, but there's the same first step available.)

Any first past the post system like we have will trend towards a two party system as people vote strategically for the most tolerable mainstream candidate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

It's interesting to see people calling for more alternatives and more viable political parties in the US. It's not clear to me that having more political parties would be better since many European countries, where more parliamentary style representation is common, is also dealing with their own xenophobic and nationalist movements.

⬐ masklinn

> Any first past the post system like we have will trend towards a two party system as people vote strategically for the most tolerable mainstream candidate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

FPTP also greatly increases the effect of gerrymandering, especially in single-member constituencies.

A vote for third-party doesn't maximize your voter power, it diminishes it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ YPCrumble

Does your link discuss that if a third party candidate gets 5% of the vote they will receive federal funding next election? If so how can they claim a vote for a third party diminishes voter power?

⬐ dlp211

Tell me where the reform party is today? The major parties don't even take federal funding because it's a joke.

In a First Past the Post voting system like the one in America, a vote for a third-party is, and always will be a vote against your preferences. Rank-choice is a far superior system (though it has its own downsides as well), but that isn't what we have in America. The lesser of two evils is still the better of two options. You want "better" candidates, get involved in party politics and vote in the primaries.

⬐ freehunter

>The major parties don't even take federal funding because it's a joke.

And I don't collect welfare because it's such a small paycheck compared to my salary. But for people who could really use that money, it's a huge help.

⬐ dragonwriter

Right, if you want to shift power to alternatives, fund them, volunteer for them, and advocate for them (and for electoral changes that negate the incentive to tactical voting) between general elections so that they can be a reasonable choice (either by displacing a major party or by competing under rules which no longer make voting for the least-bad major party the clearly best choice in a general election.)

⬐ rurban

Given that sooner or later US voters will recognize that only one candidate is electable, Jill Stein, her percentages will rise. Maybe even to Ross Perot levels.

Another crook, Clinton, for the next years is survivable, but long term a strong third party has to invade this broken system, sooner or later.

Initially I hoped Trump will tear the GOP apart, but he made it impossible with his latest stupidities.

⬐ wnoise

In the short term, i.e. for this election, yes. In the longer term, it is a signal to the parties that they are leaving votes on the table, that maybe they could pick up by altering which policies they support.

It really depends how you weight this election vs others coming up. But if you're in, say, California, your vote for President will not swing the state at all -- it's locked in for Hillary. If (and it's a big if) some other party is closer to your preferred policies, feel free to vote for them without a trace of guilt about making your side weaker for this election.

⬐ grandalf

True. The major party partisans will try to tell us that each election might as well be the last election in human history and that we should all hold the major party to a very low standard.

Most voters live in states that are essentially a lock-up for one of the two candidates. Arguably about 10 states might swing, but third party candidates could easily get 10+ percent of the popular vote nationally and largely influence the direction of the major parties if the voting public understood the electoral college and the multi-election game theory of it.

AKA: The Problem with First-Past-The-Post Voting

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

All first past the post systems like we have in the US will trend towards a two-party system. It sucks because voting third party just takes votes away from the major party candidate that most closely represents your views. To maximize your influence you have to hold your nose and vote for the major party candidate that most closely represents your views...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ lettergram

I'm pretty morally opposed to voting for a ruler I don't personally support. At least if Hillary decides she wants to break some more laws I have the excuse I didn't support her at any point.

Unfortunately, with Trump (if he's elected), there's a chance not supporting him would mean I'm imprisoned so... you win some, you lose some.

⬐ grandalf

Perhaps that is true in terms of maximizing your influence in the next election.

But to maximize your influence over a longer time period, you should vote for the third party candidate that most closely matches your views.

Then, when the major party candidate you would have resorted to loses, the post mortem reveals votes lost to the candidate you voted for, and in the subsequent election the major party adapts its platform to win some of those lost votes.

If politicians expected voters to vote on principle and to hold them accountable, we'd have an entirely different sort of politicians.

⬐ dragonwriter

> But to maximize your influence over a longer time period, you should vote for the third party candidate that most closely matches your views.

That might, arguably, resemble truth if the details of the political system itself were guaranteed stable over time and not subject to alteration by the same people who gain power over other policies through electoral victories. But, in the real world, to maximize your influence over a long-time period, you should organize and advocate for both electoral reform and the minor party you most prefer during periods between elections (the former to work to mitigate the perverse effects of the existing system, the second to maximize the likelihood that, in the next election, the competitive major parties -- which can change over time -- will include the party you most prefer.)

But, once its clear who the major candidates are in the present election, you should still generally vote for the one least harmful to your interests if they win.

> If politicians expected voters to vote on principle and to hold them accountable, we'd have an entirely different sort of politicians.

With no changes to the electoral system, what we'd have with that is "major" parties representing even smaller pluralities (well, technically, only the biggest would be a plurality), and more negative campaigning directed by each major candidate at getting voters best served by the other to not vote for them to "hold them accountable" for something. Which is a change of degree, not kind, from what we have now.

⬐ grandalf

> you should organize and advocate for both electoral reform and the minor party you most prefer during periods between elections

I totally agree with this.

>Once its clear who the major candidates are in the present election, you should still generally vote for the one least harmful to your interests

I don't agree with this, because the platform-creation calculus of the major parties is to ignore interest groups that will not abandon ship.

As H's platform makes clear, when there is sufficient loyalty, it's in the best interest of the candidate to edge as close as possible to the opposing party's platform, to attract as many swing voters as possible.

The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system where voters must vote strategically for candidates they don't support to avoid their least-preferred candidate winning. For instance, you may prefer Bernie Sander's policies but still vote Hillary if you think she will have a better chance against Trump in the election. Or you may prefer other Republican candidates, but want to avoid Trump going independent, splitting the voter base and handing the victory to the Democrats.

I think this is a huge problem with the current system, as the lack of candidates they agree with make people get disillusioned and stop voting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ alexc05

Actually, the primaries are proportional.

⬐ eru

They still elect a single candidate at the end.

⬐ None

None

⬐ braythwayt

  > The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system

Canadian here. I didn’t know that a first-past-the-post system virtually guarantees a two-party system.

⬐ tveita

It's more or less unavoidable if voters are voting strategically. The sad and undemocratic reality of FPTP is that voting for a third-party candidate with little chance to win is "throwing away your vote".

I understand it that in Canada it's first-past-the-post per "riding", so I'd expect each riding to have a maximum of two viable parties. I'm sure it's messier than that in the real world, but I still think you'd be better off with something else than FPTP.

For instance, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canad..., is the Green Party accomplishing anything else than diverting votes from other parties?

Hey that's how the voting system to elect a president is supposed to work. More than two "real" candidates ends up wasting votes. If we have two liberal and one conservative president and the a voting split like this: 1. liberal 25%, 2. liberal %35 and conservative 40%

The conservative will win even though 60% voted liberal. You don't have this problem if there are only two choices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Also, this CGP Grey video explains how a first-past-the-post voting system all-but-guarantees a two party system to emerge over time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ J_Darnley

Would you like to replace it with proportional representation? You thought a few day government shutdown was bad? Try 500 days.

⬐ forgottenpass

You think it is two party representation to blame for the state of the U.S. legislature?

It's just as easy to blame the fact the smallest minority party in either chamber still has near-majority numbers. They're not incentivized to compromise the way a party that knows they'll never get more than 10% of seats would.

And government shutdowns as a result of legislative gridlock across the world aren't even correlated with a more-than-two party legislature.

⬐ germanier

Then how do you explain the missing government shutdowns in all the countries with proportional representation? Even in Belgium, where they had a long time without a new government after an election, government services were provided just fine.

You "can't get your act together" as a third party in a First Past the Post system. The winning strategy is always to vote for the 2 biggest parties. And the media not only strongly favors the two parties and cuts everyone else out from the discussion, but they also cut out any "grassroots" activist that is anti-establishment (unless you're already a media celebrity like Trump, which ends up getting them higher ratings).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&app=desktop

43% of Americans are Independents, and only 29% D and 23% R. And yet most of them still end up voting D or R - do you think that just happens because they end up liking the D or R, or because it's a systemic problem that always forces them to vote for the "lesser evil"?

If you don't think this is not just a problem, but a catastrophic one for US democracy, then the media has brainwashed Americans more than I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

⬐ jsjohnst

I don't disagree with them on face, but do you have a source for those percentages?

⬐ cmrdporcupine

I agree with your tone, but sadly even in parliamentary systems with third and fourth parties like the UK and Canada, there is a strong bipolar two-party emphasis. And even worse the two parties that do capture power (in Canada the Liberals and Conservatives and in the UK Labour and the Conservatives) have themselves tended towards a rather homogeneous ideological mean, easily poaching policy from each other and rarely altering things that the previous party's gov't had enacted. A fairly standard neo-liberal consensus has settled over all western democracies that even the brutal crisis of 2008 couldn't shake, despite some rather horrible dysfunctions -- stagnant economic growth, growing wealth inequality, endemic poverty that doesn't go away, and a staggering slow moving long term environmental crisis that is going to make our children loathe us. Only in the periphery, in places like Greece, etc. have there been significant alterations to the political consensus, and that was quickly and efficiently snuffed out by the actions of the more "sensible" European mainstream...

In the end -- there's only one way of doing political-economy right now within the confines of western capitalist democracy. All the capital-P Politics is theatre around the margins.

⬐ ZanyProgrammer

What is really needed is genuine proportional representation, not FPTP (like in Britain). Another problem is that with three parties, voting for the third may siphon off votes from its nearest analogue (i.e. the NDP and Liberals in Canada under Harper).

> Can you explain in what sense American government is not representative?

While 'Winner Takes All' is one way to do representative voting and checking that item off the list, it's one of the worst ways to be representative. CGP Grey has a series of videos on different voting systems and their pros and cons on youtube - start with this one, which goes through the ways 'winner takes all' drives towards worse representation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Another issue that Grey doesn't mention is that electioneering in the US is so constant and expensive, that politicians can rarely afford to speak in-depth to people without money to donate. It's a subtle effect and not really corruption, but a result of having to endlessly chase the dollars in order to electioneer.

The US has a representative system, no-one's arguing against that. But is it satisfactory or unsatisfactory?

⬐ Amezarak

> While 'Winner Takes All' is one way to do representative voting and checking that item off the list, it's one of the worst ways to be representative.

State and local elections are often not winner takes all, but two-round voting. (Really, more than that, if you want to cheat and count the primary election and possible run-offs there.)

Two-party systems are the inevitable product of a First-Past-The-Post voting in a democracy[1]. There would be no Democratic and Republican party under a sortition system.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ Retra

Are you trying to say that people's political affiliations are a consequence of how their votes are counted?

⬐ finnh

Not quite. rdancer's saying that the options people have to choose amongst/between are a consequence of how their votes are counted. Proportional representation tends toward a larger number of parties; first-past-the-post tends toward two. And "tends toward" can be read as "definitely leads to" in the case of fpp.

⬐ Retra

Just because the party can't win elections doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

⬐ rdancer

Think it through to the logical conclusion: What is a political party? How did it come to be what it is now? What happens when a political party loses popular support?

Ideologically, from a single voter's perspective, you're right. But practically, and looking at the entire population, it's not. The first past the post voting system we use will always result in two prominent parties, and the spoiler effect certainly exists.

I've always found this video a good explanation of the problems of our voting system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

First past the post is actually an inherently two party system [0]. It would take a monumental amount of effort to overcome that bias and an intelligent voter knows that they can't beat the system and have to work with it. Thus, the final choice for all voters is still two mediocre individuals.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

I highly recommend the following CGP Grey video for further detail about the problems of First Past the Post voting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo).

> But instead we have FPTP, and why?

Its the simplest and most naive electoral system so Joe Bloggs understands it. Its just "the person who gets the most votes wins". The problems this system causes are ephemeral statistical problems that require more than a 10 second soundbite to explain or even to detect happening. So from Joe Bloggs point of view, you want to change his fundamental right to vote based on the fact that your intellectual busywork has concluded that the wrong person can win the election. That's how the UK failed to get Alternative Vote passed in 2011.

Cause or consequence... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

> they probably won't win so people don't vote for them, it looks like they have little support so people won't bother...

This is a symptom of first past the post voting. CGPGrey does a great series of simple videos demonstrating alternative voting methods that I found particularly enjoyable[0].

[0]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&list=PLEcHCTVM79B...

⬐ nitrogen

See also http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/. But while we're looking at voting systems, let's not forget the issue at hand.

C.G.P. Grey has an entire series on why our voting system forces a two-party system. The issue isn't getting your neighbour to change their voting habits, the issue is changing the system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=s7tWHJfhi...

Thus, the problem with "First Past the Post".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

> the reason that there are two choices are because of people like him disengaging and not supporting a third choice

I think this is untrue, or at least not the major factor. First-past-the-post voting seems to result inevitably in the situation the US finds itself in, with two main parties with no significant differences on most major issues, where voting for a third party candidate causes a spoiler effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

These videos show what is wrong with our voting system and give a better alternative http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

The US problem is actually a perfect storm formed by the collision of at least two smaller storms that each forms its own problems. Combined together they self-reinforce and make the system worse.

The first storm is what Lessig mentioned: simply getting the money or in-party approval to be on the ballot and run the necessary ads. If your first promises have to be directed towards any group of "Lesters", e.g. the exceedingly wealthy, then you're starting off on a bad foot.

The second storm is that the Framers of the Constitution set up our system to vote for individual politicians in individual seats by first-past-the-post voting. This has been elegantly covered by C.G.P. Grey in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo . The problem here is that we have a two-party system in the first place, because that is a fixed point of the voting process and the system converges to its fixed point over iterated voting.

Just to see why this is one of The Big Problems, a fillibuster rule would actually make sense if we had, say, 4-5 parties occupying the Senate. It would say that you need a 60% majority if some of the minority parties were so strongly opposed to the idea they'd filibuster it; in effect you can force the status quo with only a 40% vote, which allows a sort of "minority coalition" to come together on really hot-topic matters. This really gives a great deal more voice to minority parties than is seen in normal coalition governments.

⬐ moultano

If you want to fix the second storm, the thing to push on is PL 90-196, which prohibits states from anything other than single member districts for congressional elections, and was passed in 1967 http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=1724

If that gets repealed then we can start working state by state to switch to some form of proportional representation.

⬐ khuey

Wow, I didn't know there was a federal law about this. Do you know if the constitutionality of PL 90-196 has ever been challenged? I'm surprised that the federal government is allowed to tell the states how to allocate their representatives.

⬐ jbooth

I think the filibuster would be fine if politicians actually had to hold the floor, Mr. Smith goes to washington style. These guys are lazy, entitled and have to make a lot of fundraising calls -- being on the floor that long would actually hurt their bankroll.

As it is, they just file a procedural motion and bang, nothing gets done.

⬐ JoshTriplett

> The second storm is that the Framers of the Constitution set up our system to vote for individual politicians in individual seats by first-past-the-post voting.

> The problem here is that we have a two-party system in the first place, because that is a fixed point of the voting process and the system converges to its fixed point over iterated voting.

For more details on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

"plurality rule elections structured within single-member districts tends to favor a two-party system"

We could fix so many problems with a sane voting system, but it remains one of the most difficult things to change. Between the current system having elected everyone in a position to change it, the public perception of "one person one vote" as the most fair rather than one of the worst systems in common use, and the most popular alternative system being one of the only worse ones, I don't know if we'll ever manage to move to a better system on any large scale.

⬐ dllthomas

> the most popular alternative system being one of the only worse ones

Which is this?

⬐ JoshTriplett

Instant runoff voting. Ask everyone for a ranked list of preferences, then completely ignore those preferences and only look at everyone's top choice unless their top choice has been eliminated. Numerous inherent problems, notably non-monotonicity, where voting a candidate higher can cause them to lose.

The biggest practical problem with IRV: it encourages people to vote for their preferred third-party or independent candidate first followed by their lesser-of-two-evils choice (common examples using US political parties: Green>Democrat>Republican or Libertarian>Republican>Democrat), but IRV then ignores the preference for the second choice over the third, which means voting for a third-party candidate still risks "throwing your vote away" and having your greater-of-two-evils win. So, IRV not only breaks fundamental properties that any sane voting system should have, it still doesn't actually address the single biggest problem we have with voting systems, and worse yet it pretends that it does.

I'd advocate approval voting if you need a system that's simple to use with existing infrastructure and doesn't require much explanation, or Condorcet if you have no infrastructural or political concerns blocking you from choosing the best option.

⬐ cpeterso

I like the simplicity of Approval Voting, but the optimal voting strategy is still to vote for only one candidate.

⬐ dllthomas

That's not been my understanding. Citation?

⬐ cpeterso

The problem is that if your candidate preference is A > B >> C and you vote for A and B (and not C), you might cause B to win, even though you preferred A. The tactic for just voting for candidate A is called "bullet voting", according to [1]. An interesting analysis [2] of the 2007 French presidential election claims that Approval Voting was the voting system that was second least vulnerable to strategic voters (behind the authors' own voting system, of course :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting#Strategic_voti...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_voting#Approval_votin...

⬐ dllthomas

Hmm, I don't agree that IRV is worse than FPTP, but wholeheartedly agree that approval is much better.

⬐ dougk16

One system that I've been pondering lately (maybe it has an official name), is that you directly choose where a portion of your tax dollars go. So on your tax return, 50% (just pulling a random number here) automatically goes to the government as it does now, to spend as they see fit. The other 50% is yours to spend, so to speak, within the constraints of maybe a few dozen pre-selected options. If you want it all to go to the military, then that's your call. Some to infrastructure, and some to healthcare, then, boom, done. In an ideal system, you'd have 100% control, but you can only trust the public so far.

Which brings up the point of whether one of the basic theories of "pure" democracy is sound: that the public can rationally govern itself. I don't think current democracies really prove it one way or another, but if the theory doesn't hold water, then my idea would probably be a disaster. Fine-tuning the percentages could yield some interesting results though, effectively reducing the importance of who gets elected in the first place.

⬐ drostie

You might be interested to know that there's a voting system for politicians which works similarly, called "Mixed-member proportional representation." 50% of the politicians are directly voted and then 50% are appointed in order to make the party distribution look more like the voters should have expected it to look. In the analogy you're proposing, "parties" become the "bureaus" of the bureaucracy. You can also imagine their "programs" becoming a sort of "party list", I suppose, and you could even do a party-list proportional election in that sense. (Imagine if the 50% was instead 100%.)

The problem is that "fixed seats" are the wrong way to look at this; the fixed quantity is actually the budget money made available by the government. So, the last budget was a $3.54 trillion budget, and we might be able to "chunkify" the budget into $20 billion "awards" and thus "elect" 177 programs in the various departments and agencies to be allocated those awards. The US has 15 executive departments which is about the limit which democratic elections on this sort of scale usually take, so that would probably be the limit. Each department would put several large "programs" in order and you could choose some programs and some departments, or so; we then fund the most popular programs, followed by the top programs in the funded departments, until the department allocation matches the national average.

The problem here is: with political parties, anybody can start one. But the executive branch starts new executive departments and presumably builds those prioritized lists. Suppose the executive branch decides that there is only one department, they could more or less set the entire budget as they pleased.

⬐ mortenjorck

What you're proposing is a specific implementation of direct democracy. It sounds nice, but it's fraught with the very same problems that representative elections face; every tax option would have its own campaigns with distortion-filled ads, people would likely vote to funnel vast amounts of money toward things that actually don't need it based on emotionally manipulative ads they saw... I'd rather try to fix representative democracy than experiment with direct democracy.

⬐ dougk16

I don't see it as necessarily replacing representative democracy, but complimenting it, giving people more of a say in how things are done on top of traditional voting. If I could explicitly choose how even 5% of my taxes were spent, that would give me a very tangible feeling of influence that I just don't get from voting, at least at the higher levels of government (as an american). It would also push me to do my homework about issues a lot more, but that might not translate to the public at large.

Agreed about the potential for the system to be hacked by powerful entities though, perhaps even worse than it is now...tough to get around that one.

⬐ jiggy2011

The closest you have to that is making charity donations and offsetting that against tax. In that case you are diverting money away from central government and putting it elsewhere.

Many government projects require a certain level of investment over a number of years or even decades. It wouldn't be efficient to start say a fighter jet development program if you might have to ditch it half way through because public opinion changed.

⬐ dougk16

True, it wouldn't apply well in all situations, but if you tweak the percentages correctly, only giving the people X% of control over their taxes (maybe relative to some metric like income or education), then maybe the government could have enough of a buffer to protect against swings in public opinion for sensitive or critical projects.

But your point about the fighter jet program could actually be an argument for this type of direct democracy. Let's say the public found out that the program was causing, or somehow will cause, the deaths of thousands of innocent people in a third world country. The military could then face spending cuts, directly dictated by the people, that would threaten the program, and rightly so.

⬐ jiggy2011

That would last until the first terrorist attack or economic crisis and then tend towards 0, because "we really need this money".

Besides you would probably be able to work around this with creative accounting. Let's say everyone wants to defund the military and put more funds into education; military training establishments now show up on the budget as "defence studies schools" because they are issuing general educational certificates to soldiers.

I think fundamentally if you think some particular government is going to just waste large amounts of tax money you should really just not vote for them. You vote in a government because you want them to make sensible choices in how to allocate resources for public projects so you can concentrate on your startup or whatever.

Sometimes this stuff can work on a local level. For example schools can have governing bodies of volunteers (usually parents) who get some say over how the school budget is used.

Problem is that with first past the post voting, you end up giving your vote to the 2nd of the two primary parties.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

⬐ tokenadult

Problem is that with first past the post voting, you end up giving your vote to the 2nd of the two primary parties.

This is not an invariant property of the United States electoral system. Minnesota

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura

and Maine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_King

have both elected governors not endorsed by either of the two largest political parties in recent years, and there are members of the United States Senate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_S...

who were elected in statewide elections without major party endorsement.

⬐ newman314

They did not have to contend with having to vie for the vote of 300+ million people.

Also, elections for governor do not have to account for the Electoral College which IMO is an anarchic holdover from a time when communication was much harder.

⬐ chimeracoder

Maine is one of the few states where that's viable - as Nate Silver notes[1], it's probably the most independent-leaning state in the nation, as evidenced by its support for Ross Perot in the 90s. Rhode Island would be another, and I'd peg Colorado as a distant third.

Minnesota is an outlier in my mind - it's more attributable to the fact that the Republican candidate (Norm Coleman) was a terrible candidate (he only won his Senate seat because his opponent died right before the election[2]), and the race was irregular in other ways too. It happened once, but I wouldn't bet on it happening again there anytime soon, unless things change.

[1] http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/in-maine...

[2] To Coleman's credit, John Ashcroft ran against a dead man and lost, so I guess Coleman had something going for him.

⬐ derleth

> John Ashcroft ran against a dead man and lost

He lost to the dead man's wife, who the voters knew would take that seat even if the ballots couldn't be reprinted in time.

⬐ aswanson

Those states probably have a much higher educational attainment level, civic engagement/consciousness and intelligence level than the rest of the United States.

Of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punchscan

But it will never be put into practice. Thanks in part to the huge amount of money thrown away on the Republican-biased Diebold and their insecure black boxes, people have been trained to repeat bumper-sticker criticisms like "hackers can break into anything" or "no electronic voting is completely secure." They form ridiculous conclusions like "the only fair vote is a paper vote."

To make matters worse, even if we someday do see a sea change and implement secure, verifiable electronic voting, it isn't going to make much of a difference unless we also adopt a better method of choosing a winner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

There is a nice series of YouTube videos on this topic on the C.G.P. Grey Explains channel.

One specifically illustrates why the first-past-the-post system inevitably becomes a two-party system: http://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

You can then click through to other videos on topics such as alternative voting systems, gerrymandering, and the electoral college.