A multiparty system is better for America than a two-party system

[foolsguinea]

@Richard_Parker

You don’t have to launch an expensive advertising campaign to spread a persuasive idea. Especially not in this century. The reason the Green Party doesn’t get more votes in the US isn’t because people haven’t heard of them.

non sequitur.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Richard_Parker

What the founders called factions are not what we call parties. A faction is an interest group, like environmentalists or dairy farmers from Iowa.

Factions were, at the time, political groupings centered around a charismatic or powerful individual or group. So, in 18th century England, for instance, there were the the Oxford-Bollingbroke faction among the Tories in the reign of Queen Anne. the Standhope-Sunderland faction, opposed to the Walpole-Townsend faction, in the reign of George I, and so on.

[foolsguinea]

@ultrafilter

Thanks for sharing. Perhaps you could add just a little bit of substance to your post so that I or others can respond.

Really, that’s what I’m asking you. I see a long page that doesn’t explain its obscure maths terms whining that IRV doesn’t conform to Monotonicity, & this is pulled out in this thread to hijack. Then it’s repurposed to undercut (by confusion) BG’s central point that multi-party systems avoid polarization. Thus to imply that we should be happy with plurality-FPTP, which fails at Condorcet, & is vulnerable to strategic nomination. (And in the USA, leads to two-party polarization, which is getting more than a bit disturbing.)

And I find it hard to see where the alleged scourge of monotonicity in IRV/STV comes from, or why it’s a bigger deal than the plurality-rule system that apparently is “good enough.” But OK, I’ll try to read it now:

[…]

The linked example relies on a situation where a tie in first place ranking might throw the best-liked candidate out. I admit this touches on a qualm of mine about STV; that it relies too much on “first place” ranking. But **every other **single-vote system I’ve seen relies on first place ranking, it just does it without including other rankings. (Approval voting, not being single-vote, is a plurality inflater, & not proportional. I would only back it if I thought seeing its flaws would nudge society toward STV.)

The Range Voting system seems to fail the Condorcet loser criterion as well as Consistency.

Electoral system

I’m in favor of serious attempts to improve on STV. Range Voting is not one.

[foolsguinea]

More to the point, the Range Voting site is concentrating its argument on single-seat elections, which are probably not going to be won by Ralph Nader in any case. I support STV for multi-seat elections as better than open list (& I love open list.)

[BrainGlutton]

@Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension

I just started a [thread=517041]new thread[/thread] to discuss the Single Transferable Vote vs First Past the Post, since we’re having a plebiscite in BC next week on this issue.

And I just started a new thread to discuss instant-runoff voting v. approval voting v. range voting (reproducing ultrafilter’s relevant links). Please put all discussions of that subject there.

[Nobody]

@Ravenman

I say that people should vote for the candidate and not the party.

But with our present system, if you don’t toe the party line then you get little to no support from the party, which, if you’re a candidate, can hurt you.

Barbara Lee, congresswoman from Berkeley, CA, is a Democrat, but do you think people there vote for her because she’s a Democrat?

In Berkeley? Probably.

A member of the same party as Senator Ben Nelson? Does that mean that Berkeley voters would also support Democrat Ben Nelson? No!

Maybe not. To be honest, I’m not familiar with either politician.

I fail to see how being disenchanted with one’s party should impact on one’s vote. And I believe that more Americans vote on the candidate rather than the party, and that candidates within a particular district certainly have views more in tune with their electorate without needing to form a separate party to represent their constituency.

But the ways things are now, for major issues if you know a person’s party, you pretty much know their stances. Yes, there are some high level pro-choice Republicans, but not many. Yes, there are probably some high level Democrats who supported the war in Iraq, but no many. Yes, there might some high level Republicans who are pro union, or high level Democrats who are against set-asides and quotas for women and minorities, but not many.

So my point is, within our present system, if a person is going to call themselves a Democrat or Republican, they are limited on how they can Taylor themselves for their constituents.

For example, why should there be a Peace and Environment Party if Barbara Lee represents those views while being a Democratic Congresswoman from Berkeley? What is the need for a Farmers and Fiscal Responsibility Party if Ben Nelson represents those views while being a Democratic Senator from Nebraska?

If a party exists that doesn’t have anything different to offer from the existing parties, then of course they aren’t really necessary. Again, most stances are either taken or disagreed with based on party. There are very few things both parties agree on. I would like to see more viable parties that have different mixes and matches of beliefs.

Ultimately, I think a lot of the frustration at the non-success of third parties is due to frustration at how few voters see things the way that supporters of fringe candidates do. As in, if Berkeley voters Rainbow, Cloudy, and Che (real names of kids I went to school with in Berkeley) see that Wavy Gravy doesn’t stand a chance of being elected, then they blame the party system, rather than the candidate that they like.

Yup, there sure are fringe candidates, but they shouldn’t discredit third parties in general, just like junk science shouldn’t be a discredit to real science.

[BrainGlutton]

@Nobody

But with our present system, if you don’t toe the party line then you get little to no support from the party, which, if you’re a candidate, can hurt you.

No, the problem in the American party system is exactly the opposite of that. If you win the primary, you get the party’s support. There is practically no party discipline. There is not even a procedure for expelling a person from either of the major parties. Lyndon LaRouche is as good a Democrat as Barack Obama, and David Duke is as good a Republican as John McCain. Nobody has the authority to say otherwise.

[foolsguinea]

I think the truth is somewhere in between. The GOP does try to screen who can even enter its primaries (at least in some states). Out-of-state support sometimes fluctuates due to ideological concerns.

[Nobody]

@BrainGlutton

No, the problem in the American party system is exactly the opposite of that. If you win the primary, you get the party’s support. There is practically no party discipline. There is not even a procedure for expelling a person from either of the major parties. Lyndon LaRouche is as good a Democrat as Barack Obama, and David Duke is as good a Republican as John McCain. Nobody has the authority to say otherwise.

That may be true of a presidential candidate who wins the primary, but for members of congress, or a presidential candidate who hasn’t won the primary yet, there are only so many deviations they can take before loosing overall party support.

Let’s say it’s 2012. Let’s say sometime before he changed his stance and became pro life. Would the Democratic party back his bid for a reelection, or would they back a Democratic challenger instead? At best he’d have split support from the party.

Also, parties have platforms. No, you don’t have to agree on every single one, but you have to agree to most of them, otherwise how can you call yourself a member of the party. For example, if you call yourself a Democrat, but are say, pro-life, anti union, and anti gay marriage, how could you honestly call yourself a Democrat?

[Nobody]

When Bush II was first running for president, I heard that the Republican party didn’t really like him, but supported him because “It would be better than having a Democrat as president.” Now after he got into office then the Republican controlled Congress seemed to turn into mindless yes men, rubber stamping everything he did, with the exception of immigration and one other things which escapes me at the moment.

Now that he’s out of office they talk about how bad he was for the party, but where were those people when he was in office?

Actually, I guess I’m ranting more than I am making a point. I guess my point is the same one I keep making, but rephrase each time, that we should have more options than “The lesser of two evils.”

I see lots of talk on this board about changes the Republican party should make, but it kind of amuses me because most, if not all of the changes suggested, would turn it into the Democratic party, giving us less choices, not more.

[foolsguinea]

OK, I’ve actually tried to do more than glance at the range voting page. I was too hasty before. For single-winner systems, I suppose the writer’s hatred of IRV is justified.

I’m an ass.

But for multi-winner systems, I’m not sure a more nuanced version of approval voting is the way to go. STV is still more proportional. That said, I’m trying to cobble together a sort of proportional-approval system that will answer some of these issues.

[BrainGlutton]

@smiling_bandit

Everything else you mention ultimately comes down to a question of values, where you assume yours are self-evidently good, and therefore ignore the value of alternatives.

Could you expand on that? Because I don’t think any of my arguments in the OP make any value assumptions that are in any way controversial. E.g., you might dispute that a multiparty system is more “intelligent” than a two-party system, but not that a more intelligent system is preferable.

[BrainGlutton]

@Nobody

Also, parties have platforms. No, you don’t have to agree on every single one, but you have to agree to most of them, otherwise how can you call yourself a member of the party. For example, if you call yourself a Democrat, but are say, pro-life, anti union, and anti gay marriage, how could you honestly call yourself a Democrat?

Ask the Blue Dogs.

[BrainGlutton]

@foolsguinea

This is the reason the Roman emperors tried to keep governors of conquered lands in one place for long stretches.

Did they? (I know governorships were annual under the Republic.)

[BrainGlutton]

@Richard_Parker

I did not mean to suggest it compelled a state to allow candidates on the ballot. It does not. I was suggesting it prevents the states or the federal government from imposing term limits as a qualification for election (e.g. 25+ and has not served more than two terms).

In Term Limits, Inc., v. Thornton, the SCOTUS ruled a state cannot impose term limits on federal representatives or senators. Whether Congress can do so remains an open question AFAIK.

[Nobody]

@BrainGlutton

Ask the Blue Dogs.

From the article

@Wikipedia

However, the only stated policy position of the Blue Dogs is fiscal conservatism, and many of the members of the coalition hold liberal views on social issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, and gay rights.

[BrainGlutton]

@Nobody

From the article

I know, “many,” not “most.” The pro-lifers still get to call themselves Democrats.

[Nobody]

@BrainGlutton

I know, “many,” not “most.” The pro-lifers still get to call themselves Democrats.

I never said they couldn’t. In the example I gave, I gave a bunch of positions which, when all held together, doesn’t sound like a standard Democrat to me.

And in my earlier posts I said that there are pro-life Democrats but that they are in the minority.

[The_Second_Stone]

@Richard_Parker

What the founders called factions are not what we call parties. A faction is an interest group, like environmentalists or dairy farmers from Iowa. A party is a different animal entirely. It has no or few stable political interests. It shifts positions to secure votes, and aggregates power in a way competing factions never could. Madison’s whole point about factions was that they could never become like the Democrats and Republicans because they were inherently too fractured and parochial. By creating a huge system spanning the continent and by setting branch against branch, state against state, the idea was that no mere faction would ever have control. But nearly by definition, in a first-past-the-post system, one party or the other will always have majority control.

Indeed, perhaps the founders biggest mistake of political theory was the failure to account for the development of political parties, which has fundamentally altered the way our democracy functions from their 18th Century vision.

I think parties and factions are exactly the same thing and I think that the founders thought so to. I would be interested in whether you have any references about this subject.