Could you make a viable many-party system without ammending the constitution?

Politics & Elections
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Is there a way around this? (Just thinking out loud here; I have not worked through it myself.)

Remember that the president is technically not elected by the voters but rather by the Electoral College and electors are at the command of their respective states. In order to avoid something like what happened with Trump who won the EC but not the popular vote some states have instituted the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Basically states that do this command their electors to vote for the nation-wide popular vote winner and not the state’s winner.

Is there some end-around means through the EC to change things? (Really asking)

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We can look around the world at other political systems and see they all have problems. And getting rid of first past the post (FPtP) voting would not rid us of our problems either.

But it would break the stranglehold orthodoxy you get with only two parties. There are a lot of shades of gray among the populace that just gets no voice in congress…right or left. People joke about how silly it is to have a Zodiac that has only twelve options to represent everyone. Our government has two choices to represent everyone and as a result they really are not representative at all of their constituents. A start at breaking this pernicious state of affairs would be to rid ourselves of FPtP voting in favor of another, more representative method.

We’ll still have plenty of political bullshit to deal with but it will be more difficult to get in to the deadlock and almost useless congress we currently have if they cannot easily coalesce around one of two ideologies but would rather have to find a way to accommodate more opinions. In the effort to form coalitions (which is what would happen) you should get a moderating effect from the polarization of two parties. In short, they need to start making deals and compromises again which is something our government has lost.

Personally I think your AI would go all Skynet on us and nuke us into oblivion after a microsecond of looking at the dysfunction and figuring oblivion is the best choice.

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Yeah, all systems have problems, but some have fewer or less severe problems than others. There’s definitely room for improvement.

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Nope, it has just become Democrat vs Democrat, which is boring and pointless.

Libertarians are by no means Deep Red.

Note we have two Independent Senators.

And I dont see how as a third party helps. That’s one of the thing that brought in Hitler , and hurt politics in several nations, including Israel.

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So to play back on my post above- what are the advantages of having three or more parties?

I dont see many, except brokered deals.

A large Progressive or Green or Libertarian turn out just would have hurt Clinton more, most came from her expected/hoped for pool.

We would have still got Trump.

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More consensus-seeking, less polarised politics.

In a well-functioning multi-party system, the ability to build coalitions, and to obtain agreement and secure buy-in from diverse groups, is seen as a strength, not a weakness. And, conversely, instinctively oppositional, confrontational, difference-seeking politics is seen as a route to marginalisation, not a route to power.

The thing with the presidency is that it can’t be multi-party; one guy has to win, and all the other lose.

But, the hope is, with a more consensus-seeking political culture, the one guy is much less likely to be someone like Donald Trump. Trump quite possibly would not have secured the Republican nomination, and if the presidency were a competition between more than two parties, with a preferential or ranked-choice voting system, it’s unlikely that he would have won.

Your suggestion that a large progressive/green/libertarian vote would have hurt Clinton by taking votes away from her presumes the retention of the current voting system, which seeks to minimise the degree of preference a voter can express. But if you’re trying to foster a multi-party culture, that’s probably one of the first things you would change. In a ranked choice system, Clinton would have been helped, rather than hindered, by a high progressive/green/centrist turnout, since those voters would mostly have preferenced Clinton over Trump. (To be honest, I’m not sure who libertarians would have preferenced, between those two.)

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You are conflating two entirely different things- ranked choice voting vs a multi party system.

In just about every nation that had strong third, fourth and even fifth party, there is LESS consensus seeking and more deal making. Look at Israel. or better yet- Italy:

wiki:
The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Italy as a “flawed democracy” in 2017.[1] A high degree of fragmentation and instability, leading to often short-lived coalition governments, is characteristic of Italian politics.[2][3] Since the end of World War II, Italy has had 61 governments.

The only multi party government that work is GB, and that is due to the fact that they essentially have only two parties with a third bouncing around a bit.

Without adding in ranked choice, Trump would have still won with stronger third parties as he was greatly benefited by third party voting.

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I’m not conflating them. I’m pointing out that one of them is likely to be conducive to the other.

I think you’re positing a false dichotomy between consensus seeking and deal making. Deal-making is one of the processes by which you seek to build and give effect to consensus positions.

Oh, that’s nonsense. Ireland hasn’t had a single-party majority government since 1981, and it’s had lengthy periods of conspicuously stable and successful government during that period. Certainly in recent years its politics seem to be a great deal more functional than the UK’s. Germany since the war has never had a single party goverment; are you seriously arguing that it hasn’t had good, stable government? German governments sometimes include more parties than are strictly required for a majority, precisely because the political culture values the construction of a broad consensus.

Yes, I know. My point is that if you’re seeking to develop a multi-party democracy, as the OP hypothises, one of the first things you’d change in the US is the voting system, to replace the present antiquated system with one that gives voters more power, choice and flexibility. So if the US were a multi-party democracy, it’s very unlikely that it would still have its current voting system.

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Yes. They can be, but this is about a viable many Party system, not about bringing in ranked choice voting . You can have one without the other.

No, often they have to make bad deals in order to make a coalition.

Ireland is a dinky not & very important nation.

However, there is no evidence that multi-party government is any better than two party. I can point to many examples of failing multiparty democracies. Italy being the classic one.

We’d be trading in the devil we know for something we dont. There is no indication at all that one is better than the other.

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You can in theory, but I think you’re unlikely to in practice. The OP invites us to speculate what a multi-party US might be like, and one of the things that might characterise it, fairly obviously, is that it’s quite likely to have a different electoral system.

So? Single party governments are often elected on the strenght of bad manifestos. My claim was not that multi-party systems would necessarily make for better government; it was that they would make for more consensus-seeking, and less polarised, politics. And if someone is of the view that electing Mr Trump is bad for the republic, they might well think that more consensus-seeking and less polarised politics would be good for the republic.

It’s important to Ireland, which is why the measure of the Irish political system and culture is how well it serves Ireland. But I didn’t mention Ireland because I regard it as a norm for the world, but because I’m familiar with it, and it’s one counter-example to the claim you advanced. It isn’t the only counter-example that I mentioned.

Well, I could pick nits and point out that poor old coalition-riddled Italy’s long-term economic growth and social development has outpaced that of the strong, sturdy, stable UK. But let that pass; mentioning Italy would back you up if your claim was that multi-party systems can produce political chaos. But that was not your claim; your claim was that “the only multi-party government that works is GB”, and that’s nonsense. Firstly, because examples of countries with well-functioning multi-party governments abound. And, secondly, because the UK mostly doesn’t have multi-party government. In fact, right now, it has a single-party government, and if you were trying to make the case that single-party government makes for stable politics and sound government, the current UK government is emphatically not the first example you would pick. It’s a basket-case.

You could make that argument to oppose any change at all. In fact, conservatives characteristically do. But if you take the view than anything at all in the current US political system is suboptimal, and if you want to make it optimal, then you have to be ready to make some change. The OP identifies a problem - the election of Trump - and posits a switch to a multi-party political system as something that might tend to avoid that problem. I think that, yes, it might tend to avoid that problem, because a multi-party system tends to incentivise and reward consensus-seeking and coalition-building, and a politician like Trump will not thrive in a system which tends to do that, since that’s pretty much the opposite of what he does. I’m not claiming that it would solve all problems, or make everything universally better; just that it might be beneficial in addressing this one.

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All D’s have identical positions? :confused: What would be a boring and pointless is to cast a vote when there are only two candidates, one of whom represents Evil and has no choice to win.

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While usually true for any given election, it’s not necessarily true for a congress as a whole except in a Presidential system with a (quasi) first-past-the-post head of government. Canada and the UK have first-past-the-post and a multi-party system.

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In first-past-the-post elections, approval voting is the simplest way to let third parties accumulate support. Each voter votes for as many or as few candidates as they wish and whichever candidate gets the most votes wins. Eventually some third parties will become second parties.

But note that the desire to have national parties also has a large effect on the number of parties. This makes sense for executive offices like the President. But in legislative offices, it doesn’t make as much sense. The two competing parties could be different in different areas. We could have multiple regional parties that compete in some states but not others. See the UK or Canada, for examples. And since we don’t have parliamentary system like they do (where the executive is dependent on the legislature), it actually would work better here. The fight over the Speaker of the House isn’t as high stakes.

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Speaker of the house in parliamentary systems is very different though. There’s a rather amusing tradition of the elected Speaker being forced to his chair by the PM and opposition leader.

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Each state can set whatever method they like for selecting members of Congress or Senators, within some pretty broad limits. For example, each state must have “a republican form of government”. Article 1 says: “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” The 17th Amendment did the same thing for Senators.

So what that means is that whatever method a state has for qualifying people to vote for their state legislature is also the method for qualifying to vote for the national office. Any method that counts as “chosen by the people” would be constitutional. However, each state can choose their own method, it would require an amendment to enforce a national change. So all these systems of ranked choice, instant runoff, and so on, can only be implemented state by state.

Of course the real problem with third parties is that since third parties have no chance of winning, nobody with any sense becomes a member of a third party, which means third party candidates are almost always cranks and spoilers. Anyone with any sense runs as a major party candidate, because there’s no downside to doing so. You can still run as a Democrat without committing to support the entire Democratic Party platform. Therefore, if you’re smart, you’ll just put whatever letter you like after your name when running. And if you win, you’re magically part of the party. If you don’t win, well, there you go.

What is abundantly clear is that the Republicans and Democrats are not ideological parties, they are coalition parties. The parties consist of people who win elections, and if you win an election with a particular platform, then that’s the platform of the party. If you’re a socialist you don’t have to start a socialist party, you can just run as a Democrat and if enough socialists get elected as Democrats then the Democratic party becomes a socialist party.

In other countries if you don’t support the party platform they kick you out of the party. That’s not the case in the United States, as we can see from the examples of the white nationalists who got on the ballot. The Republican party could denounce them, but they couldn’t keep them off the ballot.

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I can tell you some of the objections to that. Because we have that in New York State and it’s a royal pain in the ass for third parties!

There are two connected laws: “fusion” and “opportunity to ballot” and here’s how it works, including shitty ramifications:

Under “fusion” the same candidate, Joe Blow, can be the selected candidate of multiple political parties, and appears on the ballot over and over again, for party after party.

Under “opportunity to ballot”, any person who wishes to run for office as the designated candidate of a political party may do so without the blessings of the organized party machinery, simply by getting a representative percent of the people registered to that party to sign a petition indicating that they would support this person as their party’s candidate. Note that the candidate does not need to be registered as a member of that party. If two or more people qualify to run for the office in question via such signatures, a primary will determine which of them will be the party’s nominee.

How it works, in practice: Joe Blow, registered Republicrat and career politician, decides that in addition to being on the ballot as the Republicratic candidate, he wants to be the candidate of the Teal Party and the Liberaltarian Party and the Fetal Freedom Party. He hires a team of 15 young able-bodied party loyalists who go door to door to Teal Party voters; they knock and say “Hi, our guy Joe Blow wants to run for office as a Teal Party candidate, will you support that?” they do not tell the voters that Mr. Blow is not registered as a Teal Party voter. He’s stealing the line. They sign, not knowing any better. Genuine Teal Party would-be politico Jack Smith doesn’t have an operating budget to hire 15 people to do likewise but manages to still get the requisite number of signatures from Teal voters. Joe Blow forces a primary. The impoverished Teal Party has to spend money on Jack’s behalf. Sometimes Joe wins, sometimes Jack wins. If Joe wins, voters in his district see that the Teal Party apparently endorses Joe and some voters vote for Joe for that reason. Actually Joe’s political beliefs are horrifying to the Teals who know anything about him. Still, sometimes Jack wins. But next year when he goes out to get his required number of signatures, registered Teals slam the door in his face, saying “You people are annoying, you come out here all the time asking me to sign”. That’s because Jerry Williams, the Demagoguic candidate, is doing the same thing, and because every freaking major-party candidate for every freaking office is doing so, and not coordinating with each other so they infest the streets with their lackeys knocking on Teal voters’ doors.

And yes it would be nice if the average voter knew the political terrain well enough to realize Joe and Jerry aren’t Teal politicians at all, but the average Teal voter is only somewhat more savvy than the average registered voter and usually doesn’t.

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Are you aware that election by district is a Federal statute?

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Odd, then, that there are over thirty parties currently represented in the Indian Lok Sabha.

And that there are eight parties currently in the British House of Commons.

And that there are seven parties in the Canadian House of Commons.

All three elected with first-past-the-post.

If you want an explanation for the unusual two-and-only-two party structure in the US, you can’t just say “first-past-the-post causes it”, when “first-past-the-post” doesn’t have that effect in other countries.

A more significant factor is that these three countries are all parliamentary, which accommodate coalitions in the executive. Voting for third of fourth parties isn’t necessarily a vote thrown away, because third or fourth parties can achieve some power. Witness Nick Clegg, the Lib-Dem Deputy Prime Minister in the Cameron Conservative government, and the current position of the Democratic Unionist Party, supporting the May government.

In the US, that can’t happen, with your unitary executive. All executive power is vested in one person. Since that one office is so powerful, it forces a party system that increases the chance of winning that one position, which means a two party system. Third parties are pretty much irrelevant in that type of political structure.

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Agreed. The election of the Speaker normally is a non-event, except in cases where you have a hung parliament and the party which elects the Speaker loses one vote, as happened recently in BC and New Brunswick.