How would you enforce a multi-party election system? (attn: Aldebaran)

Great Debates
1

This is a spin-off from another thread, which I have not contributed to. The topic of discussion there has been steered away from what I would like to discuss, so I am creating a new thread instead of hijacking that one.

In that thread, Aldebaran expresses concern about the American two-party election system, which seems to exclude any third parties that want to contribute to politics, especially to the election of the president.

How exactly would you model a government that specifically prevents this from happening? If you wish to point to other governmental models, such as what we see in English parliament, explain how the system differs legally from that of the US, and how these differences lead to multi-party contribution in politics.

In America, the two major political parties tend to adopt and incorporate the agendas of several groups that would potentially have been parties in other political systems. For example, the Democratic party may be made of those who, in other systems, would have been Socialists or Labor (although I do not want to argue whether Democrats are socialists who endorse labor, I was just using an example). I think this system works well, because it prevents small groups with radical agendas from gaining disproportionate recognition in government, such as what we have seen before with victories in England for parties such as the BNP with blatant and outspoken racist agendas. While these small minority groups may hold majorities in small areas in America, they almost never have great influence in state or national politics.

Another argument supporting the two party system in America is that the system is not legislated at all; it developed naturally within the very relaxed boundaries of the US Constitution. The Constitution itself does not show a preference for limiting the system to two parties, and yet the two party system has developed regardless. In some cases, when differences between agendas forced a split or created a situation in which three or more parties must exist to incorporate all of the popular agendas, there were indeed more than two political parties in America.

The best benefit to America’s political system that I see are that the two political parties are, by necessity, moderate. No republican could be elected on a platform of religious authoritarianism, and no democrat could be elected on a platform of complete communism, because they alienate too many voters. (Whether or not the candidate ignores the platform on which they were elected is a different story, again not what I intend to debate here). I believe that most dopers would also agree that moderate politics are almost always superior to radical or excessive agenda politics.

How would you design a government which prevents excessive agendas supported only by minority groups from gaining disproportional political power, while at the same time giving each of those often excessive and radical groups a voice?

2

Proportional representation.

3

For legislative elections, you can have :
-Proportionnal with only one constituency (the whole country) : most not totally fringe parties will be represented

-Proportionnal with several constituencies : the smallest parties won’t be reprensented because there will be less seats to share in each of constituency, hence a party will have to get a larger share of the votes to get a seat.
In both cases, you can set up a minimal %age of votes necessary to get seats. For instance, no party with less than 5% of the votes will win seat. It somewhat reduce the number of represented parties, eliminating fring parties which would get a couple seats, hence making easier to form a majority.
-Winner takes all, two rounds election (the two candidates getting the most votes, or all the candidates getting more than a given %age of votes qualify for the run-off) : there will be several parties represented, because voters won’t hesitate to vote for the party they prefer during the first round, since they will still be able to cast an “useful” vote during the run-off. So, in some constituencies, a third or fourth party will get enough votes to qualify for the run-off, and will get some seats. Fringes parties will be eliminated, though. That would be the french system
-Winner takes all, one round : In this case, the candidate with the most votes is directly elected. Will very likely result in bipartism, since voters will be reluctant to vote for a candidate who doesn’t have a high likehood of being elected. That would be the british system.
I would note that you can mix the system. For instance, candidates are elected in each constituency with a a winner takes all system, but others seats are attributed to the parties, proportionnally, on the basis of their result at a national level. It works that way, if I’m not mistaken, in Germany and Denmark.

For presidential elections, obviously, you can’t use a proportionnal system, though one could conceive a collective executive including several equal members, like the two consuls in republican Rome, or the “directoire” during the french revolution…in this case, you could theorically use a proportionnal system.

In most case, the president will be a member of one of the two major parties (if there are only two…for a long time, France had one major left-wing party, but two major right-wing parties. The first round resulted in one right-wing candidate being eliminated, the second getting then the support of the two right-wing parties) . However, if you use a two-rounds system with a run-off for a presidential election, there’s a chance that a third party candidate could qualify for the run-off (voters being less reluctant to vote for a third party during the first round, once again), and eventually could be elected, by gathering votes from the supporters of the eliminated major party.

4

Are you referring to parliament of local council seats, wrt the BNP?

5

of should be or :smack:

6

With regard to the OP’s question on how to enforce such an election system: like any other election system, by making it the law.

I cannot follow the OP’s premise that a multiparty system (i.e. proportional representation) leads to more radical politics pursued by the parlamentary majority. The politics of a lot of European countries with proportional representation don’t bear this out. Small parties may have extremist agendas, but they need to make compromises to become part of a legislative majority.

7

In the Presidential election, the number one party gets the Presidency. The number two gets the VP slot, number three gets speaker of the house. Number four gets President of the Senate.

In the same way, the number one party names half the cabinet. Number two names a quarter. The minor parties get the rest.

Of course all of these proposals are solutions for no real problem.

8

There’s a reason we did away with the number one vote-getter gets the Presidency and the number two vote-getter gets the Vice-Presidency, you know.

9

This system still seems to polarize most of the voters into two camps, both who are willing to sacrifice small matters in their agenda to gain support from a much larger voter base with a group of political parties. If the “winning” party gets to choose 50% of the legislative government and control almost all of the executive government, even after potentially winning only 30 or 35% of the vote, the government becomes illegitimate and unrepresentative.

This also doesn’t address the problem of minor parties having more influence than they represent among the population. If the election polarizes all of the major parties into two camps getting a combined 95% of the vote (very likely, considering what’s at stake for the number 1 position), then a party with less than 3% of the vote gets to control 20% or more of the legislative branch of government. Not a good situation to be in at all.

Also, for all of the responses suggesting proportional representation, what would you do to prevent several smaller political parties from merging into a larger, dominating party? It obviously can, and at least in America DOES happen unless you specifically prevent certain voting blocks from developing. I am not willing to accept legislation that prevents people from voting how they want.

10

Smaller political parties do merge from inside larger ones…
People with “dissident” viewpoints try to push them through in the party line, up to the point that they do not find themselves in line anymore with the program of that party because of the rejection of their ideas and proposition. Then they split off to form an other party.

Sometimes smaller parties or parties who lost significantly in elections go together with other ones to confront the next election together on one list.
Personally I have a problem with that because it is inevitable that parts of the identity of both parties must be sacrified when they manage to become together one of the major parties.

As for your fear that small parties can dominate the politics: that is not realistic. They get only as much representatives as is forseen by law to be in line with their support among the voters.

What I would certainly recommend is limiting the funding for the campaigns to what is contributed to them by the State (with a required % of support before they get funding and with required standards for their program) and give them all equal amount of propaganda time on TV and radio stations.

A difference between the USA and many other countries seems to me that in the US people are led to get focussed on the person of the candidate.
Elswhere people search for a party program that is in line with their viewpoints and vote for a party because of its program, instead for having a fixation on the politicians on its list.

For the rest of your OP, I think the major points are already answered by other members.

Salaam. A

11

This is exactly the same reason that I support the American political system. The parts of the identity of parties that merge which are sacrificed are, by necessity, the most radical, excessive, and unpopular parts. The “superparties” are therefore much more moderate, in order to prevent alienating any of their members. I believe that any system which leads to more moderate politics is superior to one that encourages radical parties to emerge. In America, a radical party has almost no chance at any political power.

This is misleading. I never meant to say that small parties can “dominate” politics, only that they can easily gain disproportionate power in politics. In a system which supports and maintains many different parties with many different agendas, a small party with a minority of votes can, potentially, gain a much larger foothold than their voter support reflects. This has happened, and is happening even now.

I certainly don’t want my tax dollars to go toward the campaign of a politician that I do not support.

Campaign contributions are not a big problem in American politics, in my opinion. To understand why I have this opinion, I think it’s important to realize the cause and effect of this situation. Many people have the two reversed. They think that campaign contributions cause a politician’s election platform. In reality the reverse is true; the politician’s election platform causes campaign contributions. For example, the school teachers’ union is not happy with George Bush because of several unpopular education measures he has taken, and therefore choose to support his opponent with both votes and campaign money. Funding campaigns through an “equal time” government program destroys the voice of the teachers’ union in this situation, because they are prevented from running any advertisements or doing any campaigning for the candidate they want to see elected.

In America, everyone I talk to about the elections intends to vote along political party lines, according to an agenda, or according to a political organization that they belong to (unions, the NRA, the NAACP, etc.) This directly contradicts what you are saying here, although I don’t have specific statistics to prove the point.

12

That’s definitely realistic. The minor Israeli religious parties get a disproportionnate influence because their support is often required to form a majority, for instance.

13

Yes, but no public funding results in giving a much louder voice to the brain surgeon’s union than to the homeless people’s union. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

14

An earlier thread: Presidential vs. parliamentary system: Which is better

Within a modern multi-party system there is a threshold for representation, usually 3%-6%. This prevents smaller (and sometimes radical) parties from holding power.

In name only. A winner takes it all system will always end up with 2-3 major parties.

All valid points, but frankly, you will not end up with religious authoritarianism or communism in a multiparty system either (unless that’s what the voters want). It’s usually center-left or center-right, the majority is just made up by two or more parties.

Using a winner takes it all system on the other hand, you end up with a system where the vast majority of voters doesn’t feel that the party they are voting for is their party. You end up with a polarized society.

15

I think you do it by getting rid of all references to political parties in the law, which was the wish of the founding fathers in the first place.

For instance: the much-maligned Electoral College. Part of the problem with it is that you don’t vote for electors on a typical state ballot. You vote for president, the majority vote-getter receiving all of the Electoral Votes.

Now there are reasons for this, I realize. The more a state consolidates their electoral votes, goes the theory, the more say they have, and hopefully the more attention they get.

However, I think the parties screw up this system as well.

We, California, with the most, Electoral votes, ought to constantly get attention from the President. We are the ripest fruit in terms of ensuring re-election. But, to use the current administration as an example, because we are a “Democrat” state, we don’t get squat from the White House. Sure, we’ll try to vote him out, but what about the last three years, where we got nothing?

I propose this for California, and other large EC states:

Adopt a US-Senate style rotating system. We have 55 EC votes until the 2010 Census. Each year we elect roughly a quarter of the Electors to a 4 year term, directly, no candidate name masking them. A lot of voters wish we had a yearly referendum on the performance of the president: this is it. They could run on a pro- or anti- current administration platform if they wish.

That way, every year, the president gets to line up a certain amount of support each year by playing nice with us.

Also, if a number of large states adopted such a system, it might be possible for a thied party candidate to garner enough electoral votes to throw the election to the House on occasion, if not in fact win.

16

Not necessarily true. Either or both parties may be disproportionately dominated by anti-moderate factions, & voters may be leery of abandoning one party because that leads to one-party rule by the other, with some perceived accompanying risks of illiberalism & conformism.

The Constitution is too relaxed in this case. It was written for partyless rule, or perhaps more properly, one-party rule by the party of revolutionary white colonists. This was inaccurate from the beginning. A sloppy constitution allowed two-party rule to develop, & by now many state constitutions have been rewritten to keep the parties entrenched.

So? And yes, the religious authoritarian could get elected. You’re making an assumption about the populace that has nothing to do with the constitution.

17

On re-reading replies:

Imagine you support abortion and the enviroment. You vote Democrat. But then the Democratic party (overall) adopts an agenda of gun control and support of same-sex marriages, which you are against. Your options are to stay home/vote third party or vote Democrat holding your nose.

Within a multi-party system you could have two parties on the left, both in support of abortion and the enviroment (same as the Democrats). But one party is also pro-gun and against same-sex marriages, so for you this party is a perfect match. After the election these two parties have a majority, but one party got 15% while the other (the one you voted for) got 35%. Obviously, your party will get more of its agenda legislated than the other party, because - and both parties belong to the left - your party is bigger.

This happens everywhere regardless of system. Where do you think the concept of “pork” is coming from? It’s a Representative selling his/her swing vote for more money to his/her home state.

Smaller parties don’t merge and then become a large party. Maybe it has happened, but it’s not common. However, it’s common that smaller parties merge and remain a small party.

18

Pro-multipartisan reforms such as proportional representation, instant-runoff voting, and ballot fusion are discussed in depth in materials accessible through the website of the Center for Voting and Democracy, www.fairvote.org.

19

We’ve discussed this subject, at great length and in great depth, in earlier GD threads:

“Discussion of alternate election methods for the U.S.”

“Proportional Representation/Instant Runoff Voting”

“Should the U.S. adopt alternative, pro-multipartisan voting systems?” –
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=170368

“What would a multipartisan America be like?” –
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=212598

And there was one I started in GQ:

“New Zealand: What political changes have resulted from the switch to PR?”

(NZ switched to PR in 1993.)