# What is the best way to choose candidates? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 9, 2018, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078 "2018-04-09T13:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/81 "2018-04-19T13:51:47Z")
Well, of course voters should be manipulating the election! That’s the whole point of voting. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/82 "2018-04-19T14:30:28Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Since when don’t Democrats ever win in states like Florida, Missouri, and New Hampshire, just to name a few? More Democrats than Republicans voted for McCain in states like those in 2008. I didn’t say anything at all about states as a whole. I was talking about localities. This is one of the problems that I see in politics. People concentrate on the big races, as if they are the only races that are ever important, and completely ignore the smaller races. Well, IMHO, the smaller races are the ones that are more important to your personal life, and they are the ones where you have more of an effect with your vote. So when you counter my “This area has never elected a democrat” with, “Since when don’t democrats ever win in states like…” it shows that you are utterly missing/ignoring the point. > [@](#): > > So you think trying to sabotage the other party is dishonest, yet you hound me for my opposition to the practice? WTF? 😕 No, just asking you how you would enforce such a law. > [@](#): > > So you think trying to sabotage the other party is dishonest, but should be legal? Between the inability to enforce the law, and the draconian limitations to freedoms that would be required if it were, the far lesser evil is to not have the government make laws about who people can vote for. > [@](#): > > Nice set of ethics you have there. It is nice, isn’t it. I would consider it unethical to have the government demand voters to vote in a certain way. Lets say you have 2 Candidates in the primary. One you really like, and would love to see elected to office. The other you despise. Well you vote for your guy in the primary, and he doesn’t win. Now the general is coming around, and you still despise this candidate from your party. While you disagree with the other party on some issues, you feel the candidate that they put up is better than the one from your party. At this point, are you saying that the government should mandate that you vote for the candidate who you feel is less suited for office? Do you consider this to be a good thing? > [@](#): > > I’m beating your pants off on this issue. Open primaries are bad, mkay? I’m not sure that you are actually understanding what an open vs closed primary is, actually, as you seem to be under the impression that a closed primary means that you have no choice but to vote for the candidates that your registered party has nominated. > [@pkbites](#): > > When I have time I’ll dig up the cites. I know it was a decade ago but don’t you remember the controversy regarding the exit polls showing more self described Democrats voting for McCain in the primary than Republicans? McCain did not win a single primary until 'Super Tuesday" when a slew of Democrats crossed over in open primary states and voted for him. > > Limbaugh had called for Republicans to do the same thing and cross over and vote in the Democratic race, to help Barack Obama win, on the premise that Clinton had a better chance of beating their candidate. “Operation Chaos” I believe. It was a slimy thing for Democrats to do and it was just as slimy for Republicans to return the favor. If someone is so goddamned worried that the other party is going to win perhaps their party should run a better candidate against them. I think I’ve been pretty balance on condemning both parties for doing this. Do you see any difference there? On the one side, you had Democrats who liked and respected McCain, and who probably thought that Clinton was going to get the nomination, and probably would have voted for McCain over Clinton. Even if they are planning on voting for Clinton, they still prefered McCain to the other republican offerings, and would rather use their vote to promote a better candidate for the other party, in case their party lost. OTOH, you had Limbaugh specifically call for republican voters to cross party lines for the specific purpose of sabotaging the other party’s primary. It wasn’t him saying that Obama would be better than Clinton, it was him saying that voting for Obama in the primary would harm the democrats. One had the intent of helping to elect the most qualified candidate, and the other had the intent of causing harm and pissing people off. Equating the two is just trying to play the false equivalency game. > [@](#): > > Answer me this: if open primaries are so great, why are they not used in a majority of the states? One of the great things about states is that they don’t have to all follow the one size fits all solution of the federal govt. They can choose how to do things. Some may think that they are better one way or another, but states get the chance to try them out. If you are in a state with open primaries, you may lobby to change that, or if you are in a state with close,d you can lobby to keep it that way. So, really, you could ask that about any law that is different from one state to another. If the law is so “great”, then why don’t all other states use that law, implying that states should not be allowed to break lockstep with the any other states. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/83 "2018-04-19T21:03:34Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > **Hari Seldon** and **penultima thule** have already posted, but I’ll chime in as well. > > As **Hari** posted, in Canada, the nomination process is similar for both federal and provincial elections: the party organization in each electoral constituency (we call them “ridings” informally, for historical reasons) is responsible for nominating a candidate. It’s done by a local meeting of party members - literally, “card-carrying members” - that term has meaning here. It’s not open to the public at large. To be a voting member, you have to sign up a certain period before the nomination and pay a membership fee - typically about $10 to $25 dollars. > > The vote is run entirely by the riding organization. It’s not tied to the electoral laws of the provincial or federal government, and it’s not run by the provincial or federal electoral officers. > > Whoever wins the local nomination is the candidate at the general election, subject to being accepted as a candidate by the party leader, who has to sign off on it. > > The reason for this approach is that parties in Canada have a definite ideological framework. They’re not meant to be simply electoral vehicles for individuals to take advantage of, which increasingly seems to be case in the US (from this outsider’s perspective). It’s considered important that parties have some control over the candidates they get, to make sure all of their candidates are roughly of the same ideology and support the same things. > > There isn’t the “pre-selection” process which **penultima thule** mentions for Australia, and which I understand is also common in Britain. Naturally, a candidate wants to get as much support from the local party bigwigs as possible, but as far as I know, every party provides that any party member can be nominated if they get enough signatures from party members. They don’t need the approval of a local committee to stand for the nomination. > > And, although incumbency is a big factor, it’s not decisive. Sitting MPs/MLAs can find that they don’t get the nomination. It’s rare, but it does happen: just last month, a sitting MP in Saskatoon was defeated for the nomination. He says he made the mistake of complacency and didn’t do enough local work as MP, opening an opportunity for others to challenge him: [Brad Trost loses Tory nomination race in his Saskatoon riding](https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/brad-trost-loses-tory-nomination-race-in-his-saskatoon-riding-1.3837931). By Conservative Party rules, he can’t seek a nomination in another riding, but he could run as an independent if he wishes. > > Where I disagree, respectfully, with **Hari** is his comment that it really doesn’t matter who gets the nomination because votes in the Commons are all party line votes. That’s true, but it doesn’t answer the question: who sets the party line? That’s a complicated question, because it’s a mixture of what the party rank-and-file say at party policy conventions; the platform that the party ran on; the views of the individual caucus members; and the views of the PM and Cabinet. Again, you have to remember the stronger ideological component of Canadian parties: because the parties have a clearer ideological identity, they will attract as candidates people who support the ideology of that party. > > For example, after a lengthy policy debate internally in the Liberal Party, they came out in favour of marijuana decriminalization. There will be a vote on the bill later this year in the Commons, and you can be sure that every Liberal MP will vote for it. Part of the reason for that is that every Liberal MP, as a candidate in the general election, campaigned for decriminalisation. If they weren’t in favour of it, they wouldn’t have been in the Liberal Party. Yes, the Whip will be on the vote as well, but the details of the bill have already been debated internally in the Liberal caucus and the Cabinet. That occurs behind the scenes, but it doesn’t mean that the Liberal caucus are just dummy votes for the PM. They vote the party line because they’ve been involved in the formation of that party line, and generally support it, although they may have some disagreements on points of detail. > > In short, our parliamentary system is much more ideological (in the sense of common origanisting political principles for each party) and more collectivist in approach than is the case in the US. > > One other point: the power of the party leader to reject a candidate chosen locally. A party leader uses this power at their peril. There have been cases where the party leader has rejected the candidate chosen by the riding organization and parachuted in a candidate. That often does not work well, as it can alienate the local party organization and they won’t work for the parachute candidate, making it difficult for the parachute candidate to win the riding in the general. > > But, the power does have a role: to maintain consistency in all candidates in supporting the party platform. For instance, fifty years ago, the issue of official bilingualism was extremely divisive. The Progressive Conservative party, after a gut-wrenching internal debate, came out in support. And then one riding nominated as their candidate a strong opponent of official bilingualism, challenging the party’s position on it. The leader of the party, Bob Stanfield, refused to sign the nomination papers, because the party had made the decision, as a party, to support official bilingualism. He wasn’t prepared to have that debate re-opened by one of the party candidates in the general election, and was prepared to lose that particular seat rather than have that happen. > > That’s what I mean by the parties being both more ideological and more collective in their approach in our parliamentary system. There had been a rancorous internal debate on the party position, but once it was decided by the party, it was expected that all candidates would support it. > > Different system than in the US, clearly; YMMV whether you would prefer it or not. (I think **pkbites** probably would, based on his comments in this thread.) > > One other point: the attitude of many US posters in this thread appears to be that the public at large should be involved in choosing party candidates. That’s not the case in Canada. And, that has the effect, it seems to me, of reducing partisanship. By and large, the number of people who are involved in the nomination process is pretty low. Most people don’t identify strongly as supporters of one party or another, and there is no way to tell from their voting records what their party affiliation is, if any, because there is no public vote on nominations, unlike the US primary, where it’s a matter of public record if you voted in the Republican or Democratic primary. That means it’s not as tribal here, in my opinion; again, YMMV. Thanks to everyone who answered my question but this response was really good. I vote we invade Canada and confiscate their electoral system. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/84 "2018-04-19T21:57:11Z")
**ENOUGH!** This thread has cooled down a little bit, but before everyone gets home from work and fires themselves up again: KNOCK OFF THE PERSONAL REMARKS. Stick to simply discussing the issue and leave guesses about what your opponent “REALLY” wants or thinks out of the discussion. Similarly, speculation about the ethical or moral standards of one’s opponents, (or “the other” party), has no place in this discussion. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/85 "2018-04-19T22:44:00Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/86 "2018-04-19T23:02:28Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > This thread has cooled down a little bit, … A lengthy discussion of the minutia of Canadian electoral rules will calm down _any_ thread. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2018, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/87 "2018-04-19T23:16:12Z")
Let me just say that I basically agree with PKBites and I don’t recall ever voting for a Republican either before I after I moved to Canada (and continued to vote in federal elections). Another point. When I first registered (as a Democrat) in my home commonwealth of PA, that gave me the right to vote in the Democratic primary, but did not, AFAIK, create any obligation to vote for Democrats in the general election. Delaware County, where I lived, was so overwhelmingly Republican that enough Republicans could register as Democrats that they could dominate the primary in that county and assure that all three county commissioners were actually Republicans, although one of the three was supposed to be from the minority party. That is, each party was officially allowed to run only two candidates. And this was without an open primary. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/88 "2018-04-22T06:39:38Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I raise this question in all seriousness. When I was a kid, candidates were basically chosen by party leaders. They mostly didn’t do such a bad job because they wanted to win elections. But it was considered undemocratic and so primaries became the basic way. Let me prepend my post by saying that the following is “if I was God emperor”. I am not making these proposals with the expectation of them finding any support from any corner. I am making them purely with the intention of making it clear that there are better ways of going about all of this, that would be better for America, and that people could try to use their populist powers to achieve. Personally, I am fine with the primary system for House representatives. The House is meant to be a populist, popular body of people who represent all of the idiocy and insanity of your average person. I think it helps to “keep things real”. The government can’t become too ivory tower idealist and lose track of what the people are ready for and ready to swallow as law. But I am worried that it is not very functional these days and I think that that’s a matter of the greater speed of reporting, the reduced amount of filtering that goes into it, and the optimization of making news into entertainment through market forces over the last many decades. I think that all of those crazy, primary winning House representatives would be decent representatives of the people once they get to DC and start talking to experts and other politicians if only they weren’t being watched like ants under a microscope on everything they’re doing and whether that’s exactly favorable to the whims of their base that day. The real answer, for the House, is secrecy. Legislation should be presented by a Committee, with no details about who added what. Votes should be taken in secret and only accessible via warrant, in cases where a legislator is being investigated for bribery, etc. Now, for the Senate, I believe that we should go back to having the person be elected by the state government, but using a strategy that doesn’t turn it back into being a “highest bidder takes the prize” affair. In short, all elected officials of the state (judges, sheriffs, politicians, etc.) will be **randomly** grouped up into sets of 6-12 people. Each group will meet and elect one of their number to represent them. From among those who were elected, new groups of 6-12 people will be **randomly** decided, and those people will meet to elect one from their number. This process will be repeated until a single person is elected Senator. (Or, if two Senators are necessary, then the final group would elect two people.) For the Presidency, I have given my recommended strategy before, but I will write it again. Every mid-term year, each county in the US will randomly select a group of 12 citizens. Those 12 people will meet and vote for one of their number to become their representative at the Electoral College. All members of the Electoral College will then be free to propose candidates for the Presidency over the next, say, 30 days. That list will be reduced down to just those who will be eligible on the election year, and who indicate a willingness to accept the job if they are elected. The filtered list will then be passed to the FBI. They will run a basic security background check on each of those people and report those results to the members of the Electoral College when the College meets, a year and a half later, in May of the election year. The Federal government will provide the College with a place to meet and deliberate and provide for the travel and lodging of the College and the Candidates. Before beginning, the College will solicit criteria for ranking candidates from among their numbers, and vote on those criteria to reduce them down to a reasonable number (e.g. 5-10). The Candidates will each have a chance to present their positions, strategy, aims, etc. as President of the United States to the College, and the College members will have a chance to ask questions to the Candidates. As they do so, the College will rate each Candidate in accordance with the criteria (e.g. 1-5), as well as ranking the criteria for how much they believe that it matters in general and/or for that Candidate in specific. Each Candidate will have their scores accumulated and the top 2-3 candidates will be offered to the public as the possible Presidential Candidates. A popular vote will then decide the actual President. (Sidenote: I would suggest dropping the debate in favor of the countering PowerPoint presentation.) Now, granted, this process is quite elaborate, but I do have reasons for that. For the Presidency, we’re not just looking for someone who is acceptable to everyone. We’re looking for an individual who has a real vision and the ability to lead towards it. To discover that, you need to give the members of the Electoral College a sort of blueprint on really taking each person apart and trying to ascertain that the person really has some dynamic qualities. We’re not looking for popularity or agreeableness. We’re looking for specific attributes. At the same time, while I could simply write down a list of criteria that I think the President should be elected based on: 1. Trustworthiness 2. Vision for the country’s future 3. Ability to lead a large and complex organization 4. Ability to analyze data I accept that those criteria are just the ones that I think are important. Other people will have a different opinion on what the key criteria are. I think it’s fair to let the criteria battle it out as well. But I do think that criteria are necessary. They’ll cause people to ask harder questions, to really think about what they’re doing in a professional manner, and to not just doze off in the middle of the proceedings. I think people do a better job when they have clear objectives. As it is today, most people do a poor job of voting because - fundamentally -we all view our input as being about as important as cheering for a sports team, and we expect the result of an election to have about as much impact on our lives as it matters whether our favorite sports team wins the trophy that year. Having the College come together as an actual group, deliberate, ask questions, come up with goals, and have to fine tune everything will - ideally - make the whole venture feel like a job. It’s something that you have to really put your professional hat on and approach like it’s meaningful and requires genuine interest and investigation. But we still want to make sure that the general public does like the candidate and does feel like they got their say in, and so we take what are ideally 2-3 highly vetted and strong candidates and give them to the general public to make the final choice on. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/89 "2018-04-22T12:20:34Z")
Why counties? They’re an essentially arbitrary creation of the states, are not uniform in size or in population, not all people even necessarily live in one, and a state can create new counties at will. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/90 "2018-04-22T13:56:05Z")
Getting back to the inquiry about the Canadian system, I forgot to mention that party nomination processes are separate from ballot access. There are no “sore loser” laws in Canada, where failure to get the party nomination bars you from running in the general election. Every Canadian citizen has the constitutional right to stand for election to the Commons and the provincial Assembly. You don’t need the nomination of a party to do that, and your right to stand for election is unaffected by losing a party nomination contest. One party, the federal Conservative Party, has an internal rule that if you are defeated for the party nomination in one riding, you can’t seek the party nomination in another riding. I don’t know if other parties have that rule. I only learned of it in the last general election because there was a particularly messy Conservative nomination contest in one riding in Ontario that attracted a lot of media attention. The rule got mentioned in the media coverage. To be nominated to stand in a riding, you just need to file a nomination form signed by a certain number of eligible voters in the riding you’re running in, as well as a lot of administrative documents, like having an official agent, a registered business office, and so on. At the federal level, you need signatures of 100 voters. The number probably varies at the provincial level, but that’s the general approach. The other big difference between the Canadian and US systems is that there is no distinction between the parties in registration rules. In the US, the two main parties are grandfathered into ballot access laws, while other parties starting up need to meet stringent conditions to get on the ballot. That’s not the case in Canada: it’s very easy for a party to register, and all parties are subject to the same rules to maintain registration. Registration at the federal level requires filing a lot of documents, like the party constitution, the names and addresses of the leader and officers of the party, and signatures of 250 membres of the party, consenting to registration. Once registered, a party gets the right to have the party name on the ballot for each of its nominees, and to issue tax receipts for contributions, and some other benefits. So long as the party fields at least one candidate in the general election and files all of the necessary documents, they stay registered. And, since federal elections are run by the federal agency, Elections Canada, there’s only one registration required. A federal party doesn’t have to register under different rules in each province and territory. Those looser party registration rules make it a lot easier for new parties to start up, in my opinion, than is the case in the States. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/91 "2018-04-22T15:45:24Z")
It would be interesting to find out if, faced with the sudden imposition of a Canadian electoral system, Americans would have the maturity to handle it or if every yeahoo in Bumfuck County, Alabama with a few Koch dollars behind them would insist on having their own political party. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/92 "2018-04-22T15:50:45Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > It would be interesting to find out if, faced with the sudden imposition of a Canadian electoral system, Americans would have the maturity to handle it or if every yeahoo in Bumfuck County, Alabama with a few Koch dollars behind them would insist on having their own political party. Is that really a problem? If someone is a tiny political party, they have little influence. They have to ally and work with other parties to get stuff done, to have their voices heard. In some ways, that may be better than having two massive parties in which few voices make it to the top. If lots of small parties are used to working together, a coalition of them may be better able to make reasonable negotiations and compromises than one big party that is supposed to be following a platform. If the “Conservatives to bring back the 1950’s” and the “Liberals to make everything legal” parites can’t agree, it’s not so much a problem as long as the “Republicans who support america” and the “Liberals who support america” can come to an agreement. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/93 "2018-04-22T15:57:44Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > I am. [in favor of returning to the smoke-filled room] Especially for presidential elections. Especially since I live in an open primary state where people can cross over and get a candidate nominated and then not have to vote for that candidate in the general election. It skews the process and is evidence at how absurd the primary system is. The party leaders should pick a candidate that represents their platform and present them to the people, not the other way around… I could get on board with this. I think there’s some value in having the candidates vetted by people who actually know something about politics about about the candidates - not just what they say on their web site, or how they look on TV, but what sort of people they are. But I don’t think we can get there from here. Given that we have primaries, I think we should improve our voting methodology. Arrow’s theorem shows there is not perfect system. But some systems are better than others. > [@someone above](#): > > From a strictly mathematical point of view, there are better systems than IRV, which doesn’t always follow the Condorcet condition. > > That said, one essential feature of a voting system (not addressed by Arrow) is that the voters must trust it, and that in turn means that it’s essential that the voters understand it. Which means that Condorcet voting systems might work fine for the World Science Fiction Society, which is full of nerds, but they won’t work for electing any nation’s leaders. Which leaves either Approval Voting or IRV (either of which is far better than what we have now) as the real-world best. Yup, while IRV is better than what we use now, it’s actually not very good. And it’s extremely complicated. That’s why I favor approval voting. Approval voting is extremely simple. You vote for as many candidates as you approve of. That can be zero, or all of them, or any number in between. (If you vote for zero or all, your vote doesn’t affect the outcome. But it does help signal the overall level of approval of the candidates.) It produces pretty good results most of the time, unlike our current method. I note that “fair vote” strongly prefers ranked choice methods. > **[New Lessons from Problems with Approval Voting in Practice - FairVote](https://fairvote.org/new_lessons_from_problems_with_approval_voting_in_practice/)** > > FairVote is a nonpartisan organization seeking better elections for all. We research and advance voting reforms that make democracy more functional and representative for every American. Ranked choice methods are much more complicated to tally, but give better condorcet answers than approval voting. The article says that voters using approval voting tend to be afraid to back second-choice candidates for fear of weakening the odds of their favorite candidate, and so approval voting tends to devolve to first-past-the-post with a few extra votes. Maybe they are right, I dunno. But I approve of both approval voting and ranked choice as better methods then what we have. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/94 "2018-04-22T16:21:03Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Is that really a problem? If someone is a tiny political party, they have little influence. > > They have to ally and work with other parties to get stuff done, to have their voices heard. > > In some ways, that may be better than having two massive parties in which few voices make it to the top. If lots of small parties are used to working together, a coalition of them may be better able to make reasonable negotiations and compromises than one big party that is supposed to be following a platform. > > If the “Conservatives to bring back the 1950’s” and the “Liberals to make everything legal” parites can’t agree, it’s not so much a problem as long as the “Republicans who support america” and the “Liberals who support america” can come to an agreement. I think it’s only a problem if the electorate is so splintered – and so person -contingent – that it becomes entirely too difficult to form coalition governments. Multi -party nations are doing pretty well in lots of places. I also don’t think there’s really anything stopping a political party from implementing an encompassing party plank and picking their candidates to adhere to it now. The main obstacle appears to be the resistance from the massive election industry that the founding fathers never foresaw and which have a powerfully vested interest in the status quo. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/95 "2018-04-22T18:37:27Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > It would be interesting to find out if, faced with the sudden imposition of a Canadian electoral system, Americans would have the maturity to handle it or if every yeahoo in Bumfuck County, Alabama with a few Koch dollars behind them would insist on having their own political party. Aside from the length of the ballot, what’s the harm in that? I think that’s a major difference in philosophy between the two political systems. As near as I can tell from the wiki article on ballot access, in the US, the mainline parties argue that there should be strict standards for parties to get on the ballot, to encourage “big-tent” parties. (The fact that that approach helps to keep the two mainline parties in an electoral duopoly is purely incidental, I’m sure. 😉 ) The Canadian approach is electoral free-market: anyone who wants to start a party can do so, if they meet pretty minimal administrative requirements, and then it’s up to the party supporters to try to persuade the voters to vote for their candidates. As long as they keep trying, and keep their filings up to date, they stay registered for as long as they want. One other point to consider is that our greater emphasis in Canada on party control over their own nomination processes reflects our parliamentary system. To stay in power once a party wins the general election, they need discipline. If they fail to maintain party discipline, they could be turfed out of office. The nomination process is a reflection of that need for discipline, like the official languages example I gave previously: once the party has collectively decided on a policy, it’s essential that individual MPs support that decision, or else there’s a risk they might win an election and then lose power in a vote in Parliament. Just to take two examples from the States and transplant them to Canada: budget and “repeal Obamacare.” In Canada, if the government party fails to pass a budget, then the gouvernement falls and there’s a general election. As well, if a party has campaigned on a major issue, like “repeal Obamacare” and then is defeated in Parliament on the repeal vote, that’s treated as a confidence measure and the government falls, also triggering a general election. Our MPs have responsibility forced on them by the system, unlike the situation in Congress where these two examples don’t have that drastic effect. John McCain can turn “thumbs down” on a Republican measure, and the Republicans maintain control of Congress. Tea-partiers can defeat budgets and shut down the gouvernement, but they keep their seats. That wouldn’t happen in Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/96 "2018-04-22T18:55:20Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Aside from the length of the ballot, what’s the harm in that? > > I think that’s a major difference in philosophy between the two political systems. > > As near as I can tell from the wiki article on ballot access, in the US, the mainline parties argue that there should be strict standards for parties to get on the ballot, to encourage “big-tent” parties. (The fact that that approach helps to keep the two mainline parties in an electoral duopoly is purely incidental, I’m sure. 😉 ) > > The Canadian approach is electoral free-market: anyone who wants to start a party can do so, if they meet pretty minimal administrative requirements, and then it’s up to the party supporters to try to persuade the voters to vote for their candidates. As long as they keep trying, and keep their filings up to date, they stay registered for as long as they want. > > One other point to consider is that our greater emphasis in Canada on party control over their own nomination processes reflects our parliamentary system. To stay in power once a party wins the general election, they need discipline. If they fail to maintain party discipline, they could be turfed out of office. > > The nomination process is a reflection of that need for discipline, like the official languages example I gave previously: once the party has collectively decided on a policy, it’s essential that individual MPs support that decision, or else there’s a risk they might win an election and then lose power in a vote in Parliament. > > Just to take two examples from the States and transplant them to Canada: budget and “repeal Obamacare.” > > In Canada, if the government party fails to pass a budget, then the gouvernement falls and there’s a general election. As well, if a party has campaigned on a major issue, like “repeal Obamacare” and then is defeated in Parliament on the repeal vote, that’s treated as a confidence measure and the government falls, also triggering a general election. > > Our MPs have responsibility forced on them by the system, unlike the situation in Congress where these two examples don’t have that drastic effect. John McCain can turn “thumbs down” on a Republican measure, and the Republicans maintain control of Congress. Tea-partiers can defeat budgets and shut down the gouvernement, but they keep their seats. That wouldn’t happen in Canada. You don’t have to sell me. Those are all things I like about the Canadian system. Ours isn’t working, maybe by design, but it’s too dysfunctional for 21st century governance and I don’t believe it’s capable of solving the problems without a structural overhaul. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/97 "2018-04-22T23:14:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Northern Piper** : > > As well, if a party has campaigned on a major issue, like “repeal Obamacare” and then is defeated in Parliament on the repeal vote, that’s treated as a confidence measure and the government falls, also triggering a general election. To be clear, is that automatic, or is it just How Things are Done? Could a party say “Well, yeah, we campaigned on that, but only as a minor side issue, no big deal”, or say “Thanks, but we’d really rather not hold another election right now, and it’s a couple of years before we have to”? I ask, because there are a lot of things in the US system that _used to_ be just How Things are Done, but which the Republicans aren’t Doing any more, and we don’t have any real recourse against it. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/98 "2018-04-22T23:34:53Z")
No, this is one of the strongest conventions in our system: if the government can’t get its legislation through the House and is defeated, that’s a matter of confidence and an election has to be called. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/99 "2018-04-23T00:18:25Z")
So who decides whether something is a Major Issue that the Party Campaigned On? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2018, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078/100 "2018-04-23T01:04:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Why counties? They’re an essentially arbitrary creation of the states, are not uniform in size or in population, not all people even necessarily live in one, and a state can create new counties at will. Sorry, I mean district. Equal sized (population-wise) regions according to the number of electors that have been apportioned to the College. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-choose-candidates/812078.md?page=6)