Homura
07-16-2015, 03:55 PM
I had been thinking democracy and democratic systems lately. It's...a lot more interesting than I had expected.
So the American system is a duality of systems:
First Past the Post (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting)
Winner takes all is the electoral system. Your district votes for a single candidate, and the candidate represents the entire district. It's the most common way of doing it. However, this is probably the least efficient way of representing any single district. Interesting, because our current 2-party system (and in Canada, the trending of our political systems toward a 2-party system as the Liberal/NDP must essentially become one to be able to combat the Torys) is a product of this simple fact.
That is, any given third party cannot exist, as voters who vote for a third party is essentially equal to not voting at all. This entrenches your choice to 2 parties ONLY, as picking your preferred party will make it so that you're actively contributing to helping the greater of two evils, whichever you deem as such.
This system is vulnerable to gerrymandering, which is drawing the districts so that certain elected individuals will win every time, and entrenches more extremism over time.
Electoral College (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29)
This system overrepresents smaller states and underrepresents larger states, because of how the seats are allocated at a minimum of 3. So interestingly, due to the way things work, we have the 5 or 6 swing states that decide the election every time under first past the post. This system for selecting the president does help in some ways to diminish the problem of a 3rd party by essentially drowning it out by giving every seat in a state to the one party or the other...or I guess that isn't a good thing either.
So what other systems exist?
Majority Rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_rule)
This is in contrast with Electoral College. The flip side of electoral college is simple majority. The upside of this is of course the most popular guy would win. The downside is that the voice of smaller states tend to be drowned out by the larger and more populous states. It's not the issue of majority rule vs electoral college that seems to be the problem (or rather it's the lesser of the problems), but rather that I think the issue returns to first past the post system and how it always trends to a 2-party system.
Mixed-member Proportional Representation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation)
I think this is interesting because voters have more choice in the manner. Voters pick not just the party but also a candidate. So a given district would have double the seats in total, but you vote for a candidate like normal in first past the post system, and then you vote for a preferred party. The candidate selection is obviously the same as before, with the same amount of strategic voting that would occur, and then the remaining seats are filled in accordance to party preference in representation. This system gives the most power to third parties and on, because this system does not trend toward a 2-party alignment outside of the initial candidate vote.
So yes, under this situation, you can vote for say a republican nominee, and then vote democratic as your party of choice. This will say balance things out with equal representation from both parties. Even here there is potential for abuse as listed in the wiki article.
It's an interesting food for thought, that even in democracy there are other systems to think about that still constitutes a democracy.
So the American system is a duality of systems:
First Past the Post (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting)
Winner takes all is the electoral system. Your district votes for a single candidate, and the candidate represents the entire district. It's the most common way of doing it. However, this is probably the least efficient way of representing any single district. Interesting, because our current 2-party system (and in Canada, the trending of our political systems toward a 2-party system as the Liberal/NDP must essentially become one to be able to combat the Torys) is a product of this simple fact.
That is, any given third party cannot exist, as voters who vote for a third party is essentially equal to not voting at all. This entrenches your choice to 2 parties ONLY, as picking your preferred party will make it so that you're actively contributing to helping the greater of two evils, whichever you deem as such.
This system is vulnerable to gerrymandering, which is drawing the districts so that certain elected individuals will win every time, and entrenches more extremism over time.
Electoral College (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_%28United_States%29)
This system overrepresents smaller states and underrepresents larger states, because of how the seats are allocated at a minimum of 3. So interestingly, due to the way things work, we have the 5 or 6 swing states that decide the election every time under first past the post. This system for selecting the president does help in some ways to diminish the problem of a 3rd party by essentially drowning it out by giving every seat in a state to the one party or the other...or I guess that isn't a good thing either.
So what other systems exist?
Majority Rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_rule)
This is in contrast with Electoral College. The flip side of electoral college is simple majority. The upside of this is of course the most popular guy would win. The downside is that the voice of smaller states tend to be drowned out by the larger and more populous states. It's not the issue of majority rule vs electoral college that seems to be the problem (or rather it's the lesser of the problems), but rather that I think the issue returns to first past the post system and how it always trends to a 2-party system.
Mixed-member Proportional Representation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation)
I think this is interesting because voters have more choice in the manner. Voters pick not just the party but also a candidate. So a given district would have double the seats in total, but you vote for a candidate like normal in first past the post system, and then you vote for a preferred party. The candidate selection is obviously the same as before, with the same amount of strategic voting that would occur, and then the remaining seats are filled in accordance to party preference in representation. This system gives the most power to third parties and on, because this system does not trend toward a 2-party alignment outside of the initial candidate vote.
So yes, under this situation, you can vote for say a republican nominee, and then vote democratic as your party of choice. This will say balance things out with equal representation from both parties. Even here there is potential for abuse as listed in the wiki article.
It's an interesting food for thought, that even in democracy there are other systems to think about that still constitutes a democracy.