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OT 2 party political system
I didn't want to de-rail the Iraq thread, but I was interested in talking about the 2 party system.
I do not know all the answers, but I think the 2 part system here in the U.S. has driven a wedge in our nation. It has divided us so much, that we work against each other, perhaps that is human nature. I don't remember where I read it, but supposably George Washington warned against going to a 2 party system. I think other than the far right/left most americans (maybe 80%) are down the middle, at least close enough that they can compromise with someone on the other side of that 80%. The way our system is set up, I don't ever see that happening, but I can wonder about it. Just a thought. |
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Just some questions (from a non-American) : the 2-party system is a matter of custom, correct ? People are used to having 2 parties so that's why there are 2 parties ?
Is there anything to prevent the rise of local 'other' parties ? parties that have their own candidates at the state level but support other parties at the national level ? |
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Well, there is a distinct disadvantage to having many small parties, as has been common in countries like Italy. The down side is that you can only get a ruling party when you get a composite party, but these are notoriously unstable because if splinter party X doesn't get their way, they'll pull out and force a new election. That's why Italy has an election every 20 minutes or so... and if Isreal wasn't so challenged by the Palestinian bombings, it would likely have this problem too. As a result of this sort of instability, the country ends up with the inability to have a long term international policy, trade agreements, etc.
The disadvantage of having the "2 party system", even thought there really is nothing blocking more parties, is that it doesn't keep the politicians honest. In Canada we have a multi party system, but only with 4 major parties and a fifth that serves a social policy role (the NDP, and it is quite respected) even though it will never rule. The biggest problem is that one of the parties, the Liberals, have figured out that the majority of people are in the middle - and so they've become the "middle party", giving them election after election. It has evolved into a one-party political system, where one party is no longer responsible or inovative - because they don't need to be! I'd take your divisive, polarized system over the stagnant system because at least you have some degree of accountability to the electorate. The frequency of American elections is obviously annoying, but also serves a pretty good role in giving voters instant input into their representatives = instant accounting on the part of the politicians. Though in theory I'm in favor of the American system becoming multi-party (three would be good), I'm just afraid that the third party would become the "middle party" and turn the US into the dictocracy that is Canada. Just my thoughts, obviously many Canadians will disagree with me. (Edit: and for those of you not from Canada/not familiar with the anxiety built up around regionalism, it would be interesting to compare/contrast my views with those of people in other regions of Canada. I'm a westerner, and probably have a different view of this than say someone from central Canada (ie Ontario, perhaps Quebec) or eastern Canada (esp. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland)). [ May 29, 2003, 19:31: Message edited by: jimbob ] |
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I have a number of complaints about the two-party system, but the biggest has to do with the way committee chairmanships are granted in the Senate and House of Representatives. The party that has the majority gets the chairmanships, thus getting even more power. If I vote for an Arizona Democrat because I like their politics (yes, it has happened), and that person's election swings the majority in the House or Senate, that contributes to the power of some people whom I REALLY don't like politically. This almost forces me to vote Republican for my national representatives, no matter what I think of the individual. If chairmanships were granted in proportion to the number of representatives from each party, it would be much easier to cross party lines. It would also let smaller parties with one or two members have a crack at chairmanships. I'm not sure what the best way to distribute the chairmanships would be, but there must be a better way than all to the majority.
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yes, but at least you have more than one house! In Canada we only have one (power holding) house, and it's chairperson equivalent (Speaker of the House) is voted in by the rest of the house = the ruling party chooses a candidate, and baring a miracle, they get both the majority and the Speaker of the House.
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The two-party system is basically tyranny by gang, in my opinion.
I think that with computers available to process votes, voters should be able to vote for as many candidates as they want for any position, and many people should be able to run. That way, if the two big-party candidates are Hitler and Stalin, and the independents include someone likeable but no one thinks an independent can win, voters can vote for their big-party "lesser of two evils" as well as the likable independents, so the likable independents could win if they are in fact more liked than the two party evils, without people having to give up their choice of lesser big-party evil. Of course, the two big parties are currently kept in power by this system, are perhaps in the pocket of megacorporate media, and the two party system is conventionally unquestioned. So, it may be a long road to reform. There are however already some organizations trying to promote electoral reform more or less as I suggested. PvK |
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Obligatory Simpsons' quotes:
Kent Brockman: Senator Dole, why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton? Kodos (as Bob Dole): It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way your planet is doomed....DOOMED! Kent: Well, a refreshingly frank response there from Senator Bob Dole! ... Kang: It's true! We are aliens! But what are you going to do about it? It's a two party system! You have to vote for one of us! Man in Crowd: Well, I'm just going to vote for a third party! Kang: Go ahead! Throw your vote away!! HA HA HA HA!!! |
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PvK, what exactly are you suggestion there? Variable votes? If someone doesn't come out on top, the votes for the losers are re-counted using the second selection?
Ex, there are four candiates A, B, C, and D. Voter 1 picks, in this order: A C D B His vote is first counted for A. If A doesn't have enough votes to win, Voter 1's vote becomes a vote for C. If C doesn't, D. |
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Narrew, yeah, pretty much. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Damn that Jefferson! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif
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I think there could be several ways to improve the voting system, but the one that seems most natural to me would be to have the votes be weighted equally, and a simple majority wins, in a single vote-casting. That is, everyone votes for all of the candidates whom they approve enough to want in office, and the one with the most approvals wins.
There should probably be a minimum. Perhaps a candidate needs at least, say, 50% approval to win. If no one gets the required minimum vote, then I suppose it depends on whether it's considered more desirable to get someone elected immediately, or whether it's more desirable to insist that elected offcials get at least a certain minimum amount of approval. That might vary depending on the type of post. If speed is desired, then maybe don't have a minimum, or make the minimum low, and just choose whoever got the highest approval, as long as it meets the low minimum. If a minimum approval is considered more important, then perhaps hold a new election, and perhaps disqualify all the candidates from the first round, since none of them were approved by the required percentage of voters. PvK Quote:
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PvK, I think what Phoenix-D was trying to point out (without saying it), is that with that system, someone will get the majority of votes.
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PvK, I think what Phoenix-D was trying to point out (without saying it), is that with that system, someone will get the majority of votes.
EDIT: Sounds good in theory, not sure how it would work in practice. Like who would be the first candidate to dispose of? Probably, a better way is the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and his votes redistributed amonge the others. And so on, until there is a clear winner. |
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"That is, everyone votes for all of the candidates whom they approve enough to want in office, and the one with the most approvals wins"
How is this any different than the current? Unless you restrict people from voting twice for the same person.. |
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The more I think about it, the more attractive it seems.
For example. Candidate A has a platform which 60% of the voter approve. Candidate B has a platform which 40% of the voters approve. Normally Candidate A would win. Then comes the spoiler. Candidate C has a platform which had the approval of 25% of voters who would normally approve of Candidate A's platform. So, you have Candidate B 40% of the votes Candidate A 35% of the votes Candidate C 25% of the votes. So, candidate B would normally win. But under the suggested voting method, Candidate C would be eliminated and his votes would be distributed in accordance with the voters second preference, which in this case would be A. So, A wins with 60% of the votes. Now, normally it would be more complicated than this with some of the votes going to B, but it does illustrate the point. |
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The two party system is enshrined in American politics because there is no other possible mathematical outcome given the voting system. For an eyeglossing acount of this see "An Economic Theory of Democracy" by Anthony Downs. Downs makes one big assumption however, that is that political issue space is only two dimensional (i.e. left vs right). As many of you are aware of the political compass website you can see that political issue space has perhaps more dimensions than just two (left and right on the horizontal, libertarian and authoritarian on the vertical). I say perhaps because even on that website people tend to be distributed along a diagonal line from the lower left corner to the upper right (with a few honorable and notable exceptions). So as long as most people roughly fall along this diagonal line, then we will have a two party system. The time is ripe for a shakeup in the system when most people fall off the existant line into the other dimension.
For example: traditionally the left (Democrats) are seen as fiscally liberal and socially liberal while the right is fiscally conservative and socially conservative (sadly given recent Republican behavior I can no longer say the right is fiscally conservative with a straight face. I have taken to calling them the "slash and spend" Republicans to go along nicely with the stupid "tax and spend" Democrats. But at least the Democrats understand that you have to raise income to raise spending.) Anyhow, a case can be made that most Americans are fiscally conservative but socially liberal (i.e. they would prefer for the government to spend responsibly and not tax very much but they would also prefer for the government to stay the hell out of their bedrooms and for it not to tell them what to do with their bodies). Thus the time may be right for a break in the two party system. The Democrats have tried to adopt to this social left fiscal right with the Democratic Leadership council and the so called New Democrats who are really quite fiscally conservative (for Democrats) while still retaining their social liberalness. I don't really see any such equivalent group on the Republican side. The moderate wing of that party as represented by John McCain and Jim Jeffords and Olympia Snow is pretty much dead in the water with very little power at all (Jeffords had to bolt the party). I would love to be contradicted on this point though. I would respect the Republicans a lot more if I saw any sort of moderate influence in their caucas at all instead of everywhere you look seeing narrow special interests being represented. (this Last point of course shows my personal bias... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I was going somewhere with all this long winded sillyness. Oh yeah. Before we go rushing off to fix the two party system by making it more representative, we have to ask the question is that actually a good idea? There are important protections for minority peoples and parties in the current system. I am afraid that one unavoidable side effect of making the system more representative is that we take a step closer to the "tyranny of the majority". Which the founding fathers were also very much afraid of and to my mind for very good reason. Pure Democracy has some pretty big problems. Anybody who's still reading... Cheers! Teal |
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cheers. browsing webcomics, looking here on the side.
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I think you guys got PvK all wrong:
Here's how I think what he said is supposed to work: 1) When you vote, you can choose as many of the candidates as you like. Zero and All are both acceptable votes. 2) Any candidates with less than 50% (or number of your choice) of the votes are eliminated from any future calculations. 3) If one or more candidates remain after step 2, the one with the most votes wins. So, For example: 4 candidates: Zack, Yolonda, Xavier, and Wanda. 8 voters: Alice, Bob, Cindy, David, Elaine, Fred, Gerald, and Helen. Alice votes for Zack. Bob votes for Zack and Xavier C votes for Y,X,W D votes for X,W E votes for Z,Y,W F votes for Z G votes for Z,W H votes for Z,W Totals: Zack - 6/8 = 75% approval Yolonda - 2/8 = 25% Xavier - 3/8 = 37.5% Wanda - 5/8 = 62.5% Thus, Yolonda and Xavier are kicked out of politics, and Zack gets the job. |
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Having two-round elections takes care of the 'candidates A, B and C' situation. In the first round, everyone votes for the candidate they like best. The two most-voted candidates go on to the second round, then everyone votes again. Unless someone changed their mind between rounds, A gets all the votes he had before, plus some of C's votes. Same for B. Those who voted for C in the first round didn't throw away their votes, they are still getting to decide who gets elected. Candidate C's situation is not too bad either, as he can gain political capital by supporting A or B or neither in the second round.
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One thing that bothers me is the career politician. I had always felt that serving the public should be a sacrifice not a full time job. At one time I thought term limits would be great, but I know there are good politicians on both sides of the isle, that they want to work for the public, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
I admit I am biased and when I hear politicians like Daschel and Kennedy spew excrement, I tend to waffle on the term limit idea. I do think that we need to repeal their perks when they leave office (yearly wage and medical) make them live off of Social Security and Medicare, if they did that, then perhaps politicians on both sides of isle will decide to do the right thing. If it is good enough for me then it should be good enough for them. Since we don't have term limits we have to hope the voting public will change their view on career Politicians. |
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The problem with cutting the pay of a politician is that s/he is still a politician. These are powerful people. If they are not secure, financially and in their future, they may use their power for the benefit of specific Groups who will then give them that security.
Of course, it's also possible that they are doing that already.... Wha'ch gonna do? |
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Thats true Loser, but if they knew they were not going to get a free ride after being elected, perhaps they will do their thing then get back to the private sector *shrug*
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As for pay, what if every person were given something like $5 to divide up amongst the politicians in office?
Disallow any other payments to them. With hundreds of millions of people, that should give them all a reasonable amount of pay, and keep them focussed on serving the people. |
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The difference from the current system is that in the current system, a voter can only vote for one candidate. In my suggestion, voters can vote for some, none, or all candidates. Example: Three candidates for president: Democrat, Republican, and Independent. 40% of the people actually like the Democrat. 40% of the people actually like the Republican. 60% of the people actually like the Independent. Note that adds to 140%, because some voters actually like more than one of the candidates. However, half of all voters are sure either a Democrat or a Republican will win. In the current system, that means half (probably more in reality) of the people who like the independent decide to vote for either the Republican or the Democrat, because they like one better than the other, and think voting for the Independent will have no effect. Results: ~45% Democrat ~45% Republican 10% Independent Democrat and Republican look like they are really popular, and Independent voters could have determined the vote for one or the other, if only they hadn't "wasted" their vote. In my system, the results would be: Democrat: 40% approval Republican: 40% approval Independent: 60% approval The truth comes out, and the most-approved candidate actually wins. PvK |
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JimBob:
I disagree with you. I think the main reason the Liberals keep getting elected is because the right is too splintered. If the Canadian Alliance and PCs got together, it might help - but many here in Eastern Canada still hate the PCs from the 80s (and the fact there leader is not so strong). The Canadian Alliance (basically Canada's Republicans http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif ) are percieved here by many as overly religious and too eager to privatize. That kind of stuff only flies in Canada's little Texas, Alberta, and parts of BC and Saskatchewan. You're right about the NDP, too far left to win an election but still a healthy part of the process. |
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I've seen the multiple-round voting system suggested a few times, but I doubt it will be implemented any time in the near future. There will be several people that will argue that the current system is more stable (in its ability to keep the status quo -- when you really look at it, there are pitifully few issues that are really in contention between Democrats and Republicans, especially in election years). The only way to change it on the federal level would be an Amendment to the Constitution, requiring IIRC, the approval of 75% of the states' legislatures, and 2/3rds of the US Congress. So that's quite a bit of inertia to overcome, seeing that most politicians have a vested interest in keeping the one-round, two-party voting system intact. It would be nice if the two-round system was in place, though. I wouldn't feel like so much of a foolish idealist for not voting for Gush or Bore... err... Demicans and Republicrats... errr... whatever. |
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Yep, that's why I called it a tyrrany. It may be labelled democracy (tm) - government by the people. However, if all the people can vote on is whether to have Scumbag A or Sleazebag B, etc., er...
It's more of a tyrrany by way of defective system, the people's own ignorance, and the people who take advantage of it. So it goes. I like to think that eventually, however, people will change it. Not that that's really any good. The way to get enough support and awareness to change it is through discussion, media, and arts. Fortunately, it's a pretty easy concept to illustrate. PvK |
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automatic lie detecter tests for polititions whenever they say something.
[ June 01, 2003, 06:17: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ] |
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narf, you are aware that lie detectors don't work that well, right?
They give lots of false positives, and people who know the system can breeze right through a test without a problem. |
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[Edit] Even if you do get a reliable lie detector, there is still the 1% problem. It goes something like this: Assumption 1: test has a 1% false positive rate, and a 1% false negative rate (a.k.a. 99% accurate) Assumption 2: 1% "positive" population (in this instance, 1% liars [and it would be about that after a reasonably short time under such circumstances]) Result: fully 1/2 of the positives are false! Don't believe me? Do the math: Total Population: 10,000 Liars = 1% of total = 100 Truth-tellers = 99% of total = 9,900 False positives = 1% of Truth tellers = 99 True positives = 99% of Liars = 99 Total positives = True positives + false positives = 198 True Positives / Total Positives = 99/198 = 1/2 On a side note, you also miss one of the liars, but at that level, it is rather insignificant. This is also a common argument against random or blanket drug testing. [/Edit] [ June 01, 2003, 09:38: Message edited by: Jack Simth ] |
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Captain Kwok: Yeah, those of us who were politically alive (ie >18yrs old) before the GST have no love for the PCs. What I don't understand is how they've survived in Eastern/Atlantic Canada - the HST is running at what, 20% !?!? (for those who don't know the HST, it's the "harmonized" federal and provincial sales taxes. Harmonized because it's easier for multiple branches of the government to screw purchasers when you only have one office collecting it all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )
My concern is that the Liberals are simply not accountable - how can they ever lose an election? I'd rather have the Yukon Advocacy of Ganga Smokers League And Commune (YAGSLAC) run the country than have the Liberals another term. We simply need the Liberals to be hungry enough to be honest, and it really doesn't matter who takes office in the interim - I mean how badly can the country be screwed up in a five year term anyways? It takes a good 3.5 years just to come to grips with the sprawling beaurocracy (sp). |
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no, i didn't know lie detecters where that ineficient.
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