The problem is pretty much all systems that make voting more fair also make Republicans win much less, so there's very little bipartisan motivation to make changes.
Virtually all RC election schemes in the US, and also nonpartisan primaries (which are a close cousin) are championed by democrats. That's just not true.
Edit to expand: it's a partisan issue because structurally the democratic party is already a loose collection of interests. They've always structured their internal workings around this kind of dealmaking and coalition-building. Shifting to an environment where those groups (Blue Dogs, DSA, The Squad, the Congressional Black Caucus, etc...) become first class parties doesn't really change the way democrats have always governed.
To get a candidate on a statewide ballot you have to get signatures from a percentage of registered voters. I don't remember the numbers off hand but it's in the tens of thousands. This alone is both cost and time prohibitive. There are also a bunch of other hoops you have to jump through.
So democrats would oppose a Green or other progressive candidate in (most races in) New York, sure. That's just self-interest. But for the same reason they'd clearly welcome a libertarian entrant. That's not responsive to the discussion.
The claim upthread was that "both" parties oppose ranked choice voting. And that's simply not true.
A single party's goal may be to avoid direct competition but they work together with each other to prevent all other parties. This is one of the things that's easy for them to have bipartisan agreements on.
Germany is based on the experience of the Nazi's raise to power, one thing Germany got right after WW2 was the German constitution. Stuff like the 5% hurdle to get seats in parliament for example. The US on the other hand still seem to struggle with a system put in place after the civil war to suppress the black vote and satisfy the former confederate states. But I might be wrong.
No need to present your ID to vote, your invitation is enough. Your ID will do if you forgot that invitation.
So in a sense, we have. A mandatory, government run. You cannot be purged, we don't sign ballots (our elections have to be 100% anonymous), we don't need our ID to vote. And any party affiliation is not part of that system. makes stuff a lot easier, and individual parties cannot toy around with it.
This is sort of a dumb idea, really. But it's not as broken as you imagine.
Under systems like ranked-choice, IRV, etc., having the Green party or Libertarian party on the ballot would be much less likely to harm the near-term prospects for candidates from the two major parties: most of the voters that minor parties would gain are people who currently pick a major-party candidate that has a real chance of winning. Those voters would mostly continue to select a major-party candidate as a second choice.
IMO legislatures should have proportional representation. Sure there are drawbacks but they're not as bad as locking out minority opinions.
Nowadays, that thinking seems wrong. Not sure what yall think over there, but I've always thought of Michael Jackson an American artist, rather than a person from Indiana. I just don't see that Americans see the states as a federation of countries, but I guess people there might.
Something like the UN might have similar votes per country, on the rationale that countries are equal regardless of relative size.
The US when it formed was probably more aligned with what the EU is today. That original setup was very impractical so they reformed into the current US with the Constitution in 1789.
There was an episode during the ratification debates where Rhode Island was almost left out of the United States. 12 other States had already ratified the new US Constitution but Rhode Island held out for more concessions until eventually it was decided that Rhode Island could ratify or leave the Union. Considering they were surrounded by much larger States who had prior grievances with Rhode Island, Rhode Island made the right call. Otherwise they’d likely be part of New York or Massachusetts right now.
Single vote first-past-the-post guarantees a 2-party system.
> The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
There have been two Supreme Court decisions that have analogized the electorate as a legislative body in ballot measures, referendums, public initiatives, etc. The latest was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_State_Legislature_v._A... [1] In that decision it was the liberals and Kennedy who upheld precedent; all the conservatives would have prohibited direct public votes on Congressional election rules. But now Kennedy and Ginsburg are gone, and their replacements are very likely to vote against precedent if the question comes back to the court. (In fact, IIRC, some justices, like Thomas, don't even like the idea of public initiatives for purely state elections, an argument based on their own peculiar notions of Federalism. Also, if you read the order opinions over the last few weeks by Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, some of their arguments seem to be aimed at reversing Arizona.) Roberts might switch his vote to uphold precedent, but Roberts would only make 4 votes, not enough to save it.
If (or, rather, when) SCOTUS prohibits the public from directly legislating their Congressional elections, only Congress could restore the ability, unless the Constitution was amended.
[1] Skimming through the Arizona case, I think the first was Pacific States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118 (1912). But I don't have time to reread the Arizona opinions carefully to refresh my memory.
> Maine voters passed [ranked-choice voting] via ballot measure, no partisan politicking required. Likewise, the two states voting on it this year, Alaska and Massachusetts, are also doing so via ballot measure.
My point is that for Federal congressional elections the legal capacity to use voter initiatives to institute different voting rules, bypassing partisan state legislatures and Congress, will likely be extinguished in the coming years. The same is likely true for Presidential elections as the relevant constitutional language is nearly identical: "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors...."
My comment about Thomas' view (uncited--I could be misremembering the nuances) about who gets to pass laws controlling state legislature elections was merely to suggest how likely he would be to overturn Arizona; his opinion about the Constitution's and SCOTUS' role in dictating/safeguarding a very specific form of representative government extends beyond a simplistic plain text[1] interpretation of the aforementioned constitutional clauses.
[1] I feel like I should point out that no justice, conservative or otherwise, subscribes to a "plain text" philosophy of constitutional interpretation. Conservatives justices tend to espouse either a so-called Original Intent philosophy or Scalia's Original Meaning philosophy, where "Original Meaning" is not the same thing as "plain text". And justices of all political philosophies will make a "plain text" argument when it suits their interpretation. All things being equal (though they rarely are), everybody tends to agree a plain text defense is the best defense.
The most recent U.S. Supreme Court nominee briefly talks about some of the nuances related to precedent here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlchBfW036s
The (old) British legal scholar William Blackstone dives into it in his work "Commentaries of the Laws of England" (Introduction - Section 3) if you want a more thorough understanding of the foundation of precedent in common law.
TLDR and very over-simplified:
Legal precedent is established until the laws change. The various legislatures/governing-bodies of the US can change the law whenever they please. When those laws then come into conflict with other laws out there, you have to have a ruling by a court. Sometimes this is intentional.
Which court does the ruling is super complex and sometimes they are not called courts, FYI. Judicial bodies, sometimes called courts, are also super complex. In general, the US legal system is more like the Ancien Régime than anything else, in that we strive to make sure no two people are governed under the same law. Just kidding, sorta. ;)
In the case of SCOTUS, they mostly rule on matters that affect the US constitution, and only if they feel doing so. They then make a ruling, and that becomes the new way the laws work. Sometimes this makes a law null-and-void, sometimes it just sets guidelines on how to make a law function. Again, super complex. There are many other courts in the US that can similarly do things at laws, but SCOTUS gets the most news.
That said, I wouldn’t support it. I view State-level ballot initiatives as an anti-feature, at least in my native California. Wouldn’t want that crap making it up to the Federal level.
Once he got in... it seems suddenly less interesting. I would dearly love to see this get done here. In BC, there was an attempt to get it in, but province-wide, the results of voting weren't there.
I don't live in BC anymore, so hadn't realized that there had been another vote in 2018. That is disappointing.
None of the established powers-that-be will help change the system that keeps them in power.
Almost immediately, the GOP and the DNC would start losing votes to the Libertarian party and the Green party, so they'll both rally against any change to the existing system.
Any major shift toward better voting systems will have to start in local elections where voters are fed up with both parties. Maine is doing an awesome job leading the way on the state-level.
It also gives hard feedback to the parties about their constituent's real politics. If a party wins but sees their votes mostly coming from #2 preferences, the next round of primaries will probably shift further from the center. Similarly, if they see themselves as #1, they can shift back towards the center.
Currently, the average voter is poorly informed, the marginal voter is uninformed, and the non-voters are misinformed. I challenge you to read any book about voter ignorance and come away with your current view.[1]
what is "widespread popular biases" but systemic coercions?
and no, we specifically don't need to understand individuals, just the systemic coercions (so we can counteract them).
and we don't need to correct for internal biases over a population because, by definition, internal biases are uncorrelated. but you said "popular", which is a social bias that correlates beliefs.
The point of democracy is to trust people to be able to make those decisions, and give them the tools to hold their leaders accountable.
I'd rather that electoral outcomes reflect what people would vote for if they were well-informed (which is what the cited book is about). You can predict how more information and understanding would impact voting trends (there are various techniques for this), and the results are not that everyone agrees on everything, but the impact would be an improvement (in my opinion).
Also, while a highly educated person might have a much better understanding of foreign affairs, they may have a poor understanding of what it feels like to come home to a decrepit apartment just to watch your children get skinnier. Even though they might be more informed and have better solutions for the problems they care about, they'll prioritize different issues.
If the average voter is poorly informed, the obvious solution to me would be to work on that issue directly, not on chipping away at what little power they have.
It's kind of counter-intuitive, but getting people to turn up to elections is often the first step in getting them to build informed opinions, read up on issues, and take their civic duty seriously. This is what people are hoping for when they try to improve voter turnout; they believe that many of our society's ills could be helped by fostering a more civically engaged populace.
>"If the average voter is poorly informed, the obvious solution to me would be to work on that issue directly, not on chipping away at what little power they have."
If someone is capable of doing a great deal of damage, the first step is to limit that damage, before teaching them how to do things properly. Educate the marginal and non-voters before you let them wreak havoc on an already troubled system.
>"It's kind of counter-intuitive, but getting people to turn up to elections is often the first step in getting them to build informed opinions, read up on issues, and take their civic duty seriously."
This is actually a variant of one of the first philosophical cases for democracy (though I can't remember who originally made that argument); the only problem is that it isn't true. Just read some of the books on voter ignorance, and you'll see exactly how wrong it is.
Over the past couple of decades, Libertarians aren't becoming Republicans, but Republicans are becoming Libertarians.
It's not hard to imagine a local election where both the DNC and the GOP put forth lackluster, hyper-polarizing candidates, and a reasonable third party candidate who's everyone's #2 pick wins.
It's not so much that these other systems would enable third party candidates to win, it's that they would reward less polarizing candidates with more broad appeal.
There is still much to be said in support of non-FPTP single-member systems, though, since they allow factions within a party to break off and present their own policies. Even if such a splinter party never replaced the party it split from, it could still prevent the bigger party from becoming too complacent and reliant on being the lesser of two evils.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...