You’re only able to choose two options, how is that democracy? I thought democracy was about being able to choose anyone you think is suitable to be a leader, not one of two pre-selected people. At that point, it’s not much different to a one-party system, just with two people rather than only one person.

  • palebluethought@lemmy.worldEnglish
    462·
    15 hours ago

    It’s not like the two party system is deliberately chosen or enshrined in law. The field naturally winnows down to two parties because that is basically guaranteed to outcompete every other possibility under a first-past-the-post voting system. You want to fix the two party system, you need to fix our voting system.

      • vvilld@lemmy.world
        3·
        5 hours ago

        Ranked choice is fine, but it’s never going to end the two party system on its own. We can already see in some states (Alaska and Maine) and in some smaller municipalities in the US, and in countries outside the US, which have switched to RCV after having a 2-parety system that it doesn’t end the 2-party system. At best, it makes campaigning a little less negative.

        People tend to simplify the concept of 3rd parties when thinking about RCV. They get it in their head that everyone who dislikes the 2 major parties would all vote for the same 3rd party as a first choice under RCV. In practice, that’s not how it works. Most people still vote for one of the major parties as their top choice. Among those who don’t, they are extremely divided in which 3rd party they pick. People who traditionally vote Republican but don’t really like them may be willing to vote Libertarian, but their never going to vote Green. Likewise, someone who doesn’t really like the Democrats but typically votes for them might prefer the Green Party or DSA or something, but they’re not voting Libertarian or Freedom Party.

        When RCV is implemented in a 2-party system, what almost always happens is that the first choice 3rd party vote gets split among a number of different 3rd parties, giving none of them enough votes to win. When those get dropped in the first round of instant run-offs and those votes switch to the 2nd choice, one of the 2 major parties almost always wins.

        If you want to get rid of the 2-party system, you need to get rid of single-member congressional districts. Switch to multi-member districts with proportional representation. Say a state gets 5 Representatives to the House. Each party (including 3rd party) puts forth up to 5 candidates all running in the same race. Everyone votes for either their preferred candidate or preferred party (you can even implement RCV here to rank candidates if you want). Then seats are allocated to each party based on which proportion of the vote they get. If the Green party gets 20% of the vote, they get 1 seat. If Republicans get 40%, they get 2 seats, etc, etc. The specific candidate(s) who wins from each party would be whoever got the most votes within that party.

        This almost eliminates strategic voting. You don’t have to worry that your party is small with nowhere close to a majority support because you don’t need a majority to win a seat. Nearly everyone gets the representation they want.

        • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          3 hours ago

          I think rank choice will result in third party but it will take some time. Our republic system does make it slower though compared to parliamentary systems.

          • vvilld@lemmy.world
            11·
            3 hours ago

            I appreciate your optimism, but I do not share it and have seen no evidence to support it.

            • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
              1·
              2 hours ago

              I mean maine is the only state with possibly enough time to possibly have any effect. Remember that the senate only turns over every 6 years for a position. They have two senators and two reps and one is independent, but that was the case before. What we see there is incumbents continuing to win but given their reps I don’t see this as surprising. It will make a bigger difference when its more contested. If it came to illinois it would give duckworth difficulties because of her military and security voting. Honestly given our executive ignoring the courts im not sure if its going to matter much unless we get back to a somewhat working system in general.

              • vvilld@lemmy.world
                1·
                2 hours ago

                Completely agree on that last point. I don’t really expect we’ll see completely fair and open elections in this country for a while, if ever again.

      • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        12 hours ago

        This. This. This.

        Everyone should watch this. Even people who know about rank choice voting.

      • palebluethought@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        15 hours ago

        That’s… More or less in agreement with what I said, though? The electoral college certainly doesn’t help matters, but the same principle still holds without it, the EC just adds a second hierarchical level of fptp