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I would love to have the President elected by popular vote. (President Gore, ah, it would have sounded so good.)
I'm a libertarian, and I was reading a post on DP that served me with a personal challenge to defend my views in contrast to fundamental structured election systems. In other words, I'm having a tough time defending two arguments running parallel in my mind. On the one hand, I'm an American and I tend to like the system that we've created for ourself. I can't say that I dislike the winner-take-all electoral college. It's gotten us this far!
On the other hand, I'm a libertarian and a member of a third party. I will never see a libertarian take office unless we restructure the entire electoral system of the United States. I don't see myself going that far, which may mean I will forever be a member of a political minority, desperately clinging to the fringes as if my own personal idealism was paramount to my own party's success.
An electoral college like ours will inevitably produce a two-party system . Duverger's law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That is just the nature of the beast. So what are libertarians to do? You're faced with the crossroads in your own convictions if you decide to stay true to our original system. Would you overhaul the electoral college?
Perhaps we could just modify it a little bit. Instead of winner-take-all, determine the winnings based on exact percentages, rounded to the nearest whatever. My only fear is that that modification will have devastating results to the republican nature of our democratic society.
I've always disliked the electoral college. I know what it's purpose is but I think it's doing the people a disservice for the reasons that you posted.
I'd like to see the popular vote to determine the POTUS.
I would love to have the President elected by popular vote. (President Gore, ah, it would have sounded so good.)
Unfortunately, with the stranglehold the current two parties have, plus restrictions put on third parties in elections, I don't think we'll ever get away from the two party system without a collapse of the current government and laws.
America ain't about to change from that. When a third party starts noticeably becoming popular, it's either absorbed by one of the major two or it completes the opposite (which is rarer).
I would love to have either a parliamentary system or some other system that would break up both the dems and cons in favor of creating many smaller parties that are more ideologically pure.
i don't think any system will do that, almost all democracy's get broken into a few main, ideologically different parties, which the smaller parties would have to back to get their voices heard, it's a shame, but that's how it seems to go.
What IRV does is allow people to vote from a selection of candidates and rank them. If there is no candidate that receives a majority of votes, whichever candidates gets the least amount of #1 votes is disqualifed, and those ballots go to whoever the voters have listed as their #2 choice. If no candidate gets a majority of votes, then that candidate has his ballots go to the #3 choice. And so on until one of the candidates get a majority of votes.
Instituting IRV allows the inclusion of third-party candidates to be voted into office, and I personally think it will allow the most moderate candidate of a region to get elected because the process allows the candidate that the most amount of voters can compromise on get elected.
And to be clear, the Constitution allows the states to determine their electoral process - not the federal government. So if you want a different electoral system, lobby your state legislature to institute in your state.
Perhaps we could just modify it a little bit. Instead of winner-take-all, determine the winnings based on exact percentages, rounded to the nearest whatever. My only fear is that that modification will have devastating results to the republican nature of our democratic society.
I believe that everyone should have their voices heard loud and clear.
Somebody said earlier that this is sort of like "stacking the deck"
No, that is not what I referred to as "stacking the deck."
I would love to have either a parliamentary system or some other system that would break up both the dems and cons in favor of creating many smaller parties that are more ideologically pure.
I'm familiar with the system, and while intriguing, and obviously useful in certain scenarios, I don't think it would be taken well at the federal level in the US. In your scenario, you suggest a Libertarian candidate would receive a whopping 30% of the vote, more than the Republican candidate's 25%.
Now, if this is at the presidential level, then it signals to me the end of one of those parties. One of them is going to die off pretty much through natural selection.
This is clearly shown in elections such as 1856-1860, 1908-1912, 1996-2000, 2000-2004 (to a lesser degree the Green Party) and a few others. Those are just the ones that come to mind.
I guess your point might be to avoid elections such as these all together. Maybe the Florida Senate position up for this year would be a perfect example. Either way, I think this sort of weeding out is what sort of puts a check on the parties.
When they see one do rather successful considering its third party status, they jump in and adopt those platforms. I'm a bigger fan of letting this process go through than having a ranked ballot. The idea seems to be a stark contrast to what most Americans now see clearly as a one-person, one-vote system. It's ingrained in 'em, so I guess even if IRV is better, it'd take a heck of a long time to convince even a single state to go that route.
What did you mean, then?
I'm a libertarian, and I was reading a post on DP that served me with a personal challenge to defend my views in contrast to fundamental structured election systems. In other words, I'm having a tough time defending two arguments running parallel in my mind. On the one hand, I'm an American and I tend to like the system that we've created for ourself. I can't say that I dislike the winner-take-all electoral college. It's gotten us this far!
On the other hand, I'm a libertarian and a member of a third party. I will never see a libertarian take office unless we restructure the entire electoral system of the United States.
I was referring to this:
That's precisely the same quote I was referring to as well, just look at post 14. So it is what you were referring to as stacking the deck.
I disagree. Restructuring the political system is not akin to "stacking the deck" at all.
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