People's Convention 2020

[Bofferbrauer2]

sc94597 said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

Since the states choose themselves what system they use to vote in the presidential election, they need to win states (I think governor, or does it need a different post to be able to change state voting laws?) to be able to slowly change the voting laws in the states one by one until the number of states with winner-takes-all is relatively small and don't singlehandedly decide over the outcome in elections. Only then can third parties really attack the presidency.

The problem: They need to run in the next presidency to make themselves both visible to people who don't follow politics closely and for their own credibility. But that doesn't mean they'd have to run in swing states yet to not hand the election to republicans on a silver platter. Or that they even get widespread ballot access in the first place for that matter.

Fortunately for many states all that is needed to change the voting system (likely to ranked choice, but maybe proportional or a mixed system in a few states as well) is a ballot initiative. This is how Maine got ranked-choice voting a few years ago. 

Here are the states that allow ballot initiatives from their populations. If the population votes yes, then the legislature and governor have no choice but to enact their vote.  

Then the remaining states that don't have initiatives are going to have to get a coalition of third parties to push for either the major parties to change the system, or otherwise they'll run a legislative reform campaign designed to oust the major parties and get that sole reform done. 

Also See: 

sc94597 said:

Here is a map of Canada's 2015 election. Canada has a FPTP system, just like the United States. You'll notice that four parties had representation 

Here is a 2019 electoral map. 

Notice that five parties have representation. 

Here is a map of the 2015 U.K elections, like Canada and the U.S they have a FPTP system. 

Here is a map of the 2019 U.K elections. 

Duverger's law tells us that there will be two major parties in any system based on FPTP, but it doesn't say that third parties will have absolutely no influence or ability to influence elections. 

Like I noted in my previous post, roughly 90 House seats are solidly Democratic to the point that only 30% (or less) of their constituents vote Republican. This means that the vote could split down the middle Democratic/left-wing third party 35% for each, and one of them would still win because the Republican only gets 30% (at max) of the vote normally. 

Duverger's law doesn't apply in the situation where one of the national parties are so weak in a certain region to the extent that it becomes essentially a third party in that region. 

This is why you find Lib Dem/Conservative constituencies in Britain, or NDP/Conservative ridings in Canada. There is no reason why there can't be Populist Party/Democratic districts or Populist Party/Republican Party districts in the U.S where those are the two major parties of that district. 

There is one major difference between the FPTP in Canada and the UK compared to the US: They're local elections while in the US, it's almost always entire states. I would agree with your assessment if the US had all their states divided up into voting districts like in Maine for instance, but the way it is, entire states are just too big in weight for most voters to go off the GOP/Dem rails.

But like you said in the other post, if voters can make the choices themselves on how they would like to vote, then getting more equitable voting systems in place should be a real possibility, at least in those states that allow those.

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 22 August 2020