Bandorr said:
sc94597 said:
England (or rather the U.K) is a bad example to compare, because it also has two major national parties, like the U.S, and for the same reason -- single member districts + first-past the post. This process is called Duverger's Law. Now in the U.K there are significant minor parties because it doesn't have a presidential system that sort of amplifies Duverger's law as a nation-wide winner's take all contest. This allows for the two major parties in any district or constituent country in the U.K to be different from the two major parties in another district and the two most powerful parties nation-wide. So you have the SNP (Scottish National Party) being a major party in most of Scotland, and there were many districts in England where the Liberal-Democratic party was a major party(until recently.) But for the most part, the U.K is still very much a two-party system as only two parties have a real chance in having majority power (Conservative Party and Labour Party.)
The U.S also used to have significant minor parties/factions. For example in many regions in the early 20th century the Farmer-Labor Party was the dominant party, until it merged with the Democratic Party. Or you can think of the 1860 U.S presidential election as a four-party race. But the long-term tendency in both the U.K and U.S is toward two very much dominant parties.
Other countries in Europe have different electoral systems which make multiple parties more viable. This is because they utilize multi-membered districts, mixed-member proportional voting, direct proportional voting via a party list (see: D'Hondt's method ,first invented by Thomas Jefferson ironically) , single-transferable vote, ranked-choice voting, etc., or a combination of these for different races. Depending on the specific system there might be a tendency towards many, many small parties, or two - four large parties and various small parties that assemble around them to form coalitions. Think of the coalitions as the equivalent of the Republican and Democratic Parties, except they form after rather than before the elections, and the factions forming the coalitions are far more ideological-based rather than interest-based.
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Wow that's really involved. I do see you mentioned ranked-choice voting. I think that has to be the first step. It allows multiple choices without much consequence.
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One of the varieties of ranked choice voting would be a good idea for the presidential and senate races, which are inherently single-member districts.
Personally, I think the House of Representatives should adopt mixed-member proportional.
The Senate should also be weakened to be comparable to something like the U.K House of Lord's.
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