this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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And we keep electing them.
Hard to elect good people when you don't get good options.
Neither of the main parties have transparent and tamperproof primaries and one of the few things they consistently agree on is keeping third parties and independent candidates out of power whenever possible.
It does provide good cringe content watching the senate chamber questioning about anything modern tech.
Absolutely
The American parties don't need to spend any effort suppressing third parties, the constitution does that for them. First past the post always leads to two parties.
Suppose Bernie Sanders went independent and campaigned for president, and he got half of the votes that the democratic party would have got otherwise. If that happened, the Republicans could win with as little as 40% of the vote. Even if 60% of people were leftist, if 30% vote democrat and 30% vote bernie, then Trump still wins. It's always in your best interest to have as few parties on your side as possible, and that means there can only be two parties.
In an instant runoff system, I can vote for the communist party first, the legalise weed party second, and the moderate left party third. If the communists and stoners don't get enough votes, my votes will still go to the moderates and stop the reactionaries from winning. That means it's safe for me to vote third party. A luxury Americans don't have.
They still legislate to make their advantage even greater.
For example, they set eligibility requirements that are trivial to multi billion dollar private corporations such as themselves, but difficult to insurmountable to anyone running for a third party or as independents.
Hell, some states including California, Colorado and Illinois may even make ballot access for third parties and independent candidates contingent on approval from establishment party members!
I completely agree with you on eliminating fptp voting, but I much prefer STAR voting to instant runoff.
What advantages does STAR have that instant runoff doesn't?
With the 0-5 star ranking that lets you rank more than one candidate the same if you want to, results are much more likely to accurately reflect the priorities of voters than straight ranking that doesn't.
If for example I give the far left candidate 5 stars, the center-left candidate 3 stars and both the centrist and the center-right candidate 2 stars, then the result of that round will more accurately reflect my priorities than if I had to rank two choices I (dis)like equally differently.
If I give the communist party 5 stars and the moderates 1 star, I'm still giving the moderates points that might cause them to enter the final when the communists could have won. In order to give the communists the absolute best chance of winning, I should give everyone else 0 stars. This is a bad idea if the reactionaries are in a decent place to win, but if I think the parties I hate are definitely going to lose, I should vote dishonesty. If everyone does this, it might cost us all the election.
In instant runoff, I don't have to worry about dishonesty or strategic voting. I just put my second preference second, and there's no way it can hurt my first preference. I vote for the way I actually feel.
Yeah, that's not actually how it works.. You don't get to see and react to everyone else's ballots and if you're not voting honestly, you're fucking yourself and others like you.
Which is something you can do on purpose with eqaul ease in instant runoff and run a greater risk of the spoiler effect happening without you meaning to. Much smaller than with fptp, but still greater than with STAR.