the two party system

[sonic1]

Often I hear people complain about the two party system. While I share the sentiments, recently I tried to think about a multi-partied system and I relized that if we had even one more significant party, the elections would steer further from being a true democracy-because less than the majority would elect an official (having split people up into smaller groups).

Then I thought about sports, something which I know nothing about, but which I do know to win a superbowl or whatever you have to keep playing each team until in a series until the best team wins, often having to play certain teams it seems several times. Do I dare say that the winners of the superbowl or world series deserves their win. Well maybe more so than the presidential election as they win on their own merit rather than on political marriages and back room negotiations-well, ok we know sports have this kind of corruption too to a certain extent-notice I am avoiding using basketball in this scenerio.

It is intersting we put all that work into sports to decide who is top in the game, and put so much less effort into testing the abilities of those who become president. Imagine starting off with 50 candidates, they debate each other out over and over and we vote out each debate. We do this until we eliminate everyone except one guy.

I don't know how this would look exactly but I think it is interesting to compare how much work we put into choosing olympic althetes; relative to that our democratic process is really sloppy. Sports are probably more important to most americans though.

Jared

[crawjo]

The problem with the two-party system isn't just that it reduces the options to only two, but also that because the two parties have to appeal to so many people in order to be successful, they inevitably end up being controlled by powerful interests that have a stake in the status quo. So the result is that relatively minor differences in policy, "My prescription drug plan versus your prescription drug plan" end up getting hyper-inflated. One party represents itself as "for the people" even though it is in the pocket of just as many powerful lobbies as the other party, etc. etc.

I can't say that I would support your idea; it sounds too much like "Last Comic Standing" to me. The best debater is not necessarily the best leader, and it would be easy for a smooth-talking demagogue to wipe everybody out and seize power. Of course, that danger also exists in our current system, but to a much lesser extent.

[moneyp]

I like the proposal of tiered voting, where you rank all the candidates in order of preference. First, this would mean that you actually had to *know* all of the candidates. If no candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they drop the lowest vote-getter, and anyone who voted him first drops down to the second candidate. If one candidate still doesn't have over 50%, you drop the second-lowest, and so on and so forth. It would give third-party candidates a real shot in an election like this year's and last year's, when the choices seem to be Bush vs. Anyone But Bush. You wouldn't feel obligated to vote for Kerry if you didn't want him, and yet you could still pick him ahead of Bush if it came down to it.

Of course, this will never happen, because politicians like things the way they are.

[sonic1]

I got off mark a little with my though: my real point was that if you had more than two parties then even a smaller group of people would be electing the president-As it is, less than a quarter of the US elects the president (I would say that is being generous). If you add in another party, then the split votes would make that even more the case. I agree and am annoyed at trying to fit my values to a particular party. But what is the option?

Jared

[Vince Kargatis]

sonic1, the only reason the two-party system exists is the one-person-one-vote voting system. I find this the main problem, and the one thing to concentrate on changing to effect electoral reform. I do think it's hopeless to rail against two-party hegemony while this system is in place. You can start with the Condorcet method as one possible eventual resolution.

In general, I think discussion of the merits of 2 vs more parties is meaningless without concentrating on the reasons the system ends up favoring 2 in the first place. I don't know how to effect such a change, but would like to see reform discussions and suggestions focused on how to do so.

[patricia]

It is possible for a three main party system to work effectively. In Canada, there are three, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democratic [socialist] parties. The election is usually a battle between the Conservatives and the Liberals, but there have been periods in which the New Democrats have either been Provincial leaders [much like a state governor] or held the balance of power in a minority government, in which the winner held a very slim lead at the end of the election. All three parties sit in Parliament and the official opposition, as well as other opposing members serve as the elected majority's conscience, conducting debate on issues, hammering out legislation that usually bears only a slight resemblance to the original proposed legislation.
There are those who criticize Nader for throwing his hat in the ring, especially when he has not a hope in Hell of becoming President. If he was prepared to throw his support behind a larger party, perhaps negotiating some of his concerns as leverage, he could play an effective role as he has always done, in the area of public service. If he chooses, as he did in the last election, to simply siphon off votes, denouncing both parties, he could very well be a huge problem, if only because those who agree with his concerns feel that neither the Dems nor the Repubs represent them, will not vote at all. Nader has been negative about BOTH the Dems and the Repubs, even though the Republicans, if I'm to believe the news reports, have provided funds for his campaign, which can only be interpreted as an attempt to derail the Dems.
Three party politics only works in Canada because the third party, whether they form the government or not, has a voice in Parliament. Unless I'm wrong, that is not true in the U.S.
I still think that Ralph Nader can be more effective outside an official government role, as a voice of the people, than he ever would be inside it.

[moneyp]

Ah, thanks for the link, Vince.

Instant-Runoff Voting was what I was thinking of. I'm a big-time advocate of that.

[al j]

One thing's for sure, that American politics is and has been in dire need of reform, and dare I say that won't happen without a new party rising up from bipartisan choke holds. One reason I really liked Perot the first year that he ran for President (you know, the year he dropped out and came back in a few time over) was that he kick started some momentum that had the appearance of heading in that direction. Perot was a fool and hardly the type of person that a public is going to embrace, but there was practicality in some areas of his politics that you just don't see elsewhere. I was hoping that his use of prime time TV and using his own money to buy a large percentage of his campaign, sharpies, and construction paper would at least catch on with third party potentials.

The only way I really see an end to the current dual party residence is a revolution. A people's revolution. It's a notion that scares me because leaders don't just fall into place anymore.

[sonic1]

The Condorcet Method is interesting but I am confused at one reference-they referred to the problems of the current system: every voter equally (anonymity) and every candidate equally (neutrality) which can produce ties, etc.

I see how that rating system neutralizes the problem-but what are they referring to when they say treating the voter equally? They intend on making sure each voter's vote is equal right? If this is the case this system seems great.

Crawjo something you said even further desturbed me, "I can't say that I would support your idea; it sounds too much like "Last Comic Standing" to me."

WOW even the last comic standing show puts more effort into electing a winner than our "democracy". Yup that is american values for ya.

Jared

[Dan G]

How many other countries have a system where you vote directly for the president? That's the part that seems odd to me, and I don't know how well it would work with a three (or more) party system, because there would be a huge chance that various levels of gov't (sorry, my exact understanding of house and senate, etc for US isn't too accurate) would be controlled by different parties.

In Canada, we don't vote for the Prime Minister, we vote for a local representative. The party that has the most members elected forms the government, and the prime minister is a person they have appointed as their leader. Yes, a lot of the voting is based on who the leader is, but not the same as in the US.

[Al in NYC]

Actually, in U.S. history it has been rather common to have one party in the presidency and another party controlling one or both houses of Congress. Most recently when Democrat Bill Clinton was President while both the Senate and House were Republican controlled. There is a school of thought in American political science that the real preference of Americans is for divided government, as it effectively keeps any one party from becoming too powerful and distributing the resources of the government unevenly.

I have always been a big supporter of either a STV preference voting instant runoff type system for the Presidency (and, for that matter, for congressional seats), or a straight up second ballot runoff system as is used in so many American cities IMO this country needs a strong 3rd party now more than ever, and maybe even a 4th or 5th party too, but that is just about impossible under the present plurality-based electoral system.

[Vince Kargatis]

Yeah, in fact, I think if we won electoral reform, say, like:
- ranking voting
- legislative superdistricts (where top N vote-getters won seats, better ensuring minority representation [thanks, walto])
- line-item voting in Congress / disallowing omnibus bills

then we would see a natural move from any kind of significant party influence, and more pure issue-based government and caucusing, which would be a huge improvement imo.

Personally, I oppose any reform that further emphasizes party influence (e.g. like a parliament), since parties themselves inherently emphasize groupthink.

[walto]

I agree with those who seem to me to be saying here that the real problem in the U.S. isn't the number of parties but the winner take all voting schemes (including the execrable at-large system) in which 50% of the populace in any geographic area gets 100% of the representation. One way to fix this is to elect multiple individuals in each region, but let people vote for only their single favorite candidate, and have the top X vote getters win seats. There are other ways (ranking, transferable ballots, etc.), but single non-transferable is the simplest. I understand it's used quite a bit in Japan.

[Gary Sisco]

I'd rather go to a parliamentary-style, where each party gets seats according to its percentage of the vote, as in, say, Germany. Winner take all is going to become increasingly less democratic (in the real sense of the word) in the US as time goes on, and it's only minimally democratic, now. Fat chance, though, since the two parties (institutions not even mentioned or provided for in the Constitution, I might add) control everything and will band together against any real third force, since they have much more in common than not, and they, at least their leadership, know it.

One thing's certain. A huge part of the Dem party's decline is that it's been for too long thinking that dissenters can be taken for granted because "where else will they go"? Where they can go, of course, is to independence, which is where they have gone, in fact. But the dems keep taking them for granted anyway, to their inevitable loss. This election will be a prime example of what I'm talking about. There are at least a million votes out there like mine, to use only one instance -- former, longtime leftists, or leftists afloat in the absence of any real social movements or parties -- who are not going to be able to bring themselves to vote for Kerry, but the Dems assume most of them in the end will hold their noses and vote for whoever they put up, Kerry included.

Wrong. And they need those votes very much to win. For the first time in many years, the real left vote this time out could make or break the election for them, but, being an institution that's been entrenched in power for too long, it can't move or change quickly enough to keep pace with political reality, so they continue to assume they're guaranteed those million votes, especially against Bush. They're not -- and a million votes added to either column this time out would mean victory, as the election will be much closer than that.

I'd settle, however, for a constitutional amendment eliminating the Electoral College as the historical archaism that it is, and making the president *and vice president* elected offices. (No one votes for Vice-President in the US.) Whatever historical reasons there may have been for the EC, accepted or not, arose from the situation that used to be, where the people of the US viewed the country in plural: The United *States.* This has long ceased to be the case, in fact. Almost no one views the country anymore as a collective of states, but rather as one nation-state. Therefore, the office of president should be elected by popular vote, especially since there's nothing in the Constitution requiring the EC to follow any mandate at all, from anyone. A state's popular vote could go to one candidate and the EC could still cast its votes for another. There's nothing to stop this from happening. It would be entirely constitutional, as things stand now.

Any arguments (all of which were made to justify the power of slave states in the past) about large states and small ones and the need for political balance are already resolved by the fact that each state, regardless of population size, rural or urban or whatever, gets two senators -- giving each state equal power in the senate to balance off any disadvantage it may have in the House. And also, the fact that the House reflects the differing population sizes by giving more seats to larger states obviates the argument in any case. The fact will always be that larger population centers will have more representation in DC -- as they should.

But the EC has to go. There's no justification anymore for the institution. It's antidemocratic and was intended to be by the people who created it.

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

Surely the reason why there's a prime minister rather than a president in Canada is because the Queen's officially the Head of State? Thatcher and Blair may have made it more and more a presidential institution, but Prime Minister's constitutionally a very different position from the president. Same deal in Japan I think as well (although of course they have their own monarchy, before anyone starts thinking I'm trying to say the Elizabeth II is the Queen of Japan, stranger things have happened).

Short of revolution, I'd like to see PR in both the UK and the US. Not only would third parties get a boost, but I think the major parties in both countries would split up into myriad smaller parties. You'd see a separation of the economic libertarian and social authoritarian wings of the Republican and Conservative parties, and similar splits in the nominally left parties. The Tories have come very close to splitting up into tiny pieces before (and arguably are, with the rise of UKIP and the BNP, both of which are attracting "traditional conservative supporters" and in the UKIP's case several MPs. Labour's ever closer to the brink as well, plenty of unions are seriously threatening to withdraw their support, and that could go to SWP front parties like Respect, which has a few disgruntled ex-Labour MPs in it already. It might not change anything, but it'd mean that the actual positions of those parties would have to be a lot more distinct.

[clinthopson]

Our system almost requires that there be only two parties.

It seems to me that the parliamentary system leaves more options available to voters.

Of course, look at the deal making and shenanigans that go on in order for a Prime Minister to get a majority of votes. France, Italy and a lot of other parliamentary governments have gone through a helluva lot of P.M.'s


The funny thing is it all seems to come down to left and right with the folks in the middle screwed by both sides, regardless of the system.

[Tanager]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

Of course, look at the deal making and shenanigans that go on in order for a Prime Minister to get a majority of votes...The funny thing is it all seems to come down to left and right with the folks in the middle screwed by both sides, regardless of the system.

Actually, I'm not sure I agree. In the end, I think that the deal-making that is sometimes part of forming a coalition government is a good thing, b/c it guarantees minority partners a share of the policy-making power. Not everyone has to toe the same party line to get a seat in the cabinet, for example. And the example Gary cited, Germany, has had a relatively stable history when it comes to the top posts. Has France really had such a high turnover at the PM post that it has affected their political welfare?

[Uli]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

Of course, look at the deal making and shenanigans that go on in order for a Prime Minister to get a majority of votes. France, Italy and a lot of other parliamentary governments have gone through a helluva lot of P.M.'s

iirc, France is a bit different from other European parliamentary systems. France has a President and an MP as head of government and the President is elected by direct vote, I believe.

In a nutshell, what I do not like about the US system and why I prefer parliamentary systems: the President has too much power, the executive does more than just executing the will of the legislators. The deal making and compromising to establish the government suits multiparty systems better, imho.

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

from http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Queen_of_Canada

"In fact in a recent survey it was found that only 5% of Canadians knew that Queen Elizabeth II was Queen of Canada."

hahaha. Statistics like that might as well be made up, but they do make me laugh.

Don't mean to sidetrack this into republicanism, but the fact that we don't have massive presidential election campaigns is often cited as the main reason for keeping the monarchy. The counter argument to this is that since the head of state doesn't actually do anything, the symbolic veto could go to the Speaker of the House (rotating position designed to keep order in the house of commons, involves, not unsurprisingly, shouting "order" a lot), and everything else could continue without that particular vast expense and idiocy.

"Constitutional monarchy in Canada

The most notable features of the Canadian constitutional monarchy are:

* Although Queen Elizabeth II is also monarch of the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom does not have any sovereignty over Canada (nor does Canada have any sovereignty over the United Kingdom).

* In all matters of state, Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada is advised exclusively by her governments in Canada. See also Queen's Privy Council for Canada. No British government can advise the Canadian monarch on Canadian matters.

* All executive power is theoretically reposed in the Queen

* Nevertheless, as in the UK, the Queen's role is nearly entirely symbolic and cultural, and the powers that are theoretically hers are exercised wholly upon the advice of the elected government. In exceptional circumstances, however, the Queen may act against such advice based upon her reserve powers. In practice, the monarchy functions much like a rubber stamp and a ceremonial symbol of executive authority. It is often explained that the Queen reigns but does not rule. For more explanation of the Queen's role, see Governor General of Canada."

Hence why there's no directly represented head of state.

[patricia]

It hasn't been true that the British Monarch is "Queen of Canada" in any official way, since the Canadian Constitution was re-claimed from Britain during the Trudeau years. Even before that the British monarch played only a symbolic role. As far as I know, there was no Canadian legislation affected by the opinion of the British Monarch, one way or another, in my lifetime.
Canada is independant of Britain, although our Attorney General reads the Speech from the Throne at the opening of Parliament. Britain has had no even symbolic influence on decisions made by Canada's government since the 1970's.

[Al in NYC]

Yes, but the Queen's picture still graces some small denomination Canadian money (I'm old enough to remember when she was on ALL the money), an honor she shares with at least one of my dead ancestors.

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by Vince Kargatis

sonic1, the only reason the two-party system exists is the one-person-one-vote voting system.

I don't understand. In France it's one person, one vote, but not a two-party system. There are two major parties, but smaller parties still account for a significant portion of the vote.

A two-party system is problematic, but parliamentary systems have problems of their own, notably the instability of coalitions.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Al in NYC

Yes, but the Queen's picture still graces some small denomination Canadian money (I'm old enough to remember when she was on ALL the money), an honor she shares with at least one of my dead ancestors.

Al I still remember that too.
But, I'm looking at a five dollar bill right now [the smallest paper bill] and it has a lithograph of Sir Wilfred Laurier on it and a woodpecker on the reverse. The twenty still has the Queen as does one side of the coinage. But, that doesn't mean that Canada is part of Britain. We are an independant country, with our own laws, different from British Common Law. Our legal system is a modification of British Common Law.

As for the instability of coalitions, can't argue with you there. But, that is their strength, in that they are free to rescind their co-operation in whatever it is that they are supporting, much like the "coalition of the willing" in the ongoing war in Iraq. A coalition participates in an endeavor, only when it is to their advantage, which is tenuous at best.

[Al in NYC]

You better watch how you talk about the Queen there Patricia, or my Great Aunt Bessie will rise from the grave to get you. I think she was buried wrapped in the Red Ensign.

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

I don't understand. In France it's one person, one vote, but not a two-party system. There are two major parties, but smaller parties still account for a significant portion of the vote.

A two-party system is problematic, but parliamentary systems have problems of their own, notably the instability of coalitions.

I was implicitly assuming the lack of a parliamentary system, which I also oppose, as I noted above. I just mean, if you have an "open" election where individuals run for a seat, one-person/one-vote will automatically drive the situation towards two opposing coalitions - smaller coalitions will never win, and essentially die off or be absorbed.

[walto]

Originally Posted by Vince Kargatis

...if you have an "open" election where individuals run for a seat, one-person/one-vote will automatically drive the situation towards two opposing coalitions - smaller coalitions will never win, and essentially die off or be absorbed.

I think that's the case only if there's no more than one person being elected to represent these one-person voters. You can get minority representation simply by having 2 or more people get elected by a bunch of people who can only vote for their single favorite.

[sonic1]

Oooooo...

but how will they manage power? That seems messy to me. But that is just my first reaction. Congress, though not the same, is essentially that, and they don't get as much done as they should.

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by Vince Kargatis

if you have an "open" election where individuals run for a seat, one-person/one-vote will automatically drive the situation towards two opposing coalitions - smaller coalitions will never win, and essentially die off or be absorbed.

I dunno. Maybe. It's certainly possible in theory for three or more parties to have roughly equal backing and not lose their popularity when not elected, if they actually represent strong political stances among the electorate. Of course, that would imply a well-informed and politically active population, which, in America at least, now seems practically unimaginable.

[walto]

"but how will they manage power? That seems messy to me. But that is just my first reaction. Congress, though not the same, is essentially that, and they don't get as much done as they should."

I agree with you about the messiness (and I have no good solutions to that), but not about similarities to the U.S. Congress. In each Congressional district (and legislative district in each state), 50% of the voters get 100% of the representation. It's this winner-take-all aspect that is, IMHO, antithetical to democracy.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Al in NYC

You better watch how you talk about the Queen there Patricia, or my Great Aunt Bessie will rise from the grave to get you. I think she was buried wrapped in the Red Ensign.

I'm smiling at that. My mother, on the other hand, was a Scot and would rise from her grave and take your Great Aunt Bessie, two falls out of three.
You know that Victoria, on Vancouver Island, is almost England, Canada. They still keep up the British tradition of High Tea at the Empress Hotel and the older people there are almost stuck in a time warp, observing all the Olde Englishe traditions.