Bass
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Fight the Power-Election Reform
« on: 2006-11-10 12:22:37 » |
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I love democracy. I wish we had one.
I truly wish I could vote for a candidate that I actually LIKE. The two party system in the US is killing me. But what can we do to change it? Let's pressure our respective districts, states, etc. to adopt a new voting method. There are alternatives that do not promote a two party system like our Plurality Method does.
Check out these alternative voting methods. Which ones do you think are best??
http://fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-a.../vm/survey.htm
Our voting system, the plurality method, grants each voter the ability to vote for ONE candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins. This method has several paradoxes mathematically built into it. Among them is the paradox that by voting for a third party, you increase the likelihood of your "enemy" winning.
For example, if there were just a right-wing and left-wing candidate. Then everyone with leftist leanings would vote for the left winger. Let's say he would win with 55% of the vote.
But if you introduce a third candidate, and let's say he is also a leftist candidate, he will split the leftist vote. And as more leftists vote for him, the chance of the rightist winning increases, because the rightist vote is not split. In the example above, the 45% who are rightist will still vote for the right-winger. But the two leftist candidates could easily get 40% and 15% of the vote respectively. They would both lose. The right-winger would win with 45% of the vote despite being supported by a minority of voters.
Liberals in the US go through this problem every election (especially in the recent ones). A vote for the Green party, for example, tends to boost the Republicans, despite the fact that they are ideologically opposed.
It is this built-in paradox that encourages a two-party system. But clearly, voters would benefit from a multiple-party system. So the question is, how can we best correct the paradox?
I say, choose a method other than the plurality method.
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