To my knowledge, each US legislator is selected by plurality/FPTP except the senators from Maine and Alaska who are selected by RCV. Note that Trump was able to remove critics by having them "primaried out" against MAGA challengers. (1/2) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-p... - ThreadSky

perfectlygoodink.bsky.social • 17 days ago

To my knowledge, each US legislator is selected by plurality/FPTP except the senators from Maine and Alaska who are selected by RCV. Note that Trump was able to remove critics by having them "primaried out" against MAGA challengers.

(1/2)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Countries_using_FPP

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uncle-anonymous.bsky.social•17 days ago

Ah, Felix!. You make a very good point. It still, however, doesn't change the fact that proportional representation is overly complex, thus easily manipulated for a desired outcome. Or, as one of our former PM's said...

perfectlygoodink.bsky.social•17 days ago

Yes, some forms are complicated to tally (i.e., MMP and PRCV/STV). But list-PR, both open and closed, present a ballot identical in format as FPTP.

You just vote for a single party (closed list) or politician (open list), and the seats are then allocated by votes won. That's it.

perfectlygoodink.bsky.social•17 days ago

And yes, when no single party has majority power, this means policy-making requires compromise and coalition-making, which can be a lengthy process.

This is *far* preferable to a minority running roughshod over the preferences of everybody else, like what's going on here right now. (2/2)

uncle-anonymous.bsky.social•17 days ago

Here's what a former NZ PM, Jim Bolger had to say about this.

perfectlygoodink.bsky.social•17 days ago

Politicians and former politicians often view electoral systems through the lens of how it personally affected them and their allies (e.g., Gavin Newsom vetoing RCV). I think political scientists are far more likely to take an objective view.

https://protectdemocracy.org/work/proportional-representation-and-polarization/

perfectlygoodink.bsky.social•17 days ago

Bolger's point is also not accurate. The more seats you have, the more power you have.

Smaller parties have to *hope* a larger party invites them into a coalition, and the more seats they have (and fewer demands they make), the better chance they have.

The largest party gets to do the inviting.

uncle-anonymous.bsky.social•17 days ago

You may want to look at the ERRE Committee report. This has been looked at in depth and while there are some good points, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/ERRE/report-3/

perfectlygoodink.bsky.social•17 days ago

Politicians who won office under an electoral system have a built-in bias to keep the status quo.

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