perfectlygoodink.bsky.social
Libertarian from Cal married to a Green from Stanford raising 2 boys.
Californians for #ElectoralReform CFO and Secretary.
#ProRep Coalition Treasurer
Financial Advisor.
Econ. background but enjoys reading PoliSci research. #ProportionalRepresentation
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Agreed cost of living was greater impact, and in a two-party system, this also just helped Trump -- despite his own role in causing the inflation by appointing Jerome Powell as Fed chair as well as his own pandemic stimulus.
www.ft.com/content/e8ac...
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Well, he did, but he didn't have a majority (even if you ignore the low turnout).
And having more than two choices would help a lot. There are a TON of US voters who would never vote for a black woman.
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Low magnitude mutli-member districts is exactly what the cross-country empirical data recommend.
Carey & Hix (2011) - "The Electoral Sweet Spot: Low-Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems."
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirec...
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I have no vested interest beyond being a fiscal conservative who currently has zero representation at any level of my government.
And based on the available cross-country empirical evidence, some of which I posted above, PR works significantly better than winner-take-all systems.
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Politicians who won office under an electoral system have a built-in bias to keep the status quo.
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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.
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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.
protectdemocracy.org/work/proport...
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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.
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#ProportionalRepresentation (e.g., MMP, list-PR, or PRCV). Cross-country empirical evidence shows that, to get a multi-party system, you'll want multi-winner districts (or to increase the assembly size).
See jstor.org/stable/2939053 or the book "Votes from Seats."
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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)
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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...
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In Germany, the far right has more seats than other parties but cannot govern without other coalition members, none of which are willing to join it due to its extreme views.
In the US, the far right only needed a plurality of votes to gain majority power in all three branches of government. (2/2)
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PR results in *proportional* amounts of power to both large moderate parties and small fringe parties. If you get 60% of the vote, you only get 60% of the seats (instead of 100%). If you get 40%, you get 40% (instead of 0%).
Contrast the far right's strength in the US with Germany.
(1/2)
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In reality, it works so well that most democracies have adopted it -- and they tend to score well in every metric of a country's political health that I've seen so far, from the EIU, V-Dem favored by political scientists, @anticorruption.bsky.social, Heritage, Cato, Chandler Good Governance, etc.
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That's exactly what the Alternative Voting Committee advised the LP's LNC, using the spoiler effect to push for PR!
tinyurl.com/lpAltVoteRpt (see "Leveraging the Spoiler Effect")
Alas, the LP was/is pretty MAGA instead of center-right and thus preferred spoiling in favor of MAGA Republicans.
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Agreed, the other reform we'd need is public campaign financing (e.g., Democracy Vouchers, @cacleanmoney.bsky.social, @brennancenter.org).
I think PR would still help. It's far easier for corporations and the wealthy to capture both parties in a two-party system than a multi-party system.
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"Cats," where the two of them had fallen asleep during a PBS broadcast of "T.S. Eliot: A Life" after eating too much pizza.
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Why would it be total hell?
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In a winner-take-all system, only the largest bloc of voters wins representation. Under #ProportionalRepresentation, the biggest bloc AND the smaller blocs of voters get representation, and policies have broader buy-in.
And with the Single Transferable Vote, you get this *and* the ability to rank.
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I see the case for PR as that:
1) it results in policies that have buy-in from much more of the electorate, and the results bear this out (e.g., EIU, V-Dem), and
2) it results in a more collaborative political process and is thus less polarizing.
protectdemocracy.org/work/proport...
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And don't forget the US, where things are far worse than in the UK!