this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Isn't democracy collapsing everywhere? The USA's electoral voting system means democracy doesn't exist. A vote in California is worth 27% of a vote in Wyoming in terms of representation. Add on blatant gerrymandering and you've got a rigged system.
The UK has introduced voter ID laws for a problem that never existed in the past. The UK has also had multiple unelected prime ministers due to the way that the parliamentary system works.
Democracy is on the wane everywhere.
Haven't seen any indication of it being in danger in Switzerland. But we have proportional voting rather than first past the post and referenda are common.
I was going to say this. The older democratic systems (easily identified by 1st-past-the-post) are falling apart at the seams, but the rest of us is (relatively) fine. Places like the US and UK need to change their system, but politicians have an incentive not to change anything.
Switzerland's isn't so young either. It dates back to Napoleonic times.
Would France classify as an older system since they have a non-proportional 2-round system?
Fortunately with the US, its decentralized system allows experimentation at the state and local level. My city (Portland, OR) just switched to ranked choice voting for city council along with a host of other changes. Voters statewide will soon be able to vote on using RCV for state races. Meanwhile, ranked choice has been implemented in several other states and localities across the country. It will take a while, but I think ranked choice will become the norm within a few decades.
Unfortunately the form of RCV used everywhere in the US is Hare's method, which eliminates candidates based only on voters' first-choice rankings, which largely just perpetuates all the same problems as FPTP. There are many other better reforms. One of those should become the norm instead.