this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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Without trying to sound contentious, how is voting for one of the two major parties supposed to help break out of the two party system? Have the Democrats ever put forward any kind of legislation supporting things like eliminating first-past-the-post?
To be clear, I don't disagree that the Dems are the lesser of two devils in this election but I don't know if it's fair to waive a banner of hope for either party at this point.
Handing power over to proto-fascists would do more to end the two party system. But who actually thinks that's a good idea?
Where I live the democrats are trying to implement ranked choice voting. I'm certain my state isn't the only one.
electoral college and first past the post helps republicans and hurts democrats… if you want systemic change, vote for the party that has the most to gain from the systemic change you’d like to see, and then work to make that systemic change happen
Please explain.
democrats almost always win the popular vote… the electoral college is part of the mechanism that gives smaller states that tend to be more republican greater voting power than larger states
and as far as FPTP, third party candidate votes tend toward more democratic candidates. given the spoiler effect (a 3rd party candidate draws the most votes from the 2 party candidate they’re closest to: if they didn’t run, most of their votes would have gone to their closest candidate. given they’re unlikely to win due to how the mathematics and sociology of voting systems work, a successful 3rd party candidate is always bad for their voters), that means that if RCV or similar were implemented, on balance those votes for 3rd parties would mean democrats get more votes
This hypothetical is based on ranked choice voting being suddenly implemented everywhere at once.
We also need to fix the gerrymandering, as well as the overall vote-limiting laws, in red states which would drastically change how those states appear within the scope of the electoral college. Ranked choice voting would greatly help with that.