Voting Systems Explained - Why Third Parties Are Wasted Votes In FPTP Systems Like the US [CGP Grey]
11 replies, posted
[i]Def'n:[/i] [b]FPTP[/b] or [b]First Past the Post[/b] is a voting system in which every eligible voter is given exactly one vote to give toward a single candidate, and whichever candidate has the most votes at the end of the election cycle is considered the victor.
----
So I've noticed a lot of people - both American and not - have various questions about voting for third parties in the upcoming US election, with the same explanations of why the vote is considered "wasted" being given to various degrees.
I have considered posting these videos in response before, but ultimately decided to make a thread dedicated to it.
There's a handful of videos here, posted in the order that I feel they should be watched. If you are curious about voting systems in general, why First Past The Post is an awful system, possible alternatives, or are just looking for educational videos, then I recommend you give these a spin.
[video=youtube;s7tWHJfhiyo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo[/video]
[video=youtube;3Y3jE3B8HsE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_921074&feature=iv&list=SPC1C0D3F2BA472F62&src_vid=s7tWHJfhiyo&v=3Y3jE3B8HsE[/video]
[video=youtube;QT0I-sdoSXU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU[/video]
[video=youtube;l8XOZJkozfI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_604398&feature=iv&src_vid=s7tWHJfhiyo&v=l8XOZJkozfI[/video]
Various footnotes on the Single Transferrable Vote option:
[video=youtube;wRc630BSTIg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRc630BSTIg[/video]
[video=youtube;PukSDm0RD2E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PukSDm0RD2E[/video]
[video=youtube;8DNtsjB7L_I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DNtsjB7L_I[/video]
[video=youtube;Ac9070OIMUg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac9070OIMUg[/video]
And a little bit of information on gerrymandering - what the fuck is it, how is it done, and how could it be fixed?
[video=youtube;Mky11UJb9AY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mky11UJb9AY[/video]
[video=youtube;uR2DfpjIuXo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR2DfpjIuXo[/video]
[video=youtube;kUS9uvYyn3A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A[/video]
So if you come across someone who isn't familiar with how First Past the Post works, how it forces third-party votes to effectively be wasted, or is just interested in voting systems, I personally recommend showing these videos off.
I don't make threads often, but I hope some of you find these videos educational, and that they answer some questions you may have.
-sNip-
A quick summary of misconceptions that a lot of people here make:
- Alternative vote/instant-runoff vote does not make it easier for third parties to be elected. Think about it. Compared to FPTP where a candidate wins from simply having the most votes, a candidate in an AV/IRV election needs to win at least 50% of the vote after preferences. This can be seen in practice in Australian parliaments, and the fact that the UK House of Commons has better third party representation than the Australian House of Representatives.
- Proportional voting systems do not guarantee third party representation either. Malta has elections via single transferable vote, and they have a strong two-party system. Upper houses of Australian parliaments likewise have proportional representation, but are predominantly two-party as well. Third party representation is a by-product of political culture, not the voting system.
- Third parties aren't a thing in the US not because the Democrats and Republicans put a stranglehold on them, but because [i]American third parties suck[/i]. The Libertarian Party is a group of morons who believe that pure, classic liberalism would work in the 21st century. The Green Party isn't as moronic, but are nonetheless on the opposite fringe of the political spectrum. And then there's the fact that libertarianism is already accommodated by the Republicans, and green politics is already accommodated by both the Democrats and Republicans. Third parties aren't a thing because both major parties are broad camps. The Democrats have social liberals, social democrats, environmentalists, socialists etc, and the Republicans have moderates, conservatives, libertarians etc.
- As long as the US has an elected President, the President will always be from either of the big two parties. That's Duverger's law in practice.
- CGP Grey sucks because he doesn't explain things very well at all.
[QUOTE=sb27;50341852]A quick summary of misconceptions that a lot of people here make:
- Alternative vote/instant-runoff vote does not make it easier for third parties to be elected. Think about it. Compared to FPTP where a candidate wins from simply having the most votes, a candidate in an AV/IRV election needs to win at least 50% of the vote after preferences. This can be seen in practice in Australian parliaments, and the fact that the UK House of Commons has better third party representation than the Australian House of Representatives.
- Proportional voting systems do not guarantee third party representation either. Malta has elections via single transferable vote, and they have a strong two-party system. Upper houses of Australian parliaments likewise have proportional representation, but are predominantly two-party as well. Third party representation is a by-product of political culture, not the voting system.
- Third parties aren't a thing in the US not because the Democrats and Republicans put a stranglehold on them, but because [i]American third parties suck[/i]. The Libertarian Party is a group of morons who believe that pure, classic liberalism would work in the 21st century. The Green Party isn't as moronic, but are nonetheless on the opposite fringe of the political spectrum. And then there's the fact that libertarianism is already accommodated by the Republicans, and green politics is already accommodated by both the Democrats and Republicans. Third parties aren't a thing because both major parties are broad camps. The Democrats have social liberals, social democrats, environmentalists, socialists etc, and the Republicans have moderates, conservatives, libertarians etc.
- As long as the US has an elected President, the President will always be from either of the big two parties. That's Duverger's law in practice.
- CGP Grey sucks because he doesn't explain things very well at all.[/QUOTE]
-Alternative/runoff votes do make it easier for third parties to be elected. Think about it this way: let's say the US in the future adopts runoff voting. The greens and democrats make significant gains to the point that if their vote is combined they can easily beat the republicans but without their combined vote they can't. Now the election has three viable parties with either the greens, dems or republicans winning, solely because of runoff voting.
-Of course they fucking don't, no voting system truly does guarantee third parties, but that's not the point, the point is to encourage the existence and growth of third parties. As a huge example, the UK has a shit load of different third parties. Because they use FPTP, their third parties are being stifled compared to what they could achieve with a proportional representation system.
This video by CGP grey shows it:
[video=youtube;r9rGX91rq5I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rGX91rq5I[/video]
-How the fuck do you think third parties got to that state? It's not as if they were just started that way, the constant pushing by Republicans and Democrats have shoved them to the sidelines, to the fringes.
-Duverger's law fucking agrees with the fact that Proportional Representation and Runoff voting systems promote a multiple party system. The reason why as long as the US has an elected president they will be from the two big parties is because of the US's voting system.
-CGP is fucking great at explaining things, you just don't think so because you disagree with him.
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;50341954]-Alternative/runoff votes do make it easier for third parties to be elected. Think about it this way: let's say the US in the future adopts runoff voting. The greens and democrats make significant gains to the point that if their vote is combined they can easily beat the republicans but without their combined vote they can't. Now the election has three viable parties with either the greens, dems or republicans winning, solely because of runoff voting.[/quote]
Nope. For the Green Party to win seats, they would need to become more-popular than the Democrats, and it's not exactly easy for niche parties to outperform broad camps. Consider it this way in a simulated election. 45% of people support the Republican candidate. 30% of people support the Democrat candidate. 25% of people support the Green candidate (as if that would ever happen). Assume that all of the Green voters preference the Democrats second. As no candidate has a majority of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are re-distributed. Who is eliminated? That's right. The Green Party candidate. Third party candidates are the first to be eliminated. But to the credit of the Green Party voters, the Democrats will win the election after distribution of preferences.
And as I said, look at Australian paraliaments. The instant-runoff vote is used in QLD's Legislative Assembly, NSW's Legislative Assembly, VIC's Legislative Assembly, TAS' Legislative Council, SA's House of Assembly, WA's Legislative Assembly, and the Australian House of Representatives. Check out these bad boys:
SA's House of Assembly
[t]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/SA_House_of_Assembly_Diagram.svg/640px-SA_House_of_Assembly_Diagram.svg.png[/t]
QLD's Legislative Assembly
[t]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Queensland_Legislative_Assembly_2015.svg/640px-Queensland_Legislative_Assembly_2015.svg.png[/t]
And Australia does have third parties that do win many seats in the proportional upper houses (such as our Green Party), but those upper houses are still predominantly two-party.
[quote]Of course they fucking don't, no voting system truly does guarantee third parties, but that's not the point, the point is to encourage the existence and growth of third parties. As a huge example, the UK has a shit load of different third parties. Because they use FPTP, their third parties are being stifled compared to what they could achieve with a proportional representation system.
This video by CGP grey shows it:
[video=youtube;r9rGX91rq5I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rGX91rq5I[/video]
[/quote]
The point of what I was saying is that the UK with FPTP has better third-party representation than Australia with IRV. I wasn't suggesting that third parties wouldn't perform better with proportional representation. They certainly would. As they would here if our lower houses adopted proportional representation.
[quote]How the fuck do you think third parties got to that state? It's not as if they were just started that way, the constant pushing by Republicans and Democrats have shoved them to the sidelines, to the fringes.[/quote]
Third parties haven't been pushed 'to the fringes'. They are at the fringes because those fringes were vacuums that neither major party had a solid grip on. Although both the Democrats and Republicans have internal green movements, those movements are pale in comparison to the mainstream ideologies of each party and arguably have to compromise too-much with the mainstream ideologies. Hence the Green Party came along to fill that little niche in the political landscape.
Continental European democracies have so many parties because they don't have broad camp parties. Eg what we know as the Democrats in the US would be the equivalent of a coalition of two or three political parties in a continental European democracy. Same for the Republicans.
[quote]Duverger's law fucking agrees with the fact that Proportional Representation and Runoff voting systems promote a multiple party system. The reason why as long as the US has an elected president they will be from the two big parties is because of the US's voting system.[/quote]
Empirical evidence suggests Duvurger is not necessarily correct about the runoff voting aspect of his law. He even admitted that his law is not absolute. As long as the US has an elected President, whether via FPTP, IRV, Borda, Condorcet etc, they will always be from one of the big two parties. The only way the US could realistically have a third party head of government is if they adopt a parliamentary system with proportional representation, or a Swiss-style directorial system also with proportional representation.
[quote]CGP is fucking great at explaining things, you just don't think so because you disagree with him.[/QUOTE]
No his explanations of single transferable vote are frankly terrible and too simplistic.
[editline]18th May 2016[/editline]
Also stop saying fuck so much, it's childish.
[QUOTE=sb27;50342082]Nope. For the Green Party to win seats, they would need to become more-popular than the Democrats, and it's not exactly easy for niche parties to outperform broad camps. Consider it this way in a simulated election. 45% of people support the Republican candidate. 30% of people support the Democrat candidate. 25% of people support the Green candidate (as if that would ever happen). Assume that all of the Green voters preference the Democrats second. As no candidate has a majority of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are re-distributed. Who is eliminated? That's right. The Green Party candidate. Third party candidates are the first to be eliminated. But to the credit of the Green Party voters, the Democrats will win the election after distribution of preferences.
And as I said, look at Australian paraliaments. The instant-runoff vote is used in QLD's Legislative Assembly, NSW's Legislative Assembly, VIC's Legislative Assembly, TAS' Legislative Council, SA's House of Assembly, WA's Legislative Assembly, and the Australian House of Representatives. Check out these bad boys:
SA's House of Assembly
[t]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/SA_House_of_Assembly_Diagram.svg/640px-SA_House_of_Assembly_Diagram.svg.png[/t]
QLD's Legislative Assembly
[t]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Queensland_Legislative_Assembly_2015.svg/640px-Queensland_Legislative_Assembly_2015.svg.png[/t]
And Australia does have third parties that do win many seats in the proportional upper houses (such as our Green Party), but those upper houses are still predominantly two-party.
The point of what I was saying is that the UK with FPTP has better third-party representation than Australia with IRV. I wasn't suggesting that third parties wouldn't perform better with proportional representation. They certainly would. As they would here if our lower houses adopted proportional representation.
Third parties haven't been pushed 'to the fringes'. They are at the fringes because those fringes were vacuums that neither major party had a solid grip on. Although both the Democrats and Republicans have internal green movements, those movements are pale in comparison to the mainstream ideologies of each party and arguably have to compromise too-much with the mainstream ideologies. Hence the Green Party came along to fill that little niche in the political landscape.
Continental European democracies have so many parties because they don't have broad camp parties. Eg what we know as the Democrats in the US would be the equivalent of a coalition of two or three political parties in a continental European democracy. Same for the Republicans.
Empirical evidence suggests Duvurger is not necessarily correct about the runoff voting aspect of his law. He even admitted that his law is not absolute. As long as the US has an elected President, whether via FPTP, IRV, Borda, Condorcet etc, they will always be from one of the big two parties. The only way the US could realistically have a third party head of government is if they adopt a parliamentary system with proportional representation, or a Swiss-style directorial system also with proportional representation.
No his explanations of single transferable vote are frankly terrible and too simplistic.[/QUOTE]
-*Repeatedly slams face into his desk*. How the fuck else can I express the idiocy of that statement in the beginning of your post? I was pretty god damn clearly offering a hypothetical, not suggesting that the green party would ever actually gain enough of a majority. Come the fuck on man, think a little.
In the hypothetical I offered, the way I meant to suggest is if the republicans were to gain around 40%, and the democrats and greens to gain around 30% each. This would mean that the way the election goes depends on the democrat voters first and then second choices, but offers the ability for all three of the parties to still win. That's just one out of many many many more examples of how a runoff system would help third parties.
And also - I never said that Runoff voting system guaranteed that third parties would be huge or even exist. Like I said before, no voting system can truly guarantee third parties, only that different systems encourage or discourage the establishment and growth of them.
-That doesn't mean jack shit. All it means is that the UK has third parties that have been able to establish themselves, and the Australians haven't. Just one example of this happening doesn't make it absolute, and it doesn't disprove that Runoff and Proportional Systems promote third parties.
-Alright so: The big parties of the US are made up of a bunch of different movements altogether. This is exactly reason why the two parties don't allow third parties to gain hold. Why? Because in order for those movements to have a voice, they are forced to go to the biggest parties, rather then starting their own or hopping on to another one. Do you get what I'm fucking saying right now? The big parties are stifling out third parties because in order to strategically get their views into power, they are forced to go to the biggest they can get.
-Nor do I agree that it's absolute. I merely suggested that as you were going by his law, you should also be aware of the other parts of his law. Of course there will always be outliers, those governments that defy the normal expectations of what is the general course, like Australia, but the general course is that FPTP does not promote multiple parties whereas Proportional and Runoff systems do. That's the point I'm trying to fucking make.
Oh and uh:
[quote]The only way the US could realistically have a third party head of government is if they adopt a parliamentary system with proportional representation, or a Swiss-style directorial system also with proportional representation.[/quote]
That's pretty much what I just said.
- That's more of the fact that STV in and of itself is a pretty complex voting system. You can't really fault him on that and even if you could just because one of his videos could have been better doesn't mean the rest of his are shit.
[quote]Also stop saying fuck so much, it's childish.[/quote]
Does it really look like I give a shit?
The problem with your hypothetical is it doesn't work in practice. Yes the IRV system allows third parties to compete without spoiling the vote. That works in practice. But third party representation isn't facilitated in practice (you do acknowledge that). It doesn't 'help' third parties at all. That's not the point of IRV. The point of IRV is helping the established, mainstream parties by negating the spoiler effect. If it is supposed to help third parties, how come third parties rarely achieve electoral success under it?
That's not to say they don't achieve electoral success ever. A Green MP won the federal division of Melbourne in 2013. But he would have won the same election under FPTP too. The combined voting bloc of Labor and the Greens in Melbourne is more than double the size of the Liberal bloc. As far as the division of Melbourne (one of, if not the most progressive electorates in Australia) is concerned, Labor and the Greens are the two-party system, and the Liberal party is the third party.
[QUOTE=sb27;50342720]The problem with your hypothetical is it doesn't work in practice. Yes the IRV system allows third parties to compete without spoiling the vote. That works in practice. But third party representation isn't facilitated in practice (you do acknowledge that). It doesn't 'help' third parties at all. That's not the point of IRV. The point of IRV is helping the established, mainstream parties by negating the spoiler effect. If it is supposed to help third parties, how come third parties rarely achieve electoral success under it?[/QUOTE]
The current system sure isn't encourging third parties, what with it being left up to congress if no one gets an absolute majority, as if that isn't basically guaranteeing an establishment win even with spoilers. It's retarded.
Both systems are ultimately shit, but I'd rather have the slightly less shit system that allowed me to express my support for candidates I like without "throwing away my vote" because they aren't mainstream enough to win.
didn't they have a referendum on FPTP?
IMO FPTP is bullshit.
[QUOTE=angelangel;50343709]didn't they have a referendum on FPTP?
IMO FPTP is bullshit.[/QUOTE]
The UK? Yeah, but because the two big parties knew that it would make it harder for them, they pushed heavily against it.
[QUOTE=TornadoAP;50343900]The UK? Yeah, but because the two big parties knew that it would make it harder for them, they pushed heavily against it.[/QUOTE]
It's an interesting discussion actually. The only reason Australia has IRV is because back a hundred years ago (when we had FPTP) there was a by-election for a seat in the Australian parliament. The government of the day really wanted to win the seat, but their vote was split by a similar, smaller faction and therefore the opposition won the seat (when the government would have otherwise won the seat). After that by-election, the government implemented IRV so that could never happen again. The state governments eventually adopted IRV too.
So we have IRV not because our founding fathers were noble and enlightened or whatever. We have it literally just because one of the major parties a hundred years ago saw FPTP as a threat to how many seats their party could win.
[editline]19th May 2016[/editline]
On the matter of the UK, there was this interesting analysis of FPTP vs IRV in the 2015 general election:
[thumb]http://snappa.static.pressassociation.io/assets/2015/06/01153158/1433169115-a9de94f3ad6c54262bf5ab70b7921700-1366x1024.png[/thumb]
[thumb]http://snappa.static.pressassociation.io/assets/2015/06/01153555/1433169352-bcf0df40c779b25631dee1825fd0bc39-1366x1024.png[/thumb]
That's right. The conservatives would have won [i]more seats[/i] from IRV
-snip I can't read-
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.