There are two important points to remember when it comes to political parties:
1. Political parties are brands. Just like buying a widget from Apple is done based on certain expectations based on the history of previous widgets, a political party instantly tells most voters what that person is for or against.
This is incredibly convenient to the vast majority of voters; and
2. The current state of politics in the US I think reflect's Hotelling's Law [1]. The parties have converged on the middle so they each get roughly half the vote. With such close elections and narrow balances of power in the House and Senate things are going to stay ugly.
Look no further than the current distribution of seats in the Australian House of Representatives [2] where the Gillard government clings to power with the support of 3 independents and 1 Green (76-74), a change of a single seat could change the government.
This has inevitably led to some bitter disputes [3] [4] that would be non-issues or much smaller issues if the government had a large working majority.
The problem with the US is not the electoral college or that only swing states matter (which largely misses the point). Popular vote deciding the president would be a fundamental change to the system that would (IMHO) ultimately lead to disaster when a close enough election repeated the turmoil of the 2000 Florida recount across the entire country.
The problem is that:
1. Voting isn't mandatory and the population is apathetic;
2. Voting is too hard being on a weekday and involving long waiting times. I would also argue that the long waiting times are symptomatic of (1). Partisan election officials have a vested interest in deterring or encouraging the vote in certain areas;
3. The FPTP (first past the post) system reinforces the two-party system whereas preferential voting systems allow "protest votes" without them being wasted or, worse, an effective vote for the other side;
4. Here's the big one: people are too predictable in how they vote. Of those that vote, 40% vote Democrat, 40% vote Republican and 20% decide the election. The Biggest electoral landslides in history (Reagan in 84 and Nixon in 72) have both garnered less than 60% of the popular vote.
This problem is so bad that in the redistricting process [5] there are maps produced of political persuasions that are used by the incumbent state government to redraw boundaries to maximize "their" Congressional delegation. This process is incredibly accurate because people are so predictable.
IMHO the choices in this election are pretty terrible. Romney, with his 47% and his "binders full of women" is a joke. Obama is the most IP-friendly and consumer and tech hostile president in history, from championing in secret a treaty (the original ACTA) that would've raised file-sharing to the level of terrorism and turned the FBI into the RIAA and MPAA's enforcement arm to filling the DoJ and judiciary with RIAA lawyers to his stance on software patents.
My advice? Given bad choices, which seem to abound, vote against the incumbent. The one thing politicians seem to fear is losing office with all the power and perks that come with it.
If this means you vote for a party you otherwise wouldn't, consider this: it's also important that your party doesn't take your vote for granted.
My advice? Given bad choices, which seem to abound, vote against the incumbent.
It doesn't matter what your intention when voting is, what matters is, at the end of the day, your vote wil be interpreted as being FOR the non-incumbent rather than against the incumbent.
I would say given bad choices, vote for the independent who is going to lose anyway. They're expected to lose, but people will take notice and say "oh, wow, Joe Somebody was expected to only get 2% of the popular vote, but he ended up with 7%! Will you look at that!" In that case, your vote will be first seen as discontent with the main two choices (because you're making a (let's face it) losing vote) and only second to that, as support for the independent.
If you've got two bad choices, look for more criteria.
How do you feel about civil rights? Whose economic approach is more likely to fix things? Is the legality of abortion and contraception important to you?
Choose the lesser evil today. Then work for a greater good tomorrow.
That sounds like a nice sound bite, but in reality, choosing the lesser evil today further cements the need to be choosing the lesser evil tomorrow.
I'm not from the US (and don't have a favored candidate), but I hear this rhetoric quite a lot. In each election, regardless of allegiance, we hear that this particular election is too important to throw away a vote by voting independent. After all, we don't want another Gore/Nader!
I've always wondered; in exactly which of the previous 56 elections would it have been OK?
I suspect the real answer for the majority of lesser evil types (and I'm not saying you are in this boat) is along the lines of: back when the Whigs were in power.
have both elected governors not endorsed by either of the two largest political parties in recent years, and there are members of the United States Senate
Maine is one of the few states where that's viable - as Nate Silver notes[1], it's probably the most independent-leaning state in the nation, as evidenced by its support for Ross Perot in the 90s. Rhode Island would be another, and I'd peg Colorado as a distant third.
Minnesota is an outlier in my mind - it's more attributable to the fact that the Republican candidate (Norm Coleman) was a terrible candidate (he only won his Senate seat because his opponent died right before the election[2]), and the race was irregular in other ways too. It happened once, but I wouldn't bet on it happening again there anytime soon, unless things change.
Those states probably have a much higher educational attainment level, civic engagement/consciousness and intelligence level than the rest of the United States.
They did not have to contend with having to vie for the vote of 300+ million people.
Also, elections for governor do not have to account for the Electoral College which IMO is an anarchic holdover from a time when communication was much harder.
Having the option of a negative vote could fix that. If we had a negative vote option I don't believe Bush would've won in 2004. Negative voting could instantly give independents a much better chance. People who want to vote against a candidate won't feel like they're throwing their vote away.
American democracy isn't efficient, and it seems like it was the design plan. Fundamentally there is a buffer between the electorate and the actual election (it's called the electoral college.) Then fundamentally, most issues are never voted on by the electorate and because of that, it kind of rare that they are voted on at all. Every election "abortion" comes up but when is the last time the US senate has actually voted on it?
There are things to make it more 'efficient' but again, the slowness with which things happen is kind of a feature, they tend to stick better when they do happen. Look back, we didn't re-enslave people. We did have the prohibition but overall the constitution hasn't been retouched that much.
There are also sets of fundamentally unsafe issues: abortion, maybe birth control (oddly, I thought that one was sort of settled but there are a vocal minority that seem to be offended by its very concept) and anything that cuts entitlements. Short of a booming growing economy, I think it might be safe to say the US budget won't be "balanced" until the baby-boomers die off as it just might not be a realistic goal, never mind the debt. You can't touch those unsafe issues without taking huge political risk
Don't get me wrong, if those issue affect you personally it sure does suck, but the design is for slow change. The dichotomies it presses, such as if you are against abortion, by proxy you are also don't accept climate change, among other things. That's the incredibly frustrating part.
I believe it was Chuck D that said "neither party is mine, not the jackass or the elephant"
#1 is not a problem. The apathetic majority of the popluation not voting makes the votes of others (who are presumably less apathetic) count more.
#3 is the real problem. The Nash equilibrium for FPTP voting favors two strong parties due to strategic voting. Something as simple as approval voting greatly changes this dynamic. I assume that Sergey is aware of this, so I'm not sure what his comments are for.
Interestingly, the electoral college actually should help us here. States decide how they select their electors[1], and so if California says, "OH, we're going to select our electors with IRV, and direct them to vote based on the situation in the electoral college prioritizing candidates based on votes[2]", then that works. If we scrap the electoral college, then any change has to happen at the national level, or you're stuck trying to figure out what to do with a pile of IRV ballots from CA, a pile of range votes from NJ, and the FPTP votes from the rest of the country, and that seems just about intractable.
Actually, with races being close, I also wonder whether CA dividing its electors would get us more attention... The problem is that it favors whoever the majority doesn't like, in the short term.
[1] It must, now, be democratic; this wasn't always the case, though - many states originally had their legislatures choose.
[2] Obviously this language would be tightened up, but hopefully it's understandable.
Every known voting system that's deterministic and non-dictatorial is subject to strategic voting. This is fairly obvious, since a group's preferences can be non-transitive. For example, in a (very) hypothetical election with three voters who are also the three candidates, if A votes for B, B votes for C, and C votes for A (all based on their top preference), then clearly any one candidate can swing the vote to his or her second preference by voting for that instead.
Moreover, all voting systems have advantages and disadvantages, because many desirable traits of voting systems are mutually exclusive. Approval voting, for example, isn't even guaranteed to pick a candidate that is preferred by the majority of voters. Approval voting can also elect a candidate who would lose a head-to-head race against every other candidate. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_runoff_vo....
Just to clarify, is your rebuttal essentially: "No system is perfect, so we shouldn't investigate better systems?"
I personally like approval the best primarily because it is extremely simple. All systems that meat the Condorcet criteria are too complicated IMO.
It also has the advantage over IRV that the votes can be tabulated at each polling place, rather than needing to be done centrally, which means both fewer changes to the current polling system as well as lower impact of fraud.
Why? People have been voting third party for more than a hundred years and it hasn't worked. The duopoly is still in power, ignoring you with impunity. All you're doing is giving up your chance to affect the election.
If you want more options the only way to get them is electoral reform. First we need to get rid of the electoral college so your vote matters even if you don't live in Ohio. The way to achieve this is to get your state to sign the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Then, we need to start holding runoff elections when no candidate gets 50%, so you can vote third party without throwing away your vote.
Voting isn't mandatory and the population is apathetic;
Optional voting is a feature, not a bug. It ensures that the people who care most wield the most influence. If they collectively take the rest of the (apathetic) population astray, more people will start to care and swing the country in a different direction. There's a term for this kind of self-correcting system, but it escapes me right now.
Regardless, changing to mandatory voting would do absolutely nothing to solve voter apathy. It could theoretically have the opposite effect, as now the people who care deeply have less influence because their votes are watered down by people who only vote to avoid a fine.
In Australia we have "mandatory" voting. But actually it is only mandatory that you turn up -- you can deliberately vote "informal" if you don't actually want to cast a vote, and many people do just that (5.5% in the last federal election, although probably more like 2.5-3% of these are deliberate refusals to vote).
This is my preferred system. To me, you don't want to absolute force people to vote. But you do want to remove the bias that exists because turning out to vote is easier for some people than others (and it tends to be easier for the more privileged). Other factors help too: e.g. polling is on the weekend.
Re: apathy, the solution is not to ignore the disenfranchised, but to engage them. True representation is not about suiting those with the most free time and energy.
Dare I also say that with the 'mandatory voting', growing up I felt as though people were more engaged in politics... including children.
Because they had to 'vote' (maybe "because they had to voice an opinion one way or another") people seemed to be more likely to take an interest in politics and actually learn about what was actually going on.
That's the way I see it, at least: people in Australia seemed to be more knowledgeable about politics than people seem to be here in Canada at least.
As a former manager of mine said (paraphrasing): having to vote once every several years is a small inconvenience to endure for getting to live in such a well off country.
I like that it's optional, but it would be cool if the US made election day a holiday as a way to increase turnout a bit. Everybody is distracted anyhow.
Mandatory voting cuts both ways. It would require fixing the many things that prevent people from voting in the USA: making the day a holiday, fixing voter registration, getting enough manpower that the wait is reasonable everywhere, for starters.
Basically, you still have only one vote, but you can use that to cast a negative vote against a candidate, rather than a positive one for a candidate.
It's the simplest way to break the monopoly of two parties because a negative vote against a major candidate has the exact same practical effect as a positive vote, but without perpetuating the two-party system. Best of all, those who are afraid of change can vote with a positive vote in exactly the same way they have in the past, with the same effect.
Here's the big problem with that idea: someone still has to win. Therefore you should vote for the candidate who you think deserves to win. If you don't think any of the candidates deserve to win, then that's a problem... but it's not a problem that "negative voting" solves.
IIUC a negative vote would subtract a vote from a candidate instead of adding. In theory, if enough people vote negatively for the two big parties, a third one could arise and perhapas surpass them after gaining enough traction.
Imagine Alice, Bob, and Eve are running for president. My main concern is keeping is keeping Eve out. As for Alice and Bob, they have their pros and cons, but at the end of the day I don't care too much either way and both are much better than Eve. In this scenario a negative vote for Eve would be more in line with my desires than flipping a coin and choosing between voting for Alice or Bob.
> 2. Voting is too hard being on a weekday and involving long waiting times. I would also argue that the long waiting times are symptomatic of (1). Partisan election officials have a vested interest in deterring or encouraging the vote in certain areas;
Since I haven't seen this elsewhere in the tread, there are pretty significant gains to be had for allowing easy early voting. In fact, a number of US states already have significant early voting[1]. This is another simple way to increase participation that people should try to help promote on a local level.
What about this: the general population has neither the time nor the interest to really examine and make a fully informed choice about each presidential candidate and the implications of each one's ascendancy. As such, the population should directly elect "electors" (that is, members of the Electoral College), whose job it will be to study each candidate and make the best choice on behalf of the people they represent. Candidates for president will not campaign directly to the people, but their elected electors. Electors would campaign to be directly elected.
The people may be able to contribute an "advisory" popular vote, but it won't matter, similar to the situation regarding the election of U.S. Senators prior to the ratification of the 17th Amendment.
While the Electoral College still exists, it has been completely neutered in practice, and currently only represents a rough approximation of the popular vote; most states have laws obligating electors to vote along with the popular votes these days, and I know of no states where electors are directly elected by the people (they are usually elected on party slates).
If you've got two "bad choices" don't vote for the lesser of the evils, it still lends legitimacy to a candidate that you don't approve of. Its the same as a ringing endorsement.
Why not mandatory govt service then? Similar to how mandatory jury duty helps accomplish the aims of the judiciary and actual or the threat of mandatory military service used to make the citizenry keenly aware of foreign policy of administrations, wouldn't mandatory service in the executive branch make the public keenly aware of the actions of the legislative?
As many have done before. The end result is you either end up just like them or you're out in two years for having accomplished literally nothing (if you don't act like the other representatives they won't work with you and you'll end up having accomplished nothing so your constituent will vote you out at the next opportunity).
1. Political parties are brands. Just like buying a widget from Apple is done based on certain expectations based on the history of previous widgets, a political party instantly tells most voters what that person is for or against.
This is incredibly convenient to the vast majority of voters; and
2. The current state of politics in the US I think reflect's Hotelling's Law [1]. The parties have converged on the middle so they each get roughly half the vote. With such close elections and narrow balances of power in the House and Senate things are going to stay ugly.
Look no further than the current distribution of seats in the Australian House of Representatives [2] where the Gillard government clings to power with the support of 3 independents and 1 Green (76-74), a change of a single seat could change the government.
This has inevitably led to some bitter disputes [3] [4] that would be non-issues or much smaller issues if the government had a large working majority.
The problem with the US is not the electoral college or that only swing states matter (which largely misses the point). Popular vote deciding the president would be a fundamental change to the system that would (IMHO) ultimately lead to disaster when a close enough election repeated the turmoil of the 2000 Florida recount across the entire country.
The problem is that:
1. Voting isn't mandatory and the population is apathetic;
2. Voting is too hard being on a weekday and involving long waiting times. I would also argue that the long waiting times are symptomatic of (1). Partisan election officials have a vested interest in deterring or encouraging the vote in certain areas;
3. The FPTP (first past the post) system reinforces the two-party system whereas preferential voting systems allow "protest votes" without them being wasted or, worse, an effective vote for the other side;
4. Here's the big one: people are too predictable in how they vote. Of those that vote, 40% vote Democrat, 40% vote Republican and 20% decide the election. The Biggest electoral landslides in history (Reagan in 84 and Nixon in 72) have both garnered less than 60% of the popular vote.
This problem is so bad that in the redistricting process [5] there are maps produced of political persuasions that are used by the incumbent state government to redraw boundaries to maximize "their" Congressional delegation. This process is incredibly accurate because people are so predictable.
IMHO the choices in this election are pretty terrible. Romney, with his 47% and his "binders full of women" is a joke. Obama is the most IP-friendly and consumer and tech hostile president in history, from championing in secret a treaty (the original ACTA) that would've raised file-sharing to the level of terrorism and turned the FBI into the RIAA and MPAA's enforcement arm to filling the DoJ and judiciary with RIAA lawyers to his stance on software patents.
My advice? Given bad choices, which seem to abound, vote against the incumbent. The one thing politicians seem to fear is losing office with all the power and perks that come with it.
If this means you vote for a party you otherwise wouldn't, consider this: it's also important that your party doesn't take your vote for granted.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotellings_law
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Austr...
[3]: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/2012/10/09/australian-...
[4]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-23/australian-lawmaker...
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redistricting