Opinion of "first past the post"
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  Opinion of "first past the post"
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FF
 
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HP
 
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Author Topic: Opinion of "first past the post"  (Read 1806 times)
Lief 🗽
Lief
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« on: May 09, 2015, 04:30:18 PM »

Seen a lot of hate for this method of elections in the media over the past few days, especially relating to the election results in Alberta and then the UK. What is your opinion of this traditional but increasingly maligned electoral system?

I'm a big fan of it. FF
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CrabCake
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« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2015, 04:41:22 PM »

Hilariously terrible.
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SATW
SunriseAroundTheWorld
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« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2015, 04:51:16 PM »

HP, hardly anything democratic about it.
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Marokai Backbeat
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« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2015, 05:14:16 PM »

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Atlas Has Shrugged
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« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2015, 05:15:47 PM »

I support it. I think Farrage (who I like, keep in mind) needs to quit bitching and deal with the fact that he lost.
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Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon
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« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2015, 05:20:17 PM »

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Sprouts Farmers Market ✘
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« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2015, 06:07:18 PM »

Horrific. Preference voting would be much better if you have to do single member districts with auto runoff but proportional voting would be pretty neat as well. Honestly, it's potentially hazardous to keep it this way.
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Donerail
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« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2015, 06:29:36 PM »

Horrible, of course, though I do appreciate that it largely kept out UKIP.
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Boston Bread
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« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2015, 08:59:44 PM »

Pretty terrible. I prefer ranked ballots of some sort - keeps out extremists while at the same time preventing a vote from being spoiled by not voting for the top 2 candidates.
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« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2015, 10:15:56 PM »

I like the French presidential system/Louisiana jungle primary.  50% +1 or runoff between top 2.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #10 on: May 09, 2015, 10:29:34 PM »

Archaic and distortionary.  Just about the worst voting system out there.
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2015, 10:42:36 PM »

It really does render an individual person's vote useless. There are better ways
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« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2015, 12:42:23 AM »

Awful voting system with a very stupid name too. What exactly is "the post"? There's no quota of votes required to win. The name would make more sense for IRV.
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2015, 07:50:18 AM »

Archaic and distortionary.  Just about the worst voting system out there.

I would consider the French & Australian systems worse. The former because it creates minor parties dependent on major party patronage and the latter because it turns the major parties into compulsive centrists.
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #14 on: May 10, 2015, 07:51:15 AM »

I don't like it, but it makes for far more interesting elections. PR is fair but relatively boring. Just about every country except the USA would have more interesting elections under FPTP.
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Hatman 🍁
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« Reply #15 on: May 10, 2015, 08:03:27 AM »

Horrible system of course. The point of elections is to express the will of the electorate. If a minority of people get a majority of the power, then you have an illegitimate government.  And yes, that includes Alberta, unfortunately.
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Velasco
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« Reply #16 on: May 11, 2015, 12:47:29 PM »

Not as terrible as most people here believe it to be, and it has some understated advantages. See this Jonathan Bernstein post:

The post emphasizes the "stability" FPTP system provides, as opposed the "random results" yielded by PR. It's not a very original argument. That FPTP is more stable and avoids "randomness" in election results is questionable; the surprise factor exists in those countries where the system remains in force. Do I need to mention examples? For me, the main advantage of FPTP is that a MP is responsive to the citizens of the constituency he or she represents. In the other cases, I only see disadvantages (mainly lack of pluralism and adequate representativeness). On the other hand, there are different types of PR (which the man doesn't mention) and not all of them are necessarily "proportional". I think the "randomness" in results attributed to PR is more correctly attributable to other factors, such as the different political cultures, the mood of public opinion, exceptional circumstances that can provoke wild swings, etc. There are several European countries using PR that have a tradition of coalition governments and are pretty stable; in other countries like Israel public opinion tends to be volatile. Also, there are intermediate solutions like the MMP system used in Germany and adopted in NZ. I don't think such countries use to provide random electoral results nor their electorates tend to volatility. Of course, it's necessary to be cautious when approaching serious issues like electoral reform. However, I suspect that "caution" is often a synonym of "reluctance to change".   
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SingingAnalyst
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« Reply #17 on: May 12, 2015, 03:42:15 PM »

Not sure what "FF" and "HP" mean, so I didn't vote. ;-)

I'd like to know member's opinions of IRV. I know it has its flaws too, and that Burlington, VT dropped it after experimenting with it for a few years. But it would end the concept of a "wasted vote". I am convinced for instance that every state had IRV in 2000, Gore would have "officially" won FL (because he was the second choice of more Nader voters than Bush, and neither candidate was over 50%) and the election.

Is "winner take all" the best way to elect? Isn't that the same as "first past the post"? If not IRV then what other system? One that most responsible voters could understand, that is.

Is there an IRV thread already?
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Ray Goldfield
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« Reply #18 on: May 12, 2015, 03:51:39 PM »

Poor system that would be improved massively by instant runoff in all districts.
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Oak Hills
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« Reply #19 on: May 12, 2015, 06:03:39 PM »

Not sure what "FF" and "HP" mean, so I didn't vote. ;-)

FF simply means you have a positive opinion of a person or thing, and HP a negative one.  Hope that helps.
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Atlas Has Shrugged
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« Reply #20 on: May 12, 2015, 06:08:30 PM »

Not sure what "FF" and "HP" mean, so I didn't vote. ;-)

I'd like to know member's opinions of IRV. I know it has its flaws too, and that Burlington, VT dropped it after experimenting with it for a few years. But it would end the concept of a "wasted vote". I am convinced for instance that every state had IRV in 2000, Gore would have "officially" won FL (because he was the second choice of more Nader voters than Bush, and neither candidate was over 50%) and the election.

Is "winner take all" the best way to elect? Isn't that the same as "first past the post"? If not IRV then what other system? One that most responsible voters could understand, that is.

Is there an IRV thread already?
I'm not sure about Gore winning with IRV; Nader voters supported Nader because they didn't like Gore to begin with. Who is to say that they wouldn't vote for the Natural Law Party as their second choice instead?
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SingingAnalyst
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« Reply #21 on: May 12, 2015, 06:19:59 PM »

Not sure what "FF" and "HP" mean, so I didn't vote. ;-)

I'd like to know member's opinions of IRV. I know it has its flaws too, and that Burlington, VT dropped it after experimenting with it for a few years. But it would end the concept of a "wasted vote". I am convinced for instance that every state had IRV in 2000, Gore would have "officially" won FL (because he was the second choice of more Nader voters than Bush, and neither candidate was over 50%) and the election.

Is "winner take all" the best way to elect? Isn't that the same as "first past the post"? If not IRV then what other system? One that most responsible voters could understand, that is.

Is there an IRV thread already?
I'm not sure about Gore winning with IRV; Nader voters supported Nader because they didn't like Gore to begin with. Who is to say that they wouldn't vote for the Natural Law Party as their second choice instead?
No one, least of all me. Minor party voters in any one particular election are often fickle, not voting for their candidate because they agree with the candidate's views; rather, as a protest vote. I think forced to pick a second choice, 40% of Nader voters would have picked Gore, 20% Bush, 10% someone else, and 30% no one. I'm not one of those people who insists that Nader took votes, one for one, from Gore. Still, I can't help but believe Gore was perhaps just a bit closer to Nader's view on the environment than Bush, and I think it reasonable to think Gore would have been the second choice of more Nader voters than Bush. In FL, with 90K Nader voters and Bush winning by 537, only a 1% differential is all it would have taken.
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Linus Van Pelt
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« Reply #22 on: May 12, 2015, 07:23:52 PM »

Negative.

Not as negative as it used to be, though. I used to be really in favour of PR, thinking it straightforwardly more democratic. But what I came to realize more is that political power, or the ability to actually implement your program, isn't really a precise quantity that's distributed within a legislature in proportion to the seat count. And if political power isn't proportional to seats, it's not so clearly undemocratic for seats not to be proportional to votes.
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