I think so. Democracy relies on people's views/interests actually being sufficiently represented among the candidates, else they have no choice that sufficiently represents them, and that goes against the point surely. With only two parties, which have only become increasingly polarised in rent years apparently, there will always be major sections of views and interests that aren't being represented. Third parties at least give a presence to more views and interests.
Are you taking into account candidates in the primary election, or are you only talking about the candidates in the general election?
I mean popular vote to determine the state vote. The states electoral college numbers could still be adjusted as they are now, but the state vote would be based directly on popular vote in that state.
It already is. A candidate gets the state's EC votes directly by winning the popular vote. (Well, except in Maine and Nebraska, and ruling out faithless electors.)
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
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I think ranked choice voting is absolutely something the United States needs to adopt to allow there to be real discussion inside parties instead of the current "us against them" mentality; especially since we are simultaneously watching the collapse of both parties. Without it smart people are punished for creating discourse within a mostly like minded group while unquestioned solidarity is rewarded. It really just sets us up to evolve ridiculously slowly as a culture.
In theory, I agree with your analysis. But, the 2-party system is very entrenched. I suspect this would actually result in the creation of parties and candidates whose only purpose is to act as spoilers. SuperPACs would create candidates to go out and suck up votes from one specific issue-driven voter type. This is not the case in countries with more than 2 parties that are seen on a relatively equal level.
I can hardly see this interpretation ever working out. 'Any form of expression', that's easily arguable to be a massive percentage of all possible action, even all action. Speech, I would think, is about pure, direct communication. Writing out a vote is probably fair to consider speech, but what I am talking about does not compel anyone to speak any which way.
I don't entirely disagree with you, but this is a matter of settled law. The US Supreme Court has ruled many times on what constitutes speech and invariably, they have ruled that nearly all expressions (or the prevention thereof) are examples of types of speech.
The role of the federal Department of Education is more limited than a lot of people assume. According to its own website, it coordinates federal assistance to schools, collects data on education, focuses national attention on major issues, and enforces anti-discrimination law. It does not establish, administer, mandate, or accredit educational institutions at any level in this country. If you are looking for the laws that do those things, look in state and local statutes.
That may be true. But, if the state of Alabama suddenly declared that it would no longer require nor provide public education, do you believe that the Federal government would acquiesce? No chance.
I understand the argument surrounding the 16th Ammendment. I said that there's an argument that can be made to de-legitimize the current tax code. And that's absolutely true. The fact that the courts have denied that argument means very little. For a century, the courts denied the argument that a black man is a person.
Trained lawyers in the ACLU and other watchdogs will howl at the faintest whiff of racial discrimination or other civil rights violations. These same lawyers won't go anywhere near 16th Amendment denialism cases. They, the experts on the relevant law, know that [i]there is no argument there.
The ACLU is a left-leaning organization that actually argues in favor of racial discrimination as long as it benefits minorities. To any logical person, Affirmative Action is clearly an example of discrimination. But, neither the ACLU nor the US government is willing to admit that on the basis that it would be unfair to minorities NOT to give them racial preferences.
Quote from osieorb18 »
Okay, can we also institute mandatory voter registration from birth that lasts until death or uncleared felony conviction, and voter IDs provided at no particular cost to any individual citizen with enough regularity that there is no conceivable way that any American citizen will show up to vote without their ID, even if they are homeless and penniless, and there's no conceivable way that any American citizen will not know that they have the option to show up to vote? Because most people who support voter ID laws appear to support them while not considering or while hoping for the huge disenfranchisement of a massive number of American citizens. I'm not saying that is the case for you, but common sense should be applied when making laws.
Mandatory voter registration would probably be legal and acceptable as long as there was no cost involved, similar to the Selective Service law.
Voter IDs are available at low-to-no-cost in every state. You shouldn't use a phrase like "no conceivable way" because no matter what scenario you create, there is a conceivable (though improbable) counter-argument.
Seriously, who doesn't know when voting day is ?
The voter disenfranchisement issue is 99% emotional overreaction, 1% real.
The ACLU is a left-leaning organization that actually argues in favor of racial discrimination as long as it benefits minorities. To any logical person, Affirmative Action is clearly an example of discrimination. But, neither the ACLU nor the US government is willing to admit that on the basis that it would be unfair to minorities NOT to give them racial preferences.
You missed the point. No serious constitutional lawyer of any political affiliation is going to want to touch the argument against the 16th Amendment that you allege exists. It is, as you say of the First Amendment just a paragraph prior, a matter of settled law.
To be fair, the two-party system is a consequence of the first-past-the-post process called Duverger's law. (Your own UK politics are unusual in somewhat resisting this effect despite having first-past-the-post elections.)
The effective number of parties in a given party system depends more on elite linkage and voter coordination across electoral districts, more than anything else. There are examples of extremely fragmented party systems in political systems with majority rule (e.g. India), and almost perfect two party systems in political systems with proportional representation (e.g. Malta).
Our electoral college is a dumb relic of instutionalized slavery and really needs to go away. We no longer live in a country where we count some people as 3/5ths so we can finally give people whole votes by skipping the electoral college.
You're conflating the two compromises you learned about in high school civics. The Electoral College is a consequence of the Great Compromise that based the House on population size but the Senate on statehood. The Three-Fifths Compromise pertaining to slavery was unrelated.
You are aware they are part of the same compromise, right? It even says so in your first wiki article. I assure you, I was quite awake during high school civics, and then for six years in college.
I think so. Democracy relies on people's views/interests actually being sufficiently represented among the candidates, else they have no choice that sufficiently represents them, and that goes against the point surely. With only two parties, which have only become increasingly polarised in rent years apparently, there will always be major sections of views and interests that aren't being represented. Third parties at least give a presence to more views and interests.
Are you taking into account candidates in the primary election, or are you only talking about the candidates in the general election?
I mean popular vote to determine the state vote. The states electoral college numbers could still be adjusted as they are now, but the state vote would be based directly on popular vote in that state.
It already is. A candidate gets the state's EC votes directly by winning the popular vote. (Well, except in Maine and Nebraska, and ruling out faithless electors.)
But the winner takes all. The electoral votes are given based solely on the final outcome of the popular vote, not directly on the popular vote itself. I'm talking about splitting up the vote amongst different candidates based on their results, as Kahedron was saying. My statement was in agreement of that being reasonable. Perhaps wasn't the best way of saying so.
I can hardly see this interpretation ever working out. 'Any form of expression', that's easily arguable to be a massive percentage of all possible action, even all action. Speech, I would think, is about pure, direct communication. Writing out a vote is probably fair to consider speech, but what I am talking about does not compel anyone to speak any which way.
I don't entirely disagree with you, but this is a matter of settled law. The US Supreme Court has ruled many times on what constitutes speech and invariably, they have ruled that nearly all expressions (or the prevention thereof) are examples of types of speech.
Murder, assault, sexual assault and stealing are all oddly illegal then aren't they? Literally almost every possible action can be considered expression. You can't consider that freedom of speech. Speech is more than just any form of expression whatsoever.
Quote from osieorb18 »
Okay, can we also institute mandatory voter registration from birth that lasts until death or uncleared felony conviction, and voter IDs provided at no particular cost to any individual citizen with enough regularity that there is no conceivable way that any American citizen will show up to vote without their ID, even if they are homeless and penniless, and there's no conceivable way that any American citizen will not know that they have the option to show up to vote? Because most people who support voter ID laws appear to support them while not considering or while hoping for the huge disenfranchisement of a massive number of American citizens. I'm not saying that is the case for you, but common sense should be applied when making laws.
Mandatory voter registration would probably be legal and acceptable as long as there was no cost involved, similar to the Selective Service law.
Voter IDs are available at low-to-no-cost in every state. You shouldn't use a phrase like "no conceivable way" because no matter what scenario you create, there is a conceivable (though improbable) counter-argument.
Seriously, who doesn't know when voting day is ?
The voter disenfranchisement issue is 99% emotional overreaction, 1% real.
"A federal court in Texas found that 608,470 registered voters don’t have the forms of identification that the state now requires for voting. For example, residents can vote with their concealed-carry handgun licenses but not their state-issued student university IDs.
Across the country, about 11 percent of Americans do not have government-issued photo identification cards, such as a driver’s license or a passport"
"A recent voter-ID study by political scientists at the University of California at San Diego analyzed turnout in elections between 2008 and 2012 and found “substantial drops in turnout for minorities under strict voter ID laws.”
"In 2012, a federal court in Washington concluded that the burden of obtaining a state voter-ID certificate would weigh disproportionately on minorities living in poverty, with many having to travel as much as 200 to 250 miles round trip."
And voter identity fraud is 99% emotional overreaction, 1% real. It doesn't significantly affect any elections.
The ACLU is a left-leaning organization that actually argues in favor of racial discrimination as long as it benefits minorities. To any logical person, Affirmative Action is clearly an example of discrimination. But, neither the ACLU nor the US government is willing to admit that on the basis that it would be unfair to minorities NOT to give them racial preferences.
You missed the point. No serious constitutional lawyer of any political affiliation is going to want to touch the argument against the 16th Amendment that you allege exists. It is, as you say of the First Amendment just a paragraph prior, a matter of settled law.
You misunderstand my point. I'm not suggesting it's a winning argument. Certainly, the US government would never allow their ability to collect Income Tax to be overturned. But, as for it being settled law, that's not entirely accurate or even relevant. Many issues have been seen as settled law only to be completely thrown out and replaced a century later: slavery, voting rights (who can vote), gay marriage, gun ownership, and a multitude of other things have been radically altered from the way they were for decades. Slavery was legal in the South. That was a matter of settled law until the Civil War began.
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Aether Revolt was a revolting pre-release. As if Vehicles weren't frustrating enough, now you don't even have to crew them.
Murder, assault, sexual assault and stealing are all oddly illegal then aren't they? Literally almost every possible action can be considered expression. You can't consider that freedom of speech. Speech is more than just any form of expression whatsoever.
No, because those infringe upon the rights of other people. That's the standard. There's nothing unclear about that.
"A federal court in Texas found that 608,470 registered voters don’t have the forms of identification that the state now requires for voting. For example, residents can vote with their concealed-carry handgun licenses but not their state-issued student university IDs.
Across the country, about 11 percent of Americans do not have government-issued photo identification cards, such as a driver’s license or a passport"
"A recent voter-ID study by political scientists at the University of California at San Diego analyzed turnout in elections between 2008 and 2012 and found “substantial drops in turnout for minorities under strict voter ID laws.”
"In 2012, a federal court in Washington concluded that the burden of obtaining a state voter-ID certificate would weigh disproportionately on minorities living in poverty, with many having to travel as much as 200 to 250 miles round trip."
And voter identity fraud is 99% emotional overreaction, 1% real. It doesn't significantly affect any elections.
Well, here's the thing. The Federal government should have dealt with this issue themselves. They left it to the state for no logical reason. Voting in state elections is in the domain of the state, but Federal elections are the domain of the Federal government. Voter ID laws need to reach the Supreme Court and get a wide-sweeping ruling. That would fix the issue completely.
Possibility #1 is that they'd declare that it's illegal to require an ID and this issue would immediately end.
Possibility #2 is that they'd declare it legal in which case they'd almost certainly put it solely in the Federal government's domain. That would prompt Congress to pass a Federal ID law, thereby invalidating all State laws on the issue. They'd then face legal challenges as to the manner in which it is applied. But, because the Supreme Court already ruled it legal, the result would almost certainly be a free ID program. And let's be honest, this is something Democrats have desired for decades.
If in fact people are having to travel 250 miles to get a voter ID in Washington, maybe that says more about Washington than it does about the ID law. I live in rural Wisconsin. There are at least 6 locations within 20 miles of me that I can get a voter ID. Bump that radius up to 50 miles and there's more like 20+ locations. It would be more, but some of that 50 mile radius includes another state and Lake Michigan.
I agree that voter fraud is a very small amount. But, that shouldn't mean we pretend it doesn't exist. But, please try to realize that it's not just the Right that believes in the existence of voter fraud. Jill Stein, a Leftist-Socialist alleged voter fraud in 3 states last year.
Murder, assault, sexual assault and stealing are all oddly illegal then aren't they? Literally almost every possible action can be considered expression. You can't consider that freedom of speech. Speech is more than just any form of expression whatsoever.
No, because those infringe upon the rights of other people. That's the standard. There's nothing unclear about that.
Can you find me a statement from more than one legal professional that thinks murdering, assault, sexual assault and/or stealing are forms of speech? I don't buy your argument at all.
"A federal court in Texas found that 608,470 registered voters don’t have the forms of identification that the state now requires for voting. For example, residents can vote with their concealed-carry handgun licenses but not their state-issued student university IDs.
Across the country, about 11 percent of Americans do not have government-issued photo identification cards, such as a driver’s license or a passport"
"A recent voter-ID study by political scientists at the University of California at San Diego analyzed turnout in elections between 2008 and 2012 and found “substantial drops in turnout for minorities under strict voter ID laws.”
"In 2012, a federal court in Washington concluded that the burden of obtaining a state voter-ID certificate would weigh disproportionately on minorities living in poverty, with many having to travel as much as 200 to 250 miles round trip."
And voter identity fraud is 99% emotional overreaction, 1% real. It doesn't significantly affect any elections.
Well, here's the thing. The Federal government should have dealt with this issue themselves. They left it to the state for no logical reason. Voting in state elections is in the domain of the state, but Federal elections are the domain of the Federal government. Voter ID laws need to reach the Supreme Court and get a wide-sweeping ruling. That would fix the issue completely.
Possibility #1 is that they'd declare that it's illegal to require an ID and this issue would immediately end.
Possibility #2 is that they'd declare it legal in which case they'd almost certainly put it solely in the Federal government's domain. That would prompt Congress to pass a Federal ID law, thereby invalidating all State laws on the issue. They'd then face legal challenges as to the manner in which it is applied. But, because the Supreme Court already ruled it legal, the result would almost certainly be a free ID program. And let's be honest, this is something Democrats have desired for decades.
If in fact people are having to travel 250 miles to get a voter ID in Washington, maybe that says more about Washington than it does about the ID law. I live in rural Wisconsin. There are at least 6 locations within 20 miles of me that I can get a voter ID. Bump that radius up to 50 miles and there's more like 20+ locations. It would be more, but some of that 50 mile radius includes another state and Lake Michigan.
I agree that voter fraud is a very small amount. But, that shouldn't mean we pretend it doesn't exist.
Do you know what the term negligible means? It means small enough that it's not significant and can be discounted on that basis. I am arguing the occurrence of voter identity fraud is small enough that there's no point addressing the issue because it's waste of time.
You are aware they are part of the same compromise, right? It even says so in your first wiki article.
Yes, they were being discussed at the same time and they pertained to the same question of congressional seat apportionment. I'll grant that much. But they were not the same compromise. The House-Senate split was a compromise between large states and small states. The three-fifths rule was a compromise between northern states and southern states. The two rules stand independent of each other. We can know this because the Great Compromise as proposed by the (northern, non-slaveholding) Connecticut delegation was a House-Senate split independent of a three-fifths rule: only free citizens would have counted. And we can know the Great Compromise can work this way in practice because it's worked this way since 1865.
So it does not make any sense to call the House-Senate split "a dumb relic of institutionalized slavery": it was not prompted by the institution of slavery, it was not adopted as a compromise with slavery, and functions just as intended without slavery. And in no way would getting rid of it "give people whole votes" as opposed to the three-fifths of a vote, because the Three-Fifths Compromise is already long gone, and even when it was still in force, at no point did anyone get three-fifths of a vote -- free people always got one, slaves always got zero, and the Three-Fifths Compromise never had anything to do with enfranchisement fractional or otherwise. Remember, for the purpose of seat apportionment, the slaveholders wanted slaves to count as whole persons, and the free states didn't.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You misunderstand my point. I'm not suggesting it's a winning argument. Certainly, the US government would never allow their ability to collect Income Tax to be overturned. But, as for it being settled law, that's not entirely accurate or even relevant. Many issues have been seen as settled law only to be completely thrown out and replaced a century later: slavery, voting rights (who can vote), gay marriage, gun ownership, and a multitude of other things have been radically altered from the way they were for decades. Slavery was legal in the South. That was a matter of settled law until the Civil War began.
Yes, slavery and voting rights were settled law. That's why, when it came time to alter them, we changed the law. Nobody is suggesting that it is impossible to amend the Constitution to overturn the 16th Amendment the way we amended the Constitution to abolish slavery. We can amend the Constitution to say anything we like. That's what the amendment process is for. But what you were suggesting was totally different: that the 16th Amendment as it currently stands is somehow invalid or improper. That is not true. That is the legal equivalent of a Bigfoot story.
When Joshua Norton claimed to be Emperor of the United States, one might have adopted a conspiratorial tone and insinuated that Congress did not recognize his claim because of its vested interest in holding onto power. But the first and foremost reason Congress didn't recognize his claim is because it wasn't true. It's as simple as that.
I think having a popular vote also probably makes sense.
For Californians and New Yorkers. Not so much for South Dakotans and Alaskans.
Are you watching what's happening in the UK right now between England and Scotland? Scotland's less populous so it's getting dragged out of the EU against its will? That's an extreme example of the situation that the makeup of the United States Congress (which is what's being reflected in the Electoral College) was constituted to avoid. The interests of the diverse states carry a certain weight irrespective of their population, plus additional weight dependent on their population.
You've brought up the UK situation a couple of times Spirit and I can't disagree with you the situation is not ideal. But we only have 4 'States' that make up the union and one of those States accounts for 84% of the total population you are very quickly going to run into massive issues if you try and give each state roughly equal representation in the House of Commons.
Atleast in the US you have 50 states so and disparity between the ideal numbers of representatives and the actual number they have is going to spread over a larger number of states so the effect on each individual state is reduced.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
You are aware they are part of the same compromise, right? It even says so in your first wiki article.
Yes, they were being discussed at the same time and they pertained to the same question of congressional seat apportionment. I'll grant that much. But they were not the same compromise. The House-Senate split was a compromise between large states and small states. The three-fifths rule was a compromise between northern states and southern states. The two rules stand independent of each other. We can know this because the Great Compromise as proposed by the (northern, non-slaveholding) Connecticut delegation was a House-Senate split independent of a three-fifths rule: only free citizens would have counted. And we can know the Great Compromise can work this way in practice because it's worked this way since 1865.
So it does not make any sense to call the House-Senate split "a dumb relic of institutionalized slavery": it was not prompted by the institution of slavery, it was not adopted as a compromise with slavery, and functions just as intended without slavery. And in no way would getting rid of it "give people whole votes" as opposed to the three-fifths of a vote, because the Three-Fifths Compromise is already long gone, and even when it was still in force, at no point did anyone get three-fifths of a vote -- free people always got one, slaves always got zero, and the Three-Fifths Compromise never had anything to do with enfranchisement fractional or otherwise. Remember, for the purpose of seat apportionment, the slaveholders wanted slaves to count as whole persons, and the free states didn't.
Lol, they were all slave states. There were no free states. Let's start there.
Then let's ask a very simple question: If you're going to assign seats to your legislator based on population size, do you need to know who counts as a person?
Lol, they were all slave states. There were no free states. Let's start there.
You've asked me to take your education on American history seriously, so I'm going to assume that you know perfectly well the legal, political, and practical differences between the northern states and the southern ones on the subject of slavery, and are being willfully obtuse here in an attempt to score some meaningless points, rather than simply displaying a shocking level of ignorance as a less charitable reader might think.
Then let's ask a very simple question: If you're going to assign seats to your legislator based on population size, do you need to know who counts as a person?
One simple question deserves another: when slaves can't vote, does counting them (wholly or fractionally) for the purpose of apportioning political power to those who own them give them any justice, or does it compound the injustice? And another: after slavery has been abolished, does any citizen not count as one whole person for apportionment? And another: if every citizen today does count as one whole person for apportionment, then what the hell were you talking about when you said that "skipping the electoral college" would "finally give people whole votes"?
If you want to have a meaningful discussion about this aspect of the American political system, then you need to make a coherent point. But if you just want to make nonsensical leaps so that you can feel smug about your outstanding moral bravery in denouncing slavery as a bad thing, then you need to do that somewhere else.
You've brought up the UK situation a couple of times Spirit and I can't disagree with you the situation is not ideal. But we only have 4 'States' that make up the union and one of those States accounts for 84% of the total population you are very quickly going to run into massive issues if you try and give each state roughly equal representation in the House of Commons.
Atleast in the US you have 50 states so and disparity between the ideal numbers of representatives and the actual number they have is going to spread over a larger number of states so the effect on each individual state is reduced.
Sure. Yours is a sadly acute case. An extreme example for illustrative purposes.
I will add, though, that while the situation in America was never that disproportionate, Virginia was pretty massive back in the original-thirteen days.
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don’t see why it's so compromising to be oblogated to show up. It doesn’t give the government any real power to do anything.
Forced speech is not free speech. It gives the government power to force you to be somewhere. So yes, you are giving the government power it should not have
Again, what about mandatory education? And what about prison?
You aren't being forced in your speech, only participation in the process.
<Had you an understanding of the Constitution, you would see how everything you have just said is completely ridiculous.
Had you the intellectual curiosity to research the Constitution to remedy your lack of understanding of the Constitution, you would see how everything you have said is completely ridiculous.
Had you no intellectual curiosity to research the Constitution to remedy your lack of understanding of the Constitution, but read this thread and in turn read the responses to the times you had already posted this exact argument and comprehended their explanations of why everything you have just said is completely ridiculous, you would understand why everything you have just said is completely ridiculous.
So as it stands, you have demonstrated neither understanding of the Constitution, the intellectual curiosity to learn about the Constitution, nor any willingness to even bother to read the thread you yourself started, or at least not to the level necessary to actually comprehend what is being written.
So what you're asking me to do then, basically, is to go through the effort of posting another explanation of why this exact same position is wrong, so you can once again ignore it, only to make the same post again, as you did with the other explanations of why you are wrong?
No. I'm not going to do that.
Until you post something that isn't the exact same argument you've already made, a post that indicates you've actually read the multiple previous explanations of why this exact same argument is wrong and comprehend what was said, then I'm just going to instruct you to read your thread. It's not hard, it's only three pages long.>
But you are measuring support from the voting system.
Yes, I am measuring support from how people have voted to show their support. That's how a democratic republic works.
If the argument is the current voting system doesn't allow for sufficient third party support
Of course it allows for sufficient third party support. You can vote for third parties. People just don't choose to do so. If the third parties don't win because no one votes for them, that's not unfair, that's entirely fair, and exactly how things should work.
don’t see why it's so compromising to be oblogated to show up. It doesn’t give the government any real power to do anything.
Forced speech is not free speech. It gives the government power to force you to be somewhere. So yes, you are giving the government power it should not have
Again, what about mandatory education? And what about prison?
You aren't being forced in your speech, only participation in the process.
Had you an understanding of the Constitution, you would see how everything you have just said is completely ridiculous.
Had you the intellectual curiosity to research the Constitution to remedy your lack of understanding of the Constitution, you would see how everything you have said is completely ridiculous.
Had you no intellectual curiosity to research the Constitution to remedy your lack of understanding of the Constitution, but read this thread and in turn read the responses to the times you had already posted this exact argument and comprehended their explanations of why everything you have just said is completely ridiculous, you would understand why everything you have just said is completely ridiculous.
So as it stands, you have demonstrated neither understanding of the Constitution, the intellectual curiosity to learn about the Constitution, nor any willingness to even bother to read the thread you yourself started, or at least not to the level necessary to actually comprehend what is being written.
So what you're asking me to do then, basically, is to go through the effort of posting another explanation of why this exact same position is wrong, so you can once again ignore it, only to make the same post again, as you did with the other explanations of why you are wrong?
No. I'm not going to do that.
Until you post something that isn't the exact same argument you've already made, a post that indicates you've actually read the multiple previous explanations of why this exact same argument is wrong and comprehend what was said, then I'm just going to instruct you to read your thread. It's not hard, it's only three pages long.
I've read your damn responses, all you said is that it's forced speech. But again, if it is forced speech for something to have to show up to a place and participate in an activity, then why is mandatory education perfectly legal? No, really. Give me one single relevant difference.
And no, that can't be because voting is speech, because mandatory voting does not require you to do anything with your vote, just formally register your participation. You can 'say' whatever you want when you vote, including nothing. There is no restriction on what you can 'say'. The only restriction is that 'saying' nothing cannot involve not showing up and registering your vote of nothing. Your voting options are entirely unchanged.
More examples of the same thing being legal- court appearances can be mandatory. What about them?
But you are measuring support from the voting system.
Yes, I am measuring support from how people have voted to show their support. That's how a democratic republic works.
And so your argument is circular and necessarily works for any voting system, making it impossible for a voting system to not allow sufficient support for third parties.
I am arguing specifically that third parties are disadvantaged without preferential voting. What do you think disadvantage means here? It means the vote they get, which I would think obvious. You can't say in response, therefore, that they aren't disadvantage because they get low votes. That they get low votes is my point. I am arguing with preferential voting they would get more votes specifically because it allows people to express more detailed preferences which is a large part of where third parties get support- because they aren't the major parties.
With no preferences, a vote for third party means expressing no preference about the major parties- is it not clear that people might not vote third party for this reason? And it becomes self feeding- the more the third parties become irrelevant, the more people who approve of their policies will not vote for them because of it, the more people who approve of their policies don't vote for them, the more they become irrelevant. Especially when their irrelevance allows contributes to whether people even know about them in the first place.
If the argument is the current voting system doesn't allow for sufficient third party support
Of course it allows for sufficient third party support. You can vote for third parties. People just don't choose to do so. If the third parties don't win because no one votes for them, that's not unfair, that's entirely fair, and exactly how things should work.
Again, you are categorically excluding the possibility that the voting system doesn't not allow for sufficient third party support. Just because it allows for support at any level, doesn't mean it allows for sufficient third party support. You cannot use voter choice as the metric for evaluating the voting system- voter choice is directly influenced by the voting system and that's exactly the point. I am arguing that voters are not able to express their support for third parties adequately, that third parties are disproportionately affected by the lack of preferences and it could be more representative.
I've read your damn responses, all you said is that it's forced speech. But again, if it is forced speech for something to have to show up to a place and participate in an activity, then why is mandatory education perfectly legal? No, really. Give me one single relevant difference.
because mandatory voting does not require you to do anything with your vote, just formally register your participation. You can 'say' whatever you want when you vote, including nothing. There is no restriction on what you can 'say'. The only restriction is that 'saying' nothing cannot involve not showing up and registering your vote of nothing. Your voting options are entirely unchanged.
No, they are not, because in one situation, you are choosing to vote of your own free will. In the other, the government is coercing you to vote. You are no longer exercising a right, you are being forced to perform an action. That is in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. The government is not allowed to force you to vote.
More examples of the same thing being legal- court appearances can be mandatory. What about them?
Yes, you are correct, the government is allowed to force you to do certain things. However, this does not mean the government is allowed to force you to do everything, nor should they be allowed to do so. That's what the Constitution is for, to say the government is allowed to do these things and not allowed to do these other things. That is pretty much the entire point behind the document, to say that these are the things the government is allowed to do, and these are the things they're not.
And so your argument is circular and necessarily works for any voting system,
No, it's not a circular argument, it's explaining to you the concept of how voting works.
making it impossible for a voting system to not allow sufficient support for third parties.
No, I'm saying it's impossible, and SHOULD BE impossible, for third parties to gain significant power in a truly representative government without sufficient support. If they don't get the votes, they can't gain power.
Now, this doesn't mean it's impossible for third parties to gain power. We just have to make it not a truly representative government. Maybe the third party takes over the government by force. Maybe a law is passed that the third party can win the presidency while only winning a single state whereas the other two dominant parties need the full electoral college, or something. That'd promote third parties. We'd just have to jettison the whole notion of us being a republic.
I am arguing specifically that third parties are disadvantaged without preferential voting. What do you think disadvantage means here?
I think you're saying they're disadvantaged because people aren't choosing to vote for them. And yes, that absolutely is a disadvantage, but it's not unfair for them to lose because of it. Likewise, a football team being down by 40 points is at a disadvantage, but for them to lose because of it is not unfair, it's exactly how things are supposed to work.
If your problem is no one is voting for third parties, and the reason behind this is because they are choosing of their own free will not to vote for those third parties, then what is the problem? "Oh no, this person nobody is voting for didn't win the election, that means the system is broken!" No it's not. They didn't vote for him because they chose not to.
Now, the system WOULD be broken if it were rigged in favor of the major parties, either through differences in legal treatment for third parties, or through abuses of power from the two dominant parties against opposition. Truly, many a dictatorship has maintained a facade of legitimacy through ostensibly "free" elections.
However, that's not what you're demonstrating. You're citing as the major problem the fact that people are only allowed to vote for one party, and thus aren't choosing one of the third parties in any large numbers. In other words, the problem is that there is no strong preference for any one third party in any significant numbers.
That's not an unfair advantage. That's exactly how the system is supposed to work. If you have no strong support in significant numbers, and there's strong support in significant numbers for the other side, you are supposed to lose.
I am arguing with preferential voting they would get more votes specifically because it allows people to express more detailed preferences which is a large part of where third parties get support- because they aren't the major parties.
That doesn't make any sense. The major parties are the major parties because the overwhelming majority of Americans choose, of their own free will, to vote for one of those parties. As in, they have the option to choose the other parties, but they still don't.
Again, you are categorically excluding the possibility that the voting system doesn't not allow for sufficient third party support.
That there isn't sufficient third party support does not mean the system does not allow for it. And as far as I can tell, your only rationale for saying it doesn't is simply because people choose not to vote for them. So in other words, you're saying that the system doesn't allow third parties to have sufficient support because they don't have sufficient support.
That's not a problem with the system, that's a problem with party popularity. If your party doesn't have a significant base of support, then your party does not have a significant base of support. If your party doesn't get votes, then it won't get votes. That's not the system's problem, that's how voting works.
You can say that maybe there's something inherent to the system that makes it unnecessarily restrictive, and there would be a debate there, but right now, you're essentially saying that the unfair thing is that only the parties that get large amounts of votes win in a contest involving voting. The answer is: yes, that's how voting works.
You cannot use voter choice as the metric for evaluating the voting system
What are you talking about? Of course I can! That's how a voting system works. You're saying that it's unfair that the third parties don't win because no one votes for them. The answer is no, it's not unfair, that's precisely how representative government is supposed to work.
I am arguing that voters are not able to express their support for third parties adequately, that third parties are disproportionately affected by the lack of preferences and it could be more representative.
That still doesn't make any sense. There's nothing not representative about the votes representing party preferences. That shows the system works. The system wouldn't work if a party that got less than 6% of the vote won the presidency. That'd be a great example of not being representative.
I've read your damn responses, all you said is that it's forced speech. But again, if it is forced speech for something to have to show up to a place and participate in an activity, then why is mandatory education perfectly legal? No, really. Give me one single relevant difference.
Nowhere in that post do I see an argument why mandatory voting goes against freedom of speech or why mandatory education is relevantly different.
because mandatory voting does not require you to do anything with your vote, just formally register your participation. You can 'say' whatever you want when you vote, including nothing. There is no restriction on what you can 'say'. The only restriction is that 'saying' nothing cannot involve not showing up and registering your vote of nothing. Your voting options are entirely unchanged.
No, they are not, because in one situation, you are choosing to vote of your own free will. In the other, the government is coercing you to vote. [/quote] But your voting options are unchanged regardless.
You can make a blank vote (equivalent to no vote), or vote for whatever party or parties you choose.
The only difference is to not make a vote you have to cast a blank vote which is legally counts as your vote, but is an informal vote, and the fact that is a vote in a sense has nothing to do with what choice of 'speech' you have in your vote because it says the same thing as not turning up. What you can 'say' is unaffected, only how you might have to go about saying it.
You are no longer exercising a right, you are being forced to perform an action. That is in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. The government is not allowed to force you to vote.
Does it explicitly say that? No? Then tell me why it is different than the examples I have provided. You are claiming there is a difference, obviously, so what is it? As I have already said, you aren't limited in what you can 'say' by mandating voting, only that in order to say nothing you still have to turn up. That's not a restriction of speech. That's equivalent to making people turn up for education, just what you are turning up for is different, what is mandated about it is mostly the same- participate in the process in some way.
More examples of the same thing being legal- court appearances can be mandatory. What about them?
Yes, you are correct, the government is allowed to force you to do certain things. However, this does not mean the government is allowed to force you to do everything, nor should they be allowed to do so. That's what the Constitution is for, to say the government is allowed to do these things and not allowed to do these other things. That is pretty much the entire point behind the document, to say that these are the things the government is allowed to do, and these are the things they're not.
Exactly, so tell me why these examples are things the government isn't allowed to do that aren't mandatory restricting your voting options (and therefore your speech) because it doesn't.
And so your argument is circular and necessarily works for any voting system,
No, it's not a circular argument, it's explaining to you the concept of how voting works.
My claim is that people are intentionally not voting for third, but not always because they don't support them, but because they are limited by the voting system. Your response of 'but they don't get many votes' is a literal statement of one of the premises of my argument. I'm well aware they don't. That's the point- that I think the voting system affects that or at least can easily.
making it impossible for a voting system to not allow sufficient support for third parties.
No, I'm saying it's impossible, and SHOULD BE impossible, for third parties to gain significant power in a truly representative government without sufficient support. If they don't get the votes, they can't gain power.
I agree with your statements wholeheartedly and that is why I am not suggesting we change how election should work based on the votes, but what options people have in how they can vote, as I have been all along.
And I am not saying you mean to say that, but you are not acknowledging or addressing the idea that the voting system can unfairly affect third parties in how many votes they can get. You are acting like the number of votes a party gets is necessarily just so long as they are actual free votes. That ignores the influence of the voting system.
I am arguing specifically that third parties are disadvantaged without preferential voting. What do you think disadvantage means here?
I think you're saying they're disadvantaged because people aren't choosing to vote for them. And yes, that absolutely is a disadvantage, but it's not unfair for them to lose because of it. Likewise, a football team being down by 40 points is at a disadvantage, but for them to lose because of it is not unfair, it's exactly how things are supposed to work.
If your problem is no one is voting for third parties, and the reason behind this is because they are choosing of their own free will not to vote for those third parties, then what is the problem? "Oh no, this person nobody is voting for didn't win the election, that means the system is broken!" No it's not. They didn't vote for him because they chose not to.
Again, you are ignoring the influence of the voting system. How people vote is directly affected by the voting system. You can't ignore that.
However, that's not what you're demonstrating. You're citing as the major problem the fact that people are only allowed to vote for one party, and thus aren't choosing one of the third parties in any large numbers. In other words, the problem is that there is no strong preference for any one third party in any significant numbers.
Do you seriously not think it's possible for preferential voting to change the support given by the vote? Because it is. It obviously is. Choosing only one option is pretty ******* different than ranking a list of options.
I am arguing with preferential voting they would get more votes specifically because it allows people to express more detailed preferences which is a large part of where third parties get support- because they aren't the major parties.
That doesn't make any sense. The major parties are the major parties because the overwhelming majority of Americans choose, of their own free will, to vote for one of those parties. As in, they have the option to choose the other parties, but they still don't.
And again, voting system directly influences voter decisions. Also, if being a major party is an inherent benefit, you only need to become a major party from one election to reap consequential benefits in future elections from that status.
You can say that maybe there's something inherent to the system that makes it unnecessarily restrictive
You know what would be funny? If I have been saying exactly that from the beginning.
My very first point of argument on the matter-
they should be able to represent something a little more sophisticated than simply picking a single favorite from a limited list
'They should be able to'- sounds like I am talking about restriction doesn't it?
Further quotes:
As is, you can only put a vote for one. If you vote for a third party, you express no preference about the major two parties. Preferential voting allows you to do both. Why not give people that option?
I am arguing that voters are not able to express their support for third parties adequately, that third parties are disproportionately affected by the lack of preferences and it could be more representative.
You cannot use voter choice as the metric for evaluating the voting system
What are you talking about? Of course I can! That's how a voting system works. You're saying that it's unfair that the third parties don't win because no one votes for them. The answer is no, it's not unfair, that's precisely how representative government is supposed to work.
Ditto 'influence of the voting system'
I am arguing that voters are not able to express their support for third parties adequately, that third parties are disproportionately affected by the lack of preferences and it could be more representative.
That still doesn't make any sense. There's nothing not representative about the votes representing party preferences. That shows the system works. The system wouldn't work if a party that got less than 6% of the vote won the presidency. That'd be a great example of not being representative.
I just clearly explained the point, I don't know what more I can say.
Alright, let's stick with one issue, which is the voting system thing, and table the mandatory voting thing for another day, it's getting late.
So, voting system:
Let's get one thing out of the way first. Yes, if you give a group of people an infinite amount of votes, more parties will get more votes than if you give each person one vote. Obviously.
Now that this is out of the way...
And I am not saying you mean to say that, but you are not acknowledging or addressing the idea that the voting system can unfairly affect third parties in how many votes they can get.
Because there's nothing unfair about it.
For it to be unfair, it would have to be based on something other than individual choice in a free election. Perhaps there are laws that specifically target opposition parties for restriction, or maybe the dominant party is using its power and influence to keep other parties out. This is an unfair advantage.
But there's nothing unfair about this. As long as the third party is on the ballot, or is a valid write-in candidate, a voter is perfectly free to vote that person. And if that person does win, there is nothing preventing them from taking office.
That's how a fair election works.
You're saying this is unfair because certain parties win over others. But what is the mechanism behind those parties being the dominant parties? Graft? Corruption? Underhanded dealings? Persecution? Or is it the fact that the voters aren't choosing to vote for them, not because they're not given the choice, but because they are given the choice and choose otherwise? If it's the latter, then it's a free election. That's the definition of a free election.
There are plenty of dictatorships who use the facade of democratic elections to gain a veneer of legitimacy. However, these elections are frauds. People are legally prevented from running against the dominant government, or the opposition party is coerced, or corruption in the election system favors certain candidates. This is an example of an unfair election. The distinguishing characteristics are denying people the ability to vote for who they want, or manipulating the vote in such a way that people vote a particular way for reasons other than their own free choice to vote that way.
But if people are voting out of free choice, that is, by definition, a free election. You're saying that people are voting a certain way because they view the party they actually want as having no shot of winning due to its lack of support. Here's the deal: that's still a choice! They're choosing to vote a certain way. There is nothing that obstructs them from casting a vote for a third party, but they are choosing not to because they are weighing their options and finding a vote for the other party as a better choice, probably because they view it as superior to vote for the party that might have a chance of winning - and thereby give them some of the things they want - rather than vote for a party that has no chance of winning and thereby risk the chance of another party winning that might give them none of what they want.
And yeah, that's not a great choice, but here's the thing: that's a reality of politics under representative government. You need a base of support in order to get the votes to get anything done, and that means you have to have a broad enough appeal among different interest groups to be able to win, and that means compromising and not getting everything you want. It's why parties form. You think everyone in the Republican or Democratic party agrees with everything everyone else in the party does? Heck no! It's a loose coalition of people who are agreeing to work together because they acknowledge that they can't get everything they want, but they need to compromise in order to get anything they want done.
And it will be just as much a reality under your system as it is under the current one. If we had a third party that got any significant percentage of the vote, that'd be one thing. But they don't. Gary Johnson got 3.2% of the vote last year. Would he have gotten more of the vote under your system? Maybe. Maybe he would have gotten less, you might have seen more people vote Johnson AND Clinton or Johnson AND Trump, or multiple people who were not Johnson, giving him an even smaller percentage of the overall vote. But the fact remains that Johnson wouldn't have won. He doesn't have the support.
Also, if being a major party is an inherent benefit, you only need to become a major party from one election to reap consequential benefits in future elections from that status.
Except you're ignoring why they're a major party in the first place. They're a major party because they get a lot of votes. Should they stop getting a lot of votes, they would no longer be a major party. You may have noticed that the Federalists aren't a dominant force in American politics anymore.
You're acting like the major parties get votes because they're the major parties. No, they're the major parties because they get the votes. There's nothing codified that says only the Republicans and Democrats can get votes, nothing in the legal system says that. They're the dominant parties because those are the two political factions that have the broadest bases of support right now. Half the country, more or less, supports one or the other party.
Yes, I agree that there are a lot of people who are voting for the Democrats or Republicans out of compromise, that this party is the closer of the two to their interests, or the lesser of two evils. But guess what? That's going to be true under your system as well. People are going to compromise and vote out of self-interest, you can't outlaw that and still have a free vote. And if you acknowledge that people will do that, then they will naturally form parties, and some of those parties are going to enjoy broader bases of support than others. And yes, the parties that actually win in practice will attract votes. That's just logical.
So no, nothing about this is an unfair system. Once again, the reason that third parties don't win is that they have insignificant bases of support.
Alright, let's stick with one issue, which is the voting system thing, and table the mandatory voting thing for another day, it's getting late.
So, voting system:
Let's get one thing out of the way first. Yes, if you give a group of people an infinite amount of votes, more parties will get more votes than if you give each person one vote. Obviously.
Now that this is out of the way...
And I am not saying you mean to say that, but you are not acknowledging or addressing the idea that the voting system can unfairly affect third parties in how many votes they can get.
Because there's nothing unfair about it.
For it to be unfair, it would have to be based on something other than individual choice in a free election. Perhaps there are laws that specifically target opposition parties for restriction, or maybe the dominant party is using its power and influence to keep other parties out. This is an unfair advantage.
But there's nothing unfair about this. As long as the third party is on the ballot, or is a valid write-in candidate, a voter is perfectly free to vote that person. And if that person does win, there is nothing preventing them from taking office.
That's how a fair election works.
You're saying this is unfair because certain parties win over others. But what is the mechanism behind those parties being the dominant parties? Graft? Corruption? Underhanded dealings? Persecution? Or is it the fact that the voters aren't choosing to vote for them, not because they're not given the choice, but because they are given the choice and choose otherwise? If it's the latter, then it's a free election. That's the definition of a free election.
You're implying a false dichotomy. Just because voters can choose to vote however they wish, and the voting system does not explicitly disadvantage third parties does not mean it doesn't disadvantage third parties. There are more subtle and complex ways a voting system can be somewhat unfair than such superficially apparent ones.
But if people are voting out of free choice, that is, by definition, a free election. You're saying that people are voting a certain way because they view the party they actually want as having no shot of winning due to its lack of support. Here's the deal: that's still a choice!
This isn't about free elections and it never has been- that's a red herring or a strawman.
Address the argument being made.
And yeah, that's not a great choice, but here's the thing: that's a reality of politics under representative government. You need a base of support in order to get the votes to get anything done, and that means you have to have a broad enough appeal among different interest groups to be able to win, and that means compromising and not getting everything you want. It's why parties form. You think everyone in the Republican or Democratic party agrees with everything everyone else in the party does? Heck no! It's a loose coalition of people who are agreeing to work together because they acknowledge that they can't get everything they want, but they need to compromise in order to get anything they want done.
And it will be just as much a reality under your system as it is under the current one. If we had a third party that got any significant percentage of the vote, that'd be one thing. But they don't. Gary Johnson got 3.2% of the vote last year. Would he have gotten more of the vote under your system? Maybe. Maybe he would have gotten less, you might have seen more people vote Johnson AND Clinton or Johnson AND Trump, or multiple people who were not Johnson, giving him an even smaller percentage of the overall vote. But the fact remains that Johnson wouldn't have won. He doesn't have the support.
It doesn't matter whether third parties would necessarily get more success- and certainly presidential races are not a fair example. My argument is by general principle, third parties rely more on getting initial support from people already invested in politics to build enough exposure and perception of relevance to get more dedicated support. It's incredibly hard to break the major parties in America for this reason. Preferential voting doesn't guarantee change, but it allows it to happen in cases where I think it should, and secondarily I think on balance it's more beneficial than not to third parties.
Also, if being a major party is an inherent benefit, you only need to become a major party from one election to reap consequential benefits in future elections from that status.
Except you're ignoring why they're a major party in the first place.
No, I'm not. As I said, you only need to get the support to become a major party in the first place. After that, you have a privileged status of media and public attention.
They're a major party because they get a lot of votes. Should they stop getting a lot of votes, they would no longer be a major party. You may have noticed that the Federalists aren't a dominant force in American politics anymore.
Yes, they need to receive a certain amount of support to continue to be a major party, but it's much less difficult to maintain the necessary support once you've gotten to be major party.
You're acting like the major parties get votes because they're the major parties
People have and continue to vote for major parties because other parties aren't major enough to receive their attention, or because they aren't major enough to be seen as relevant. People can go into every single election knowing nothing except they support a major party and not have to worry, and they don't have to do as much research to get to that position. Hell, people are influenced by their peers- group think supports major parties too.
Yes, there are other ways in which third parties are advantaged, but I think it's fairly clear the biases and such favor major parties more so.
So no, nothing about this is an unfair system. Once again, the reason that third parties don't win is that they have insignificant bases of support.
I've never said anything about winning. Just support. Different, if related, arguments.
You're implying a false dichotomy. Just because voters can choose to vote however they wish, and the voting system does not explicitly disadvantage third parties does not mean it doesn't disadvantage third parties.
Yes, but the disadvantage you cite has thusfar been that the third parties don't get as much support from the populace.
And, while that is a disadvantage, it's a disadvantage on par with one football team having much less skilled players than another football team. Namely, it's not unfair for the team that's less skilled to lose to the more skilled team. That's the point of a contest of athleticism, the team that displayed greater athleticism should win.
Likewise, in a representative government, the candidate or party who has vastly higher levels of support from the people should win.
This isn't about free elections and it never has been- that's a red herring or a strawman.
Address the argument being made.
I am. The fact that the elections are free is a glaring problem with your argument. You're claiming the system is unfair when it's working exactly how a vote should be working.
It doesn't matter whether third parties would necessarily get more success
Seems to matter to you. You appear to be selling this voting system on the promise that third parties will get more votes. Seemed to me that was your intention.
My argument is by general principle, third parties rely more on getting initial support from people already invested in politics to build enough exposure and perception of relevance to get more dedicated support. It's incredibly hard to break the major parties in America for this reason. Preferential voting doesn't guarantee change, but it allows it to happen in cases where I think it should, and secondarily I think on balance it's more beneficial than not to third parties.
See? Right here. "Benefit third parties" seems to be the entire point behind this system you're proposing.
Now, crafting an entire system to the benefit of certain parties and the detriment of others seems pretty much the textbook definition of unfair, so your argument about this system you're proposing being fair has a pretty significant problem right out of the gate.
But even if we set that aside for now, let's look at the obvious flaw in what you're saying: the reason why third parties are not seen as relevant is because people choose voluntarily not to support them. In a system in which people are only allowed to choose one person, only a minute amount of people vote ANY third party, let alone any specific one.
No, I'm not. As I said, you only need to get the support to become a major party in the first place. After that, you have a privileged status of media and public attention.
You're right, the media and public do tend to focus on things that large numbers of people care about and don't tend to focus on things that only a very small percentage of people care about. Not sure why that's a problem.
Yes, they need to receive a certain amount of support to continue to be a major party, but it's much less difficult to maintain the necessary support once you've gotten to be major party.
You're right, it is easier to be politically relevant when 50% of the country supports you than when less than 4% of the country supports you. Again, not sure why that's a problem.
People have and continue to vote for major parties because other parties aren't major enough to receive their attention, or because they aren't major enough to be seen as relevant.
Yes, and they want to vote the party that actually stands a chance of winning over the party that doesn't. Again, I'm not sure why that's a problem, and moreover, I'm not sure why you think that people will magically stop doing this exact thing when you give them more votes.
People can go into every single election knowing nothing except they support a major party and not have to worry, and they don't have to do as much research to get to that position. Hell, people are influenced by their peers- group think supports major parties too.
This does not change under your system. Moreover, it makes it even clearer that you're creating your system with the expressed intent of benefiting certain political groups over others. How can you then proceed to label this as fair knowing your biases?
Also, let me take this moment to address yet another thing that I think is a problem with your voting system.
Let's say there are, I don't know, 16 candidates running for an office. I decide that I'm going to do the classic "child pushing every button in an elevator" play and fill in every single bubble, because weeeeeee! Bubbles! So I've cast a vote for all 16 candidates. So I've voted 16 times.
Let's say a second person, he's just doesn't give a crap about the election. This one seems ok. This one seems ok. This other person's alright. He just says screw it, can't be bothered, so he votes for all three. So he's voted 3 times.
Then the third person comes in, registered party member, very much ideologically in line with one of the parties, this candidate is perfect, exactly what he/she has been waiting to come along, and that person votes for that one candidate and no others. So he/she has voted once.
So, I get 16 votes for being an ********, someone gets three votes for being apathetic, and the third person who actually cares and exhibits a strong preference gets 1 vote.
That's fair to you? That makes an abundance of sense? That the guy who doesn't care has more influence than the person who does have a strong preference over the final vote, but the complete jerkass has more influence over the final outcome than either of them? That's utopia to you?
Also, what do you plan on doing about write-in candidates? You do know you can write in anyone, right? You want to give people an unlimited number of votes with the potential for write-in? Yeah, have fun with that.
In New Zealand's current voting system (we were First Past The Post until 1996; in 1978, for example, one party got 16% of the vote, but only 1/92 seats), we get two votes for Members of Parliament: a party vote, and an electorate vote. Each party supplies a ranked list of candidates. The electorate vote allows us to vote for a candidate from our electorate (and they don't have to be from the party you vote for). When the votes are tallied, every electorate winner becomes an MP, and then candidates are added from the party lists to produce a Parliament in proportion to the party vote. The parties then negotiate until a bloc is formed with >50% of the seats.
This has resulted in 'minor' parties (i.e. not one of the big two) getting reasonable numbers of seats (15-30% of the total) in parliament.
The fear with this system (Mixed Member Proportional, MMP) is that a minor party will control the balance of power, and extort disproportionate concessions in exchange for its support. So far this has not happened; the major parties have balanced the interests of minor parties against each other, and against their own. In theory, should the minor parties want too much in return for their votes, the two major parties could ally instead. This has yet to happen, but would be an interesting outcome, given their historical enmity.
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I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
Also, let me take this moment to address yet another thing that I think is a problem with your voting system.
Let's say there are, I don't know, 16 candidates running for an office. I decide that I'm going to do the classic "child pushing every button in an elevator" play and fill in every single bubble, because weeeeeee! Bubbles! So I've cast a vote for all 16 candidates. So I've voted 16 times.
Let's say a second person, he's just doesn't give a crap about the election. This one seems ok. This one seems ok. This other person's alright. He just says screw it, can't be bothered, so he votes for all three. So he's voted 3 times.
Then the third person comes in, registered party member, very much ideologically in line with one of the parties, this candidate is perfect, exactly what he/she has been waiting to come along, and that person votes for that one candidate and no others. So he/she has voted once.
So, I get 16 votes for being an ********, someone gets three votes for being apathetic, and the third person who actually cares and exhibits a strong preference gets 1 vote.
He can correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of DJK's suggestion is that you don't say "Fill in the bubble for 16 people~!", but rather "Candidate B gets first, candidate P gets second, candidate A gets third, candidate H gets fourth..." Getting ranked first is worth more than getting ranked 16th, but getting ranked 16th is still worth something.
That system isn't without problems. For example, if you can omit voting for someone, is that better or worse than getting ranked last? If you have to rank them all, the candidates the voter doesn't care or know about will likely be ranked in whatever order they're listed on the ballot, and it's hardly fair for Senator Aardvark to get higher ranking in the polls than Representative Zyzzyx simply due to listing order.
It already is. A candidate gets the state's EC votes directly by winning the popular vote. (Well, except in Maine and Nebraska, and ruling out faithless electors.)
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
In theory, I agree with your analysis. But, the 2-party system is very entrenched. I suspect this would actually result in the creation of parties and candidates whose only purpose is to act as spoilers. SuperPACs would create candidates to go out and suck up votes from one specific issue-driven voter type. This is not the case in countries with more than 2 parties that are seen on a relatively equal level.
I don't entirely disagree with you, but this is a matter of settled law. The US Supreme Court has ruled many times on what constitutes speech and invariably, they have ruled that nearly all expressions (or the prevention thereof) are examples of types of speech.
The ACLU is a left-leaning organization that actually argues in favor of racial discrimination as long as it benefits minorities. To any logical person, Affirmative Action is clearly an example of discrimination. But, neither the ACLU nor the US government is willing to admit that on the basis that it would be unfair to minorities NOT to give them racial preferences.
Mandatory voter registration would probably be legal and acceptable as long as there was no cost involved, similar to the Selective Service law.
Voter IDs are available at low-to-no-cost in every state. You shouldn't use a phrase like "no conceivable way" because no matter what scenario you create, there is a conceivable (though improbable) counter-argument.
Seriously, who doesn't know when voting day is ?
The voter disenfranchisement issue is 99% emotional overreaction, 1% real.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The effective number of parties in a given party system depends more on elite linkage and voter coordination across electoral districts, more than anything else. There are examples of extremely fragmented party systems in political systems with majority rule (e.g. India), and almost perfect two party systems in political systems with proportional representation (e.g. Malta).
You are aware they are part of the same compromise, right? It even says so in your first wiki article. I assure you, I was quite awake during high school civics, and then for six years in college.
Talking about both.
But the winner takes all. The electoral votes are given based solely on the final outcome of the popular vote, not directly on the popular vote itself. I'm talking about splitting up the vote amongst different candidates based on their results, as Kahedron was saying. My statement was in agreement of that being reasonable. Perhaps wasn't the best way of saying so.
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Murder, assault, sexual assault and stealing are all oddly illegal then aren't they? Literally almost every possible action can be considered expression. You can't consider that freedom of speech. Speech is more than just any form of expression whatsoever.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html?utm_term=.d492055b3370
"A federal court in Texas found that 608,470 registered voters don’t have the forms of identification that the state now requires for voting. For example, residents can vote with their concealed-carry handgun licenses but not their state-issued student university IDs.
Across the country, about 11 percent of Americans do not have government-issued photo identification cards, such as a driver’s license or a passport"
"A recent voter-ID study by political scientists at the University of California at San Diego analyzed turnout in elections between 2008 and 2012 and found “substantial drops in turnout for minorities under strict voter ID laws.”
"In 2012, a federal court in Washington concluded that the burden of obtaining a state voter-ID certificate would weigh disproportionately on minorities living in poverty, with many having to travel as much as 200 to 250 miles round trip."
And voter identity fraud is 99% emotional overreaction, 1% real. It doesn't significantly affect any elections.
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You misunderstand my point. I'm not suggesting it's a winning argument. Certainly, the US government would never allow their ability to collect Income Tax to be overturned. But, as for it being settled law, that's not entirely accurate or even relevant. Many issues have been seen as settled law only to be completely thrown out and replaced a century later: slavery, voting rights (who can vote), gay marriage, gun ownership, and a multitude of other things have been radically altered from the way they were for decades. Slavery was legal in the South. That was a matter of settled law until the Civil War began.
No, because those infringe upon the rights of other people. That's the standard. There's nothing unclear about that.
Well, here's the thing. The Federal government should have dealt with this issue themselves. They left it to the state for no logical reason. Voting in state elections is in the domain of the state, but Federal elections are the domain of the Federal government. Voter ID laws need to reach the Supreme Court and get a wide-sweeping ruling. That would fix the issue completely.
Possibility #1 is that they'd declare that it's illegal to require an ID and this issue would immediately end.
Possibility #2 is that they'd declare it legal in which case they'd almost certainly put it solely in the Federal government's domain. That would prompt Congress to pass a Federal ID law, thereby invalidating all State laws on the issue. They'd then face legal challenges as to the manner in which it is applied. But, because the Supreme Court already ruled it legal, the result would almost certainly be a free ID program. And let's be honest, this is something Democrats have desired for decades.
If in fact people are having to travel 250 miles to get a voter ID in Washington, maybe that says more about Washington than it does about the ID law. I live in rural Wisconsin. There are at least 6 locations within 20 miles of me that I can get a voter ID. Bump that radius up to 50 miles and there's more like 20+ locations. It would be more, but some of that 50 mile radius includes another state and Lake Michigan.
I agree that voter fraud is a very small amount. But, that shouldn't mean we pretend it doesn't exist. But, please try to realize that it's not just the Right that believes in the existence of voter fraud. Jill Stein, a Leftist-Socialist alleged voter fraud in 3 states last year.
Can you find me a statement from more than one legal professional that thinks murdering, assault, sexual assault and/or stealing are forms of speech? I don't buy your argument at all.
Do you know what the term negligible means? It means small enough that it's not significant and can be discounted on that basis. I am arguing the occurrence of voter identity fraud is small enough that there's no point addressing the issue because it's waste of time.
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So it does not make any sense to call the House-Senate split "a dumb relic of institutionalized slavery": it was not prompted by the institution of slavery, it was not adopted as a compromise with slavery, and functions just as intended without slavery. And in no way would getting rid of it "give people whole votes" as opposed to the three-fifths of a vote, because the Three-Fifths Compromise is already long gone, and even when it was still in force, at no point did anyone get three-fifths of a vote -- free people always got one, slaves always got zero, and the Three-Fifths Compromise never had anything to do with enfranchisement fractional or otherwise. Remember, for the purpose of seat apportionment, the slaveholders wanted slaves to count as whole persons, and the free states didn't.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
When Joshua Norton claimed to be Emperor of the United States, one might have adopted a conspiratorial tone and insinuated that Congress did not recognize his claim because of its vested interest in holding onto power. But the first and foremost reason Congress didn't recognize his claim is because it wasn't true. It's as simple as that.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You've brought up the UK situation a couple of times Spirit and I can't disagree with you the situation is not ideal. But we only have 4 'States' that make up the union and one of those States accounts for 84% of the total population you are very quickly going to run into massive issues if you try and give each state roughly equal representation in the House of Commons.
Atleast in the US you have 50 states so and disparity between the ideal numbers of representatives and the actual number they have is going to spread over a larger number of states so the effect on each individual state is reduced.
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Then let's ask a very simple question: If you're going to assign seats to your legislator based on population size, do you need to know who counts as a person?
One simple question deserves another: when slaves can't vote, does counting them (wholly or fractionally) for the purpose of apportioning political power to those who own them give them any justice, or does it compound the injustice? And another: after slavery has been abolished, does any citizen not count as one whole person for apportionment? And another: if every citizen today does count as one whole person for apportionment, then what the hell were you talking about when you said that "skipping the electoral college" would "finally give people whole votes"?
If you want to have a meaningful discussion about this aspect of the American political system, then you need to make a coherent point. But if you just want to make nonsensical leaps so that you can feel smug about your outstanding moral bravery in denouncing slavery as a bad thing, then you need to do that somewhere else.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I will add, though, that while the situation in America was never that disproportionate, Virginia was pretty massive back in the original-thirteen days.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Had you the intellectual curiosity to research the Constitution to remedy your lack of understanding of the Constitution, you would see how everything you have said is completely ridiculous.
Had you no intellectual curiosity to research the Constitution to remedy your lack of understanding of the Constitution, but read this thread and in turn read the responses to the times you had already posted this exact argument and comprehended their explanations of why everything you have just said is completely ridiculous, you would understand why everything you have just said is completely ridiculous.
So as it stands, you have demonstrated neither understanding of the Constitution, the intellectual curiosity to learn about the Constitution, nor any willingness to even bother to read the thread you yourself started, or at least not to the level necessary to actually comprehend what is being written.
So what you're asking me to do then, basically, is to go through the effort of posting another explanation of why this exact same position is wrong, so you can once again ignore it, only to make the same post again, as you did with the other explanations of why you are wrong?
No. I'm not going to do that.
Until you post something that isn't the exact same argument you've already made, a post that indicates you've actually read the multiple previous explanations of why this exact same argument is wrong and comprehend what was said, then I'm just going to instruct you to read your thread. It's not hard, it's only three pages long.>
Yes, I am measuring support from how people have voted to show their support. That's how a democratic republic works.
Of course it allows for sufficient third party support. You can vote for third parties. People just don't choose to do so. If the third parties don't win because no one votes for them, that's not unfair, that's entirely fair, and exactly how things should work.
I've read your damn responses, all you said is that it's forced speech. But again, if it is forced speech for something to have to show up to a place and participate in an activity, then why is mandatory education perfectly legal? No, really. Give me one single relevant difference.
And no, that can't be because voting is speech, because mandatory voting does not require you to do anything with your vote, just formally register your participation. You can 'say' whatever you want when you vote, including nothing. There is no restriction on what you can 'say'. The only restriction is that 'saying' nothing cannot involve not showing up and registering your vote of nothing. Your voting options are entirely unchanged.
More examples of the same thing being legal- court appearances can be mandatory. What about them?
And so your argument is circular and necessarily works for any voting system, making it impossible for a voting system to not allow sufficient support for third parties.
I am arguing specifically that third parties are disadvantaged without preferential voting. What do you think disadvantage means here? It means the vote they get, which I would think obvious. You can't say in response, therefore, that they aren't disadvantage because they get low votes. That they get low votes is my point. I am arguing with preferential voting they would get more votes specifically because it allows people to express more detailed preferences which is a large part of where third parties get support- because they aren't the major parties.
With no preferences, a vote for third party means expressing no preference about the major parties- is it not clear that people might not vote third party for this reason? And it becomes self feeding- the more the third parties become irrelevant, the more people who approve of their policies will not vote for them because of it, the more people who approve of their policies don't vote for them, the more they become irrelevant. Especially when their irrelevance allows contributes to whether people even know about them in the first place.
Again, you are categorically excluding the possibility that the voting system doesn't not allow for sufficient third party support. Just because it allows for support at any level, doesn't mean it allows for sufficient third party support. You cannot use voter choice as the metric for evaluating the voting system- voter choice is directly influenced by the voting system and that's exactly the point. I am arguing that voters are not able to express their support for third parties adequately, that third parties are disproportionately affected by the lack of preferences and it could be more representative.
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No, they are not, because in one situation, you are choosing to vote of your own free will. In the other, the government is coercing you to vote. You are no longer exercising a right, you are being forced to perform an action. That is in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. The government is not allowed to force you to vote.
Yes, you are correct, the government is allowed to force you to do certain things. However, this does not mean the government is allowed to force you to do everything, nor should they be allowed to do so. That's what the Constitution is for, to say the government is allowed to do these things and not allowed to do these other things. That is pretty much the entire point behind the document, to say that these are the things the government is allowed to do, and these are the things they're not.
No, it's not a circular argument, it's explaining to you the concept of how voting works.
No, I'm saying it's impossible, and SHOULD BE impossible, for third parties to gain significant power in a truly representative government without sufficient support. If they don't get the votes, they can't gain power.
Now, this doesn't mean it's impossible for third parties to gain power. We just have to make it not a truly representative government. Maybe the third party takes over the government by force. Maybe a law is passed that the third party can win the presidency while only winning a single state whereas the other two dominant parties need the full electoral college, or something. That'd promote third parties. We'd just have to jettison the whole notion of us being a republic.
I think you're saying they're disadvantaged because people aren't choosing to vote for them. And yes, that absolutely is a disadvantage, but it's not unfair for them to lose because of it. Likewise, a football team being down by 40 points is at a disadvantage, but for them to lose because of it is not unfair, it's exactly how things are supposed to work.
If your problem is no one is voting for third parties, and the reason behind this is because they are choosing of their own free will not to vote for those third parties, then what is the problem? "Oh no, this person nobody is voting for didn't win the election, that means the system is broken!" No it's not. They didn't vote for him because they chose not to.
Now, the system WOULD be broken if it were rigged in favor of the major parties, either through differences in legal treatment for third parties, or through abuses of power from the two dominant parties against opposition. Truly, many a dictatorship has maintained a facade of legitimacy through ostensibly "free" elections.
However, that's not what you're demonstrating. You're citing as the major problem the fact that people are only allowed to vote for one party, and thus aren't choosing one of the third parties in any large numbers. In other words, the problem is that there is no strong preference for any one third party in any significant numbers.
That's not an unfair advantage. That's exactly how the system is supposed to work. If you have no strong support in significant numbers, and there's strong support in significant numbers for the other side, you are supposed to lose.
That doesn't make any sense. The major parties are the major parties because the overwhelming majority of Americans choose, of their own free will, to vote for one of those parties. As in, they have the option to choose the other parties, but they still don't.
That there isn't sufficient third party support does not mean the system does not allow for it. And as far as I can tell, your only rationale for saying it doesn't is simply because people choose not to vote for them. So in other words, you're saying that the system doesn't allow third parties to have sufficient support because they don't have sufficient support.
That's not a problem with the system, that's a problem with party popularity. If your party doesn't have a significant base of support, then your party does not have a significant base of support. If your party doesn't get votes, then it won't get votes. That's not the system's problem, that's how voting works.
You can say that maybe there's something inherent to the system that makes it unnecessarily restrictive, and there would be a debate there, but right now, you're essentially saying that the unfair thing is that only the parties that get large amounts of votes win in a contest involving voting. The answer is: yes, that's how voting works.
What are you talking about? Of course I can! That's how a voting system works. You're saying that it's unfair that the third parties don't win because no one votes for them. The answer is no, it's not unfair, that's precisely how representative government is supposed to work.
That still doesn't make any sense. There's nothing not representative about the votes representing party preferences. That shows the system works. The system wouldn't work if a party that got less than 6% of the vote won the presidency. That'd be a great example of not being representative.
Nowhere in that post do I see an argument why mandatory voting goes against freedom of speech or why mandatory education is relevantly different.
No, they are not, because in one situation, you are choosing to vote of your own free will. In the other, the government is coercing you to vote. [/quote]
But your voting options are unchanged regardless.
You can make a blank vote (equivalent to no vote), or vote for whatever party or parties you choose.
The only difference is to not make a vote you have to cast a blank vote which is legally counts as your vote, but is an informal vote, and the fact that is a vote in a sense has nothing to do with what choice of 'speech' you have in your vote because it says the same thing as not turning up. What you can 'say' is unaffected, only how you might have to go about saying it.
Does it explicitly say that? No? Then tell me why it is different than the examples I have provided. You are claiming there is a difference, obviously, so what is it? As I have already said, you aren't limited in what you can 'say' by mandating voting, only that in order to say nothing you still have to turn up. That's not a restriction of speech. That's equivalent to making people turn up for education, just what you are turning up for is different, what is mandated about it is mostly the same- participate in the process in some way.
Exactly, so tell me why these examples are things the government isn't allowed to do that aren't mandatory restricting your voting options (and therefore your speech) because it doesn't.
My claim is that people are intentionally not voting for third, but not always because they don't support them, but because they are limited by the voting system. Your response of 'but they don't get many votes' is a literal statement of one of the premises of my argument. I'm well aware they don't. That's the point- that I think the voting system affects that or at least can easily.
I agree with your statements wholeheartedly and that is why I am not suggesting we change how election should work based on the votes, but what options people have in how they can vote, as I have been all along.
And I am not saying you mean to say that, but you are not acknowledging or addressing the idea that the voting system can unfairly affect third parties in how many votes they can get. You are acting like the number of votes a party gets is necessarily just so long as they are actual free votes. That ignores the influence of the voting system.
Again, you are ignoring the influence of the voting system. How people vote is directly affected by the voting system. You can't ignore that.
Do you seriously not think it's possible for preferential voting to change the support given by the vote? Because it is. It obviously is. Choosing only one option is pretty ******* different than ranking a list of options.
And again, voting system directly influences voter decisions. Also, if being a major party is an inherent benefit, you only need to become a major party from one election to reap consequential benefits in future elections from that status.
You know what would be funny? If I have been saying exactly that from the beginning.
My very first point of argument on the matter-
'They should be able to'- sounds like I am talking about restriction doesn't it?
Further quotes:
Ditto 'influence of the voting system'
I just clearly explained the point, I don't know what more I can say.
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So, voting system:
Let's get one thing out of the way first. Yes, if you give a group of people an infinite amount of votes, more parties will get more votes than if you give each person one vote. Obviously.
Now that this is out of the way...
Because there's nothing unfair about it.
For it to be unfair, it would have to be based on something other than individual choice in a free election. Perhaps there are laws that specifically target opposition parties for restriction, or maybe the dominant party is using its power and influence to keep other parties out. This is an unfair advantage.
But there's nothing unfair about this. As long as the third party is on the ballot, or is a valid write-in candidate, a voter is perfectly free to vote that person. And if that person does win, there is nothing preventing them from taking office.
That's how a fair election works.
You're saying this is unfair because certain parties win over others. But what is the mechanism behind those parties being the dominant parties? Graft? Corruption? Underhanded dealings? Persecution? Or is it the fact that the voters aren't choosing to vote for them, not because they're not given the choice, but because they are given the choice and choose otherwise? If it's the latter, then it's a free election. That's the definition of a free election.
There are plenty of dictatorships who use the facade of democratic elections to gain a veneer of legitimacy. However, these elections are frauds. People are legally prevented from running against the dominant government, or the opposition party is coerced, or corruption in the election system favors certain candidates. This is an example of an unfair election. The distinguishing characteristics are denying people the ability to vote for who they want, or manipulating the vote in such a way that people vote a particular way for reasons other than their own free choice to vote that way.
But if people are voting out of free choice, that is, by definition, a free election. You're saying that people are voting a certain way because they view the party they actually want as having no shot of winning due to its lack of support. Here's the deal: that's still a choice! They're choosing to vote a certain way. There is nothing that obstructs them from casting a vote for a third party, but they are choosing not to because they are weighing their options and finding a vote for the other party as a better choice, probably because they view it as superior to vote for the party that might have a chance of winning - and thereby give them some of the things they want - rather than vote for a party that has no chance of winning and thereby risk the chance of another party winning that might give them none of what they want.
And yeah, that's not a great choice, but here's the thing: that's a reality of politics under representative government. You need a base of support in order to get the votes to get anything done, and that means you have to have a broad enough appeal among different interest groups to be able to win, and that means compromising and not getting everything you want. It's why parties form. You think everyone in the Republican or Democratic party agrees with everything everyone else in the party does? Heck no! It's a loose coalition of people who are agreeing to work together because they acknowledge that they can't get everything they want, but they need to compromise in order to get anything they want done.
And it will be just as much a reality under your system as it is under the current one. If we had a third party that got any significant percentage of the vote, that'd be one thing. But they don't. Gary Johnson got 3.2% of the vote last year. Would he have gotten more of the vote under your system? Maybe. Maybe he would have gotten less, you might have seen more people vote Johnson AND Clinton or Johnson AND Trump, or multiple people who were not Johnson, giving him an even smaller percentage of the overall vote. But the fact remains that Johnson wouldn't have won. He doesn't have the support.
Except you're ignoring why they're a major party in the first place. They're a major party because they get a lot of votes. Should they stop getting a lot of votes, they would no longer be a major party. You may have noticed that the Federalists aren't a dominant force in American politics anymore.
You're acting like the major parties get votes because they're the major parties. No, they're the major parties because they get the votes. There's nothing codified that says only the Republicans and Democrats can get votes, nothing in the legal system says that. They're the dominant parties because those are the two political factions that have the broadest bases of support right now. Half the country, more or less, supports one or the other party.
Yes, I agree that there are a lot of people who are voting for the Democrats or Republicans out of compromise, that this party is the closer of the two to their interests, or the lesser of two evils. But guess what? That's going to be true under your system as well. People are going to compromise and vote out of self-interest, you can't outlaw that and still have a free vote. And if you acknowledge that people will do that, then they will naturally form parties, and some of those parties are going to enjoy broader bases of support than others. And yes, the parties that actually win in practice will attract votes. That's just logical.
So no, nothing about this is an unfair system. Once again, the reason that third parties don't win is that they have insignificant bases of support.
You're implying a false dichotomy. Just because voters can choose to vote however they wish, and the voting system does not explicitly disadvantage third parties does not mean it doesn't disadvantage third parties. There are more subtle and complex ways a voting system can be somewhat unfair than such superficially apparent ones.
This isn't about free elections and it never has been- that's a red herring or a strawman.
Address the argument being made.
It doesn't matter whether third parties would necessarily get more success- and certainly presidential races are not a fair example. My argument is by general principle, third parties rely more on getting initial support from people already invested in politics to build enough exposure and perception of relevance to get more dedicated support. It's incredibly hard to break the major parties in America for this reason. Preferential voting doesn't guarantee change, but it allows it to happen in cases where I think it should, and secondarily I think on balance it's more beneficial than not to third parties.
No, I'm not. As I said, you only need to get the support to become a major party in the first place. After that, you have a privileged status of media and public attention.
Yes, they need to receive a certain amount of support to continue to be a major party, but it's much less difficult to maintain the necessary support once you've gotten to be major party.
People have and continue to vote for major parties because other parties aren't major enough to receive their attention, or because they aren't major enough to be seen as relevant. People can go into every single election knowing nothing except they support a major party and not have to worry, and they don't have to do as much research to get to that position. Hell, people are influenced by their peers- group think supports major parties too.
Yes, there are other ways in which third parties are advantaged, but I think it's fairly clear the biases and such favor major parties more so.
I've never said anything about winning. Just support. Different, if related, arguments.
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And, while that is a disadvantage, it's a disadvantage on par with one football team having much less skilled players than another football team. Namely, it's not unfair for the team that's less skilled to lose to the more skilled team. That's the point of a contest of athleticism, the team that displayed greater athleticism should win.
Likewise, in a representative government, the candidate or party who has vastly higher levels of support from the people should win.
I am. The fact that the elections are free is a glaring problem with your argument. You're claiming the system is unfair when it's working exactly how a vote should be working.
Seems to matter to you. You appear to be selling this voting system on the promise that third parties will get more votes. Seemed to me that was your intention.
See? Right here. "Benefit third parties" seems to be the entire point behind this system you're proposing.
Now, crafting an entire system to the benefit of certain parties and the detriment of others seems pretty much the textbook definition of unfair, so your argument about this system you're proposing being fair has a pretty significant problem right out of the gate.
But even if we set that aside for now, let's look at the obvious flaw in what you're saying: the reason why third parties are not seen as relevant is because people choose voluntarily not to support them. In a system in which people are only allowed to choose one person, only a minute amount of people vote ANY third party, let alone any specific one.
You're right, the media and public do tend to focus on things that large numbers of people care about and don't tend to focus on things that only a very small percentage of people care about. Not sure why that's a problem.
You're right, it is easier to be politically relevant when 50% of the country supports you than when less than 4% of the country supports you. Again, not sure why that's a problem.
Yes, and they want to vote the party that actually stands a chance of winning over the party that doesn't. Again, I'm not sure why that's a problem, and moreover, I'm not sure why you think that people will magically stop doing this exact thing when you give them more votes.
This does not change under your system. Moreover, it makes it even clearer that you're creating your system with the expressed intent of benefiting certain political groups over others. How can you then proceed to label this as fair knowing your biases?
Also, let me take this moment to address yet another thing that I think is a problem with your voting system.
Let's say there are, I don't know, 16 candidates running for an office. I decide that I'm going to do the classic "child pushing every button in an elevator" play and fill in every single bubble, because weeeeeee! Bubbles! So I've cast a vote for all 16 candidates. So I've voted 16 times.
Let's say a second person, he's just doesn't give a crap about the election. This one seems ok. This one seems ok. This other person's alright. He just says screw it, can't be bothered, so he votes for all three. So he's voted 3 times.
Then the third person comes in, registered party member, very much ideologically in line with one of the parties, this candidate is perfect, exactly what he/she has been waiting to come along, and that person votes for that one candidate and no others. So he/she has voted once.
So, I get 16 votes for being an ********, someone gets three votes for being apathetic, and the third person who actually cares and exhibits a strong preference gets 1 vote.
That's fair to you? That makes an abundance of sense? That the guy who doesn't care has more influence than the person who does have a strong preference over the final vote, but the complete jerkass has more influence over the final outcome than either of them? That's utopia to you?
Also, what do you plan on doing about write-in candidates? You do know you can write in anyone, right? You want to give people an unlimited number of votes with the potential for write-in? Yeah, have fun with that.
This has resulted in 'minor' parties (i.e. not one of the big two) getting reasonable numbers of seats (15-30% of the total) in parliament.
The fear with this system (Mixed Member Proportional, MMP) is that a minor party will control the balance of power, and extort disproportionate concessions in exchange for its support. So far this has not happened; the major parties have balanced the interests of minor parties against each other, and against their own. In theory, should the minor parties want too much in return for their votes, the two major parties could ally instead. This has yet to happen, but would be an interesting outcome, given their historical enmity.
That system isn't without problems. For example, if you can omit voting for someone, is that better or worse than getting ranked last? If you have to rank them all, the candidates the voter doesn't care or know about will likely be ranked in whatever order they're listed on the ballot, and it's hardly fair for Senator Aardvark to get higher ranking in the polls than Representative Zyzzyx simply due to listing order.
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