Howard Dean: How to Move Beyond the Two-Party System

[joshcryer]

I stand with Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. Others will back Donald J. Trump. But polls suggest that almost one in 10 voters are making a different choice by supporting the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, or another candidate.

And so once again major party backers warn against wasting votes on “spoilers” and criticize minor party candidates for even running. Defenders of third parties assert that there is no difference between the major parties and blame mainstream politicians for keeping them out of debates.

We keep repeating this cycle. That’s why it is so important that Maine next month can lead the nation in turning our lose-lose electoral rules into a win-win for everyone — one where minor parties can compete on a more level playing field, yet major parties don’t have to fear being “spoiled.”

Question Five on the Maine ballot would establish ranked-choice voting in the 2018 primary and general elections for governor, Congress and State Legislature. While presidential and city elections aren’t included, Maine’s largest city, Portland, already uses ranked-choice voting to elect its mayor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/opinion/howard-dean-how-to-move-beyond-the-two-party-system.html

Great editorial by Dean. But I think he's wrong about ranked-choice (also called score voting or range voting), because it introduces new complexities regarding counting the votes. While it is absolutely perfect as far as you can get, it requires more stuff to be implemented.

I instead approve of "approval voting" (no pun intended), you simply vote for anyone you want on the ballot, ie, you can vote for the Green Party and Democrat at the same time, pow, your vote is counted for both. And, importantly, nothing else needs to be implemented, there's no extra calculation necessary, there's no requirement for the voter to make mathematical assumptions about the candidates.

https://electology.org/approval-voting

Either way I would go with either system, we need to get off this two party voting system.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. As a long-suffering Mainah, I can't wait to address the stupidity of

plurality voting in multi-candidate races.

Approval, cumulative, ranked choice, condorcet--each has its own set of issues, but are still superior to what we are doing now.

[joshcryer]

3. I like approval because you get it "free of charge."

But I absolutely would go with score/range voting over all, no question.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Approval for a top two style primary would be great! No worries about tie breakers.

[joshcryer]

5. Or spoiled votes.

[DetlefK]

2. For example: Germany has a Two-Vote-system.

You have two votes per election:
- The First-Vote is for who will be your Rep. in your district. -> winner-takes-all
- The Second-Vote is for which party you want to win in general. It determines how many seats a party gets in parliament.-> nation-wide popular vote

If a Party has more Second-Votes than First-Votes, unelected Reps get added from an internal list of the party until the party has enough Reps to fill its share of seats. (Overhang-Mandates)



The big parties typically get most of the First-Votes, because they have to win districts.
Small parties typically get Second-Votes, because they have no chance of winning the district but you want them to win nationwide anyways because they are a potential ally for your party of choice.

For example, a left-leaning voter in the US could vote for Democrats with the First-Vote, because he wants them to win the district. Voting for Sanders' social-democratic party would be a waste, because their candidate would lose the district-race anyways. But if the voter gives his Second-Vote to the Social-Democrats, he can ensure that they get a few seats in the House despite not winning any districts.




This would also negate the necessity for parties to cater to the fringes:
A republican politician wouldn't have to cater to the crazies. They would have to vote for him anyways, because a fringe candidate would split the vote and hand the district to the Democrats. The republican politician could focus on winning over Moderates. And the crazies still could vote for a fringe party because there still would be the popular vote.

[brooklynite]

7. Is there any evidence that a plurality of voters would go 3rd Party if it wasn't a "wasted vote"?

[joshcryer]

9. It's more about voter satisfaction.

IMO

[4lbs]

8. We have something like that here in Southern California, but for local positions, like councils and

boards.

On the ballot, we are given a list of as many as 20 candidates for 3 open seats.

It reads "Vote for as many as 6 candidates"

The top 3 vote-getters will be the ones that win those open seats.