The latest news has brought this topic up again, with the usual "it was rigged"-"no it wasn't" debate.
I want to put on my old poli-sci hat for a bit and go over some things about our political system.
First. We have what's called a 'first past the post' system. The candidate with the most votes wins. End of story.
This may seem commonsensical on the face of it, until you learn more about what some of our fellow democracies have done. (This, btw, is not meant to criticize our Founding Fathers for what they came up with. It was a grand experiment, very different from the world of kings and queens they lived in, and some of the things I'm pointing out only developed later.)
France, for example, is on it's Fifth Republic. They experimented with quite a few different governments after the French Revolution (which was in 1789, so we're talking about a little over 200 years to go through Napoleon, restoration of the monarchy, and on to this fifth republic.) Their elections have a two-round runoff voting process. What this means is the winner has to get a certain number of votes. If you got 40% of the vote, the second candidate got 30%, and the remaining candidates split 30% of the vote you DO NOT WIN! Instead, the bottom candidates are eliminated (precisely what percentage counts as a win, and which candidates are eliminated can vary from country to country) and a second round of voting occurs.
If we had a system like that, you could vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein free and clear...knowing that you aren't going to split the votes for your second-best choice (thus making your least favorite candidate the winner).
Unfortunately, a third party, even if it got 30% of the vote, would have absolutely no representation in our system. Not unless their support was concentrated in a small enough area to win an election (like the libertarian plan to move to New Hampshire).
That's part of why I like mixed member proportional representation. You get to vote for a party, you vote for a specific candidate, and you get a legislature that represents the political platforms in proportion to the voting population's desires. I don't think our Founding Fathers came up with it because a) there were no political parties in America at the time and b) they had major concerns about the dangers of partisanship (see Federalist Paper No. 10 and the debates with the Anti-Federalists).
Our first-past-the-post process, in and of itself, shapes our political system and pushes us towards a two-party duopoly.
On top of which, the current parties have taken steps to strengthen their hold on the system. States, for example, have different requirements for an independent who wants to get on a ballot than they do for people with a (D) or (R) next to their name. Plus there are all the arcane rules about when you must register to the vote, whether you have to declare a party before voting in a primary or not, and so on and so forth. All of which gives candidates from the two established parties significant advantages. And I haven't even touched on gerrymandering, and it's pernicious effects. (I'm throwing out the big words in this one.)
Those systemic advantages for a duopoly are further exacerbated by our history with candidates like Ralph Nader and Ross Perot. Too many people feel as though voting for the candidate they truly desire would make things worse, since it would split the vote.
Which is part of why every time I hear a Democrat all offended that Bernie came and ran in their primary, I think they have a very limited understanding of the role their parties play in our political system. And that they're putting their party above the good of the nation.
The Democratic and Republican primaries are not just their own internal selection process. Given the built in advantages to their party, those primaries determine which two candidates everyone else will have to choose between.
All of which means our elections start out 'rigged'. You can vote for anyone you want, sure. But the only 'serious' contenders come from the two major parties.
It isn't quite as bad as all that, of course. Our two parties end up being more like umbrellas than a true party...in part because of all I listed above. Plus the success of a third party can encourage the two primary parties to appropriate the issue.
Umbrella parties just makes things more confusing, though, since it's hard to say which faction of the party is going to win the most votes. There's something to be said for coalition governments - at least it's clear how much the voters support the various platforms. (Not like the bickering we see within both parties as they try to figure out why they lost key elections and how to win the next one. Cater to fiscal conservatives? Or evangelicals? Or identity politics? Or economic issues? If each was it's own party, we'd know the level of voter support for their ideas. And if none has an outright winning majority, they can do some horsetrading to build the winning coalition.)
But that's not all...
I want to put on my old poli-sci hat for a bit and go over some things about our political system.
First. We have what's called a 'first past the post' system. The candidate with the most votes wins. End of story.
This may seem commonsensical on the face of it, until you learn more about what some of our fellow democracies have done. (This, btw, is not meant to criticize our Founding Fathers for what they came up with. It was a grand experiment, very different from the world of kings and queens they lived in, and some of the things I'm pointing out only developed later.)
France, for example, is on it's Fifth Republic. They experimented with quite a few different governments after the French Revolution (which was in 1789, so we're talking about a little over 200 years to go through Napoleon, restoration of the monarchy, and on to this fifth republic.) Their elections have a two-round runoff voting process. What this means is the winner has to get a certain number of votes. If you got 40% of the vote, the second candidate got 30%, and the remaining candidates split 30% of the vote you DO NOT WIN! Instead, the bottom candidates are eliminated (precisely what percentage counts as a win, and which candidates are eliminated can vary from country to country) and a second round of voting occurs.
If we had a system like that, you could vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein free and clear...knowing that you aren't going to split the votes for your second-best choice (thus making your least favorite candidate the winner).
Unfortunately, a third party, even if it got 30% of the vote, would have absolutely no representation in our system. Not unless their support was concentrated in a small enough area to win an election (like the libertarian plan to move to New Hampshire).
That's part of why I like mixed member proportional representation. You get to vote for a party, you vote for a specific candidate, and you get a legislature that represents the political platforms in proportion to the voting population's desires. I don't think our Founding Fathers came up with it because a) there were no political parties in America at the time and b) they had major concerns about the dangers of partisanship (see Federalist Paper No. 10 and the debates with the Anti-Federalists).
Our first-past-the-post process, in and of itself, shapes our political system and pushes us towards a two-party duopoly.
On top of which, the current parties have taken steps to strengthen their hold on the system. States, for example, have different requirements for an independent who wants to get on a ballot than they do for people with a (D) or (R) next to their name. Plus there are all the arcane rules about when you must register to the vote, whether you have to declare a party before voting in a primary or not, and so on and so forth. All of which gives candidates from the two established parties significant advantages. And I haven't even touched on gerrymandering, and it's pernicious effects. (I'm throwing out the big words in this one.)
Those systemic advantages for a duopoly are further exacerbated by our history with candidates like Ralph Nader and Ross Perot. Too many people feel as though voting for the candidate they truly desire would make things worse, since it would split the vote.
Which is part of why every time I hear a Democrat all offended that Bernie came and ran in their primary, I think they have a very limited understanding of the role their parties play in our political system. And that they're putting their party above the good of the nation.
The Democratic and Republican primaries are not just their own internal selection process. Given the built in advantages to their party, those primaries determine which two candidates everyone else will have to choose between.
All of which means our elections start out 'rigged'. You can vote for anyone you want, sure. But the only 'serious' contenders come from the two major parties.
It isn't quite as bad as all that, of course. Our two parties end up being more like umbrellas than a true party...in part because of all I listed above. Plus the success of a third party can encourage the two primary parties to appropriate the issue.
Umbrella parties just makes things more confusing, though, since it's hard to say which faction of the party is going to win the most votes. There's something to be said for coalition governments - at least it's clear how much the voters support the various platforms. (Not like the bickering we see within both parties as they try to figure out why they lost key elections and how to win the next one. Cater to fiscal conservatives? Or evangelicals? Or identity politics? Or economic issues? If each was it's own party, we'd know the level of voter support for their ideas. And if none has an outright winning majority, they can do some horsetrading to build the winning coalition.)
But that's not all...
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