We should absolutely get rid of FPTP in favour of proportional representation, however, I don’t know that the current polling situation is actually a result of FPTP. I’m a pretty consistent NDP voter, but I’ve voted Liberal twice - Trudeau once (to bring in proportional rep… lol), and Carney this last time. I know this is unpopular but I didn’t “lend” my vote to Carney to beat the CPC, I genuinely think he’s doing great and will happily vote for Liberals again so long as he’s at the helm.
Proportional Representation is what you need for multi-seat bodies like parliament. It’s absolutely the best method for such bodies, imo. For single seat elections, proportional doesn’t work as their are no proportions for a single seat and generally you don’t want to just vote for party for such roles, but individuals themselves. You’ll need something like Ranked Choice or (my preference) Approval voting for those seats to avoid the two party inevitability.
Ranked Choice is a misuse of ranked ballots. Say an election goes like this:
40% vote A > B > C.
35% vote C > B > A.
25% vote B > C > A.
Plurality says A wins, because Plurality sucks. You don’t even need a bare majority. You just need everyone else to split.
RCV says C wins: B has the fewest top votes, so they’re eliminated. The race becomes 40% A > C versus 60% C > A. Better… but still wrong, because 65% of people would prefer B > C.
Condorcet methods like Ranked Pairs get that right. They model every runoff: A vs B is 40-60, A vs C is 40-60, B vs C is 65-35. B wins every 1v1 and is obviously the best candidate according to these voters. The supermajority prefers B.
Oh that’s interesting, I always thought that ranked choice would put B in there but in that example it shows that that wouldn’t happen. I never saw or thought about it that way. Thanks!
Everyone has a vague idea of what ranked ballots should do, even if they’ve never tried to explain how that works. Condorcet is what they expect. RCV is just goofy.
We should absolutely get rid of FPTP in favour of proportional representation, however, I don’t know that the current polling situation is actually a result of FPTP. I’m a pretty consistent NDP voter, but I’ve voted Liberal twice - Trudeau once (to bring in proportional rep… lol), and Carney this last time. I know this is unpopular but I didn’t “lend” my vote to Carney to beat the CPC, I genuinely think he’s doing great and will happily vote for Liberals again so long as he’s at the helm.
CGP Grey did this excellent video on FPTP a number of years ago. Worth a watch.
It explains why a FPTP electoral system will almost certainly gravitate toward a two party system.
It is a feature, not a bug. The NDP is an anomaly. As is the BQ but that’s more about regionalism.
https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
Proportional Representation is what you need for multi-seat bodies like parliament. It’s absolutely the best method for such bodies, imo. For single seat elections, proportional doesn’t work as their are no proportions for a single seat and generally you don’t want to just vote for party for such roles, but individuals themselves. You’ll need something like Ranked Choice or (my preference) Approval voting for those seats to avoid the two party inevitability.
Ranked Choice is a misuse of ranked ballots. Say an election goes like this:
40% vote A > B > C.
35% vote C > B > A.
25% vote B > C > A.
Plurality says A wins, because Plurality sucks. You don’t even need a bare majority. You just need everyone else to split.
RCV says C wins: B has the fewest top votes, so they’re eliminated. The race becomes 40% A > C versus 60% C > A. Better… but still wrong, because 65% of people would prefer B > C.
Condorcet methods like Ranked Pairs get that right. They model every runoff: A vs B is 40-60, A vs C is 40-60, B vs C is 65-35. B wins every 1v1 and is obviously the best candidate according to these voters. The supermajority prefers B.
Oh that’s interesting, I always thought that ranked choice would put B in there but in that example it shows that that wouldn’t happen. I never saw or thought about it that way. Thanks!
Everyone has a vague idea of what ranked ballots should do, even if they’ve never tried to explain how that works. Condorcet is what they expect. RCV is just goofy.