AHC : Multi-party US

what is the latest POD available to make US promote a multiparty system where several parties (4+) have seats in both houses

Demands

* Can't be solved by having two giants and a multitude of state-dependent parties (Minnesota Farmer-Labor party)
* Can't be carried through by blatant Garrymandering

Requests

* No garrymandering at all, making electoral districts follow country borders and make them much less likely to shift
* Tradition (even if only within the last 50'ish years) for having coalition cabinet
 

Sabot Cat

Banned
A philosopher of the enlightenment critically analyzes and names the First Past the Post system, delineating its faults in favor of an Alternative Vote (AV). A (group of the) delegate(s) read this philosopher's works, and work the AV into the constitution. The existence of that philosopher or the change in a philosopher's works might cause too many butterflies for the American Revolution to go more or less as planned.

You could also just have a parliamentary form of government work its way into the United States Constitution as well, but that's less fun.

Edit: Ooh, latest possible. Hmm... Have the AV be implemented as a part of Progressive era's reforms?
 
Maybe a diffrent Great Depression and no FDR calls for the states to bring about a constitutional convention, and they reorganize the Government in a Parliamentary fashion, or one more open to third parties as a side effect.
 
Have the Populists become more entrenched (possibly have the Democrats nominate a Gold-Dem in 96). You now have a situation where the Populists compete in the West, the Dems in the South and the Republicans in the NE, with a series of border states where two parties, but likely not all three, duke it out for dominance.
 
Keep the party structures weak. Increase the number of states the do things like legislate open primaries and allow fusionism. If the party structures are weak, it becomes a lot less important to have a strong one behind you to win elections and, therefore, a lot simpler to use them as ideological, rather than strictly political, organizations.
 
You could also just have a parliamentary form of government work its way into the United States Constitution as well, but that's less fun.

Edit: Ooh, latest possible. Hmm... Have the AV be implemented as a part of Progressive era's reforms?

Maybe a diffrent Great Depression and no FDR calls for the states to bring about a constitutional convention, and they reorganize the Government in a Parliamentary fashion, or one more open to third parties as a side effect.

How would having a parliamentary government make it more likely for third parties to thrive?

As for AV itself, I'm not so sure that makes it easier for third parties to win. Look at Australia, which I believe is the largest place using AV. The same parties get almost all of the seats. The Liberals, Nats, and Labor all predate the use of AV. The Greens, who have certainly grown with the PR Senate, get the same percentage of votes as the Nationals yet end up with a tenth of the seats.

Parliamentarianism has nothing to do with voting systems. If the U.S. became a parliamentary state tomorrow, the same two parties would win the same percentage of the time. If you want a multiparty state, you need proportional representation in some fashion or large regional parties.

If you want a 19th Century split in the U.S. here is one:

  • The Democrats split during or after the Civil War.
  • The Solid South votes for the Southern Party. Most of their candidates would have been straight up Democrats OTL.
  • The Democratic Party remains in the North.
  • The Southern Party expands into a few Western states setting up a handful of Three Cornered Contests. In the gap, a fully independent Progressive Party sets up and wins a few seats and then tries to compete in the East as well.
In such a timeline, I wonder: Would the U.S. adopt some form of PR to balance the interests of the 4 parties? Or would people just accept that party strength at the polls and representation in the House have nothing to do with each other and live with a party with 30% of the votes dominating Congress and the White House?
 
I think a Republican Party split in the '60's - or '50's without Eisenhower - is actually a much more plausible idea than often entertained. You could also have the Dems split in the '60's or '70's over a variety of issues. The sixties are very ripe for both parties to split open - both parties in '68 battled for all three sides of the political spectrum.

Then there's if the Reform Party can mooch more support from existing and/or electable new politicians, and let's not even go into TR's Progressive Party.
 
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