AHC: US Changes From 1st Past The Post

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to have the US change from a 1st past the vote system to any other voting system for federal elections.
 
I don't know how or when it could happen, but it most likely wouldn't change the Presidency going between Rep and Dem. The big change would be to the House and Senate, with a few representatives coming from minor parties such as the Libertarians and/or Greens.
 
I don't know how or when it could happen, but it most likely wouldn't change the Presidency going between Rep and Dem. The big change would be to the House and Senate, with a few representatives coming from minor parties such as the Libertarians and/or Greens.
You also have to consider the butterflies that PR would have on the development of US politics, which would change the way people vote. The greater viability of a third party would probably encourage more politicians to join them, and more voters to support them.

So we probably wouldn't have a situation where the Libertarians and Greens winning 1 or 2% is the extent of the third party success in the US. Some third parties which were relatively short lived IOTL might still exist, and we might have one or two parties emerge that didn't exist at all IOTL.
 
Maine has adopted ranked-choice voting (or "instant runoff") for congressional elections, and in the case of ME-02 in 2018 it may have made a difference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_...Representatives_elections_in_Maine#District_2 (I say "may have" because some people who made an independent candidate their first choice under that system might have voted for Golden under traditional FPTP in the belief that a vote for an independent candidate was "wasted." So it is not really clear that Golden owes his victory to ranked-choice voting.)
 
At various points in US history states have elected multiple representatives at-large on a 'general ticket.' Most recently Alabama used a general ticket to dilute African-American votes in the 1960s, while New Mexico and Hawaii used the practice to avoid the cost of redistricting. The practice was restricted by legislation in 1967. A POD could redraft the law to allow general tickets with some form of proportional representation, and you could see states adopting proportional representation as an alternative to creating majority-minority districts.
 
With no POD restrictions the sky is the limit! You can find timelines on here with the voting system being changed in just about every decade post-1900, with some of the more common ones being around the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, and the Southern realignment. Things you need to overcome:
  • Default adherence to the status quo (people need a really compelling reason to care about the change, such as Maine’s frequent election of candidates without majority support recently)
  • The two major party’s self-interest (they don’t want more competition, really, but can sometimes be shamed into it)
  • Self-preservation for the monied class (it’s a lot easier to corrupt a system in your favor with fewer points of entry)
  • Self-preservation for ideas in the political minority (just another subset of money, maybe; lots of people pooling their will and resources because they really care about ideas that benefit from a binary system- think everything from crypto-racism on down to more anodyne stuff like whether we have ethanol in our gas, it’s easier to get your way when your way is only one of two choices)
  • Systemic barriers (do you go state by state and get a muddled system? Amendment and deal with the many points of failure there? Backdoor legislation (voting rights and such) and work the problem from various angles and also through the courts?)
Most PODs will offer a legitimacy crisis and a compromise solution, simple as that. Doesn’t have to be very dramatic, but it can be if you like. The system is usually tailored to the nature of the crisis.
 
I think you need a sequence of elections that screw both parties in the electoral college in relatively short sequence. 1960 might have potential, a shift of .10% of the vote away from Kennedy and to Nixon would've given Nixon the popular vote but an electoral college defeat (all other things like the unpledged electors being equal). Assuming history plays out somewhat like OTL, a 1968-type election (post-CRA Democrat vs. southern strategy Republican vs. Wallace-type spoiler) could result in the opposite of this 1960: the Humphrey-equivalent winning the popular vote but losing because of the electoral college and southern spoiler. This might give an electoral reform movement some steam that someone like Birch Bayh could capitalize on in 1976, especially if a *Watergate-equivalent still happens.
 
With no POD restrictions the sky is the limit! You can find timelines on here with the voting system being changed in just about every decade post-1900, with some of the more common ones being around the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, and the Southern realignment. Things you need to overcome:
  • Default adherence to the status quo (people need a really compelling reason to care about the change, such as Maine’s frequent election of candidates without majority support recently)
  • The two major party’s self-interest (they don’t want more competition, really, but can sometimes be shamed into it)
  • Self-preservation for the monied class (it’s a lot easier to corrupt a system in your favor with fewer points of entry)
  • Self-preservation for ideas in the political minority (just another subset of money, maybe; lots of people pooling their will and resources because they really care about ideas that benefit from a binary system- think everything from crypto-racism on down to more anodyne stuff like whether we have ethanol in our gas, it’s easier to get your way when your way is only one of two choices)
  • Systemic barriers (do you go state by state and get a muddled system? Amendment and deal with the many points of failure there? Backdoor legislation (voting rights and such) and work the problem from various angles and also through the courts?)
Most PODs will offer a legitimacy crisis and a compromise solution, simple as that. Doesn’t have to be very dramatic, but it can be if you like. The system is usually tailored to the nature of the crisis.

How about this: dems in south start panicking about vote splitting from 3rd parties like AIP who appeal to segregationists and state by state the south changes from 1st past the post to STV in the late 50s - early 60s.
 
How about this: dems in south start panicking about vote splitting from 3rd parties like AIP who appeal to segregationists and state by state the south changes from 1st past the post to STV in the late 50s - early 60s.

Seems like a good scenario to me! I mean the default assumption with segregationists is that they're gonna (and I'm quoting from the SPLC and ACLU here), "try some shit." But if it's a clean bill, that seems like something that could clear legal hurdles AND benefit the powers-that-be at the same time.
 
Seems like a good scenario to me! I mean the default assumption with segregationists is that they're gonna (and I'm quoting from the SPLC and ACLU here), "try some shit." But if it's a clean bill, that seems like something that could clear legal hurdles AND benefit the powers-that-be at the same time.

Thanks! Could you give me some examples of TLs w/ voting system changes?
 
Thanks! Could you give me some examples of TLs w/ voting system changes?

Hm, one that springs to mind that is definitely finished is The Falcon Cannot Hear, which is a full-blown second civil war TL. I believe it ends up with a mixed party list kinda system, but electoral politics are just an after thought there.

I helped the author of A Shift In Priorities develop US politics through a less catastrophic civil strife (but more catastrophic than the OTL Great Depression) into a pretty weird hybrid government. It’s funny, I spent a lot of time on it but off the top of my head I couldn’t tell you the electoral system I ended up using. It might also have been a proportional list, I was very into lists when I was working on it. It’s a very thorough work that got kinda overwhelming and uncomfortable for me so there was a parting of the ways, but I’ve got acres of US content logged.

One I’ve always been meaning to get to and just never have is Ruins of an American Party System.
 
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