Were Vacant counted as a party in its own right, and looking soley at the numbers, this feels like it would be the result of some kind of bad Proportional Representation America. Or a country with PR grafted onto America.
Last edited:
Alternate Electoral Maps
- Thread starter Tayya
- Start date
- Status
Were Vacant counted as a party in its own right, and looking soley at the numbers, this feels like it would be the result of some kind of bad Proportional Representation America. Or a country with PR grafted onto America.
I've done this map before and it looked quite different... For example Ron Paul got the most votes in both Montana and Louisiana.Unfortunately, 2008 is much less exciting.
Ralph Nader (I-CT)/Matt Gonzalez (I-CA) - 424 EV, 0.56% PV
Bob Barr (L-GA)/Wayne Allyn Root (L-NV) - 93 EV, 0.40% PV
Cynthia McKinney (G-FL)/Rosa Clemente (G-NC) - 9 EV, 0.12% PV
Chuck Baldwin (C-FL)/Darrell Castle (C-TN) - 5 EV, 0.15% PV
Unpledged - 7 EV
2012 will likely be even less exciting, but I'll do it anyway.
Thande
Donor
Not necessarily, it reminds me of Ares' maps of pre-WW1 Germany, which had two-round FPTP but had loads of tiny parties including weird single issue ones.
Funny thing, I'd been imagining an alternate American political system that uses two-round voting just today.
Also, any idea as to how a version of FPTP allowed for so many minor parties?
I'm not sure what you're talking about... Ron Paul didn't run in 2008.
Thande
Donor
I'm not the expert on Imperial Germany but it happens quite a lot - in fact in some ways it's easier to get minor parties under FPTP than under PR, because under FPTP if you've got one bloke who's really popular in a small area and comes with his own party, he can win that seat regardless, whereas under PR you generally need to get 3% or 5% or whatever nationwide to get into parliament. It's pretty hard under PR to get twenty parties with one seat each, but relatively easy under FPTP.
For example, in the UK for about twenty years part of Liverpool was represented in Parliament by an Irish Nationalist (even after Ireland had separated).
The idea that FPTP inevitably leads to a two-party system, like quite a lot of political science theories, is a) excessively centred on the American example, and b) complete and utter bollocks. If we look around the world, there are lots of examples of countries with both FPTP and multi-party systems, usually due to different regions voting for different parties (India is the main example of this, being essentially an entire subcontinent under a single legislature).
Thande
Donor
No, but the Constitution Party in Montana put him on the ballot anyway, and despite him telling people not to vote for him, he still got something like 2.5% and did better than most third party US candidates do when they're trying.
I understand.
Oh, believe me, I know — I'm Canadian
But Canada, of course, is peanuts compared to the multi-partisan madness of the Indian Lok Sabha, which is highly unproportional, but has nearly 40 represented parties at the moment.
Indeed he did not but that didn't stop him from being nominated in both Montana and Louisiana and receiving the third most votes in each state.
Really? Runoffs, though better than FPTP, aren't necessarily proportional.
But yes, Duverger's Law is less of a law and more of a tendency. Only the US, Malta, and some small Caribbean nations have 100% two-party systems.
Thande
Donor
Duverger's Law seems more to describe a situation where you're talking about one individual seat than about a legislature in general. It is the case that in an individual FPTP seat there tends to be a movement towards the top two parties, but nothing says it has to be the same top two parties in different seats.
In the sense of leading to multi-party systems I mean.
I think another tendency, which Duverger overlooked (or at least paid less attention to, IIRC he may have mentioned it), is that in this instance, causation runs both ways.
Well, Duverger expected parties to merge, which strikes me as right based on the evidence he had at the time - more recently one could cite the Lib Dems as an example and indeed India's large pacts as related.
I think there is a tendency in that direction with voters as well - ISTR hearing from Canadians about there having been cases of people voting Liberal in Tory-NDP marginals to "keep the Tories out" (and thus helping them make gains from the Dippers) for instance. I think being big nationally makes you harder to squeeze locally, even if it doesn't make it easier to squeeze others.
Ah. I was not aware of this, and it isn't listed on Wikipedia (and besides, I do prefer to keep it to people that actually ran voluntarily
)Well, whilst I'm not sure it's quite so true if you've got PR, countries with multi-party systems already are for obvious reasons much more likely to introduce PR or runoff.
Alex Richards
Donor
I understand.
Oh, believe me, I know — I'm Canadian
But Canada, of course, is peanuts compared to the multi-partisan madness of the Indian Lok Sabha, which is highly unproportional, but has nearly 40 represented parties at the moment.
Malaysia's an interesting case in that there are either 4 parties represented or about 20 depending on if you consider the National Front an alliance of separate parties or a party with lots of differently named branches.
- Status