Multi-Party system

You'd essentially need to word the constitution differently or have it interpreted differently since the current one was based on the premise of no political parties.

Their are two parts of the American system that prevent the formation of a multi-party system;
1. The electoral college, or rather the way ti works, basically in all but 2-3 states whomever has the majority of the votes gets all the electoral vote, regardless of if that majority was slim or not.
2. First past the post constituency system. While multiple parties can win seats in countries where their constituencies that directly elect people rather than parties, the way the American system works, where you only have to get the plurality of votes to win, basically limits it to a two party system.
 

Philip

Donor
since the current one was based on the premise of no political parties.

Do you have source for this? I am aware that Washington despised political party, but he had nothing to do with the writing of the Constitution. The way the Founding Fathers flocked to parties, I don't think Washington's view was the majority.

1. The electoral college, or rather the way ti works, basically in all but 2-3 states whomever has the majority of the votes gets all the electoral vote, regardless of if that majority was slim or not.

That has nothing to do with how the EC works. That has to do how states decide to appoint their electors. The Constitution leaves this to the several states. If a state decides, it can allot its elector proportionally, have the state legislature name them, hold a lottery, or just about any other way. No Constitutional change needed.

I think the two party system has more to do with the strong presidential (as opposed to parliamentary) system of government.

2. First past the post constituency system. While multiple parties can win seats in countries where their constituencies that directly elect people rather than parties, the way the American system works, where you only have to get the plurality of votes to win, basically limits it to a two party system.
There is something wrong with this argument. There are many jurisdictions within the US that require a strict majority yet still are dominated by a two party system.
 
Last edited:
Do you have source for this? I am aware that Washington despised political party, but he had nothing to do with the writing of the Constitution. The way the Founding Fathers flocked to parties, I don't think Washington's view was the majority.

They did'nt flock to them, when the Federalist party was created everyone who opposed it (and political parties in general) created a second one to prevent a one party state.

Political parties were seen as something highly British/European and were not things the founding fathers wanted since they saw the old government systems negatively.


That has nothing to do with how the EC works. That has to do how states decide to appoint their electors. The Constitution leaves this to the several states. If a state decides, it can allot its elector proportionally, have the state legislature name them, hold a lottery, or just about any other way. No Constitutional change needed.

It does'nt matter if the states or the federal government decided, it's how it works now and is one of the reasons we don't have more than two parties that are capable of winning the presidency.


There is something wrong with this argument. There are many jurisdictions within the US that require a strict majority yet still are dominated by a two party system.

That's the result of people not knowing anything else but the two parties.
 
Do you have source for this? I am aware that Washington despised political party, but he had nothing to do with the writing of the Constitution. The way the Founding Fathers flocked to parties, I don't think Washington's view was the majority.

The constitution was not written with political parties in mind. Rather, they orignally coalesced as a response to the debate over what sort of powers the government should have. The move towards parties was a recognition that such coalitions give an individual more of a chance of being able to achieve his goals.

That has nothing to do with how the EC works. That has to do how states decide to appoint their electors. The Constitution leaves this to the several states. If a state decides, it can allot its elector proportionally, have the state legislature name them, hold a lottery, or just about any other way. No Constitutional change needed.

Maybe not in theory, but think about it practically. Any given state is probably going to allocate its electors in a manner that reflects the will of the people and/or the government, as an extension of the people's will. While the electoral college as is could in theory suport multiple parties, in practice the most effecient method is a two-party system, because that is the most effective way to win a majority of the states. Regional parties predominating would force the election into the house of representatives, which is hardly favorable for any of the participants. Sooner or later, alliances will form to give parties a better chance of outright election.

I think the two party system has more to do with the strong presidential (as opposed to parliamentary) system of government.

You are probably right on this point, at least to a certain extent (Britain is parlimentary, but for almost all of its democratic history has been a two-party system, albiet with more tolerance of minor parties). But to change this, you are either going to have to tamper with the constitution or have some major change in the early 19th century (last opportunity is probably Johnson's impeachment, but you almost certainly need to go back further) which gives Congress far more power.

There is something wrong with this argument. There are many jurisdictions within the US that require a strict majority yet still are dominated by a two party system.

It is because two parties representing a broader consitiuency will almost by definition be more competitive than small parties, especially under such rules.
 
Simply, the winner-takes-all presidential system blocks out all but two canidates from hypothetically winning a few states.
 
No FPTP (first past the post) electoral system. FPTP breeds two-party system in ethnically and culturally homogenious societies. In Canada, third parliament party (Bloc) is regional nationalistic organization and all others but Libs and now united (from Eastern and Western regional parties) Conservatives are trembling on the threshold of irrelevancy. New Democrats are getting 3% of parliament seats for 10% of popular vote and Greens aren't getting anything for 5-7% of popular vote.
 
No FPTP (first past the post) electoral system. FPTP breeds two-party system in ethnically and culturally homogenious societies. In Canada, third parliament party (Bloc) is regional nationalistic organization and all others but Libs and now united (from Eastern and Western regional parties) Conservatives are trembling on the threshold of irrelevancy. New Democrats are getting 3% of parliament seats for 10% of popular vote and Greens aren't getting anything for 5-7% of popular vote.


Further on this note, would it be possible for the Progressive (right label?) wave of reform that resulted in the constitutional referenda/amendment system also bring in proportional representation of some kind? Assuming this is possible (not asb/etc) then if the US today had half a dozen states with some form of electoral PR then you could have regional power bases for third parties. So say there might be a Western Third Party that regularly gets signficant elected federal and state politicians one might then see national pacts with the big two.
 
Further on this note, would it be possible for the Progressive (right label?) wave of reform that resulted in the constitutional referenda/amendment system also bring in proportional representation of some kind? Assuming this is possible (not asb/etc) then if the US today had half a dozen states with some form of electoral PR then you could have regional power bases for third parties. So say there might be a Western Third Party that regularly gets signficant elected federal and state politicians one might then see national pacts with the big two.

Mixed Member Proportional would almost work in the US, but unfortunately would require a major amendment regarding the apportionment of the House. Multi-Seat constituencies are not really viable because of the number of states that get only 1-4 Representatives, unless you cross statelines which again requires major amendment.

One solution that does Not require an amendment would be for the various states to require run-off elections (like Georgia with it's senators) or even preference voting. To successfully break out of the 2-party mindset would still require almost all states switching to run-offs simultaneously, I think.

The EC could almost be maintained and made more easily proportional, I think, with an amendment doubling its size. That makes a 6 EV minimum; states could impose a 1/6 (or 17%) threshold to match the small states natural thresholds. Unfortunately, I did a statistical exercise with this and found out that in order to make this system fair for the plurality winner of a state, one has to drop basic mathematical rounding up for fractional EVs in favor of a plurality prize, say rounding up at the quarter-EV. Anyways, to sum up this paragraph, the Electoral College is now anachronistic and fatally flawed. And don't get me started on the total disenfranchisement of the popular majority that could occur if an election was thrown in the House these days....
 
I think the two party system has more to do with the strong presidential (as opposed to parliamentary) system of government.

I'm not sure how other Constitutions are but I've always thought that the President always had a lot more power than say a Prime Minister.


The EC could almost be maintained and made more easily proportional, I think, with an amendment doubling its size. That makes a 6 EV minimum; states could impose a 1/6 (or 17%) threshold to match the small states natural thresholds. Unfortunately, I did a statistical exercise with this and found out that in order to make this system fair for the plurality winner of a state, one has to drop basic mathematical rounding up for fractional EVs in favor of a plurality prize, say rounding up at the quarter-EV. Anyways, to sum up this paragraph, the Electoral College is now anachronistic and fatally flawed. And don't get me started on the total disenfranchisement of the popular majority that could occur if an election was thrown in the House these days....
Chaos. What do you do if you are Represenative Castle of Delaware, your constituents overwhelmingly voted for Obama but you belong to the party of John McCain?
 
I'm not sure how other Constitutions are but I've always thought that the President always had a lot more power than say a Prime Minister.
Very often, a Prime-Minister has much more powers than a President, although this depends on the specific country, where you can have PM's who are like a Presidential chief-of-staff in all but name, to popularly-elected Presidents who have an overriding power (within certain limits) over a PM (who is elected by the parliament, in almost all cases) but always sharing power, to Presidents who are mostly symbolic figures (elected by the parliament in a more consensual manner than the PM, with an ampler support to serve as neutral figure), with many variants along the way.
 
If you want a multi-polar American democracy without radically altering the constitution at some point, the best way is to probably have a de facto situation similar to India over the last few decades. Basically, have two or maybe three parties which are the most powerful and contest elections on a national scale (or at least, through most of the country). However, the actual electorate has to be balkanized into a hodge-podge of parties representing geographic (either regional or statewide), ethnic, religious, or other constituencies which, while not matching the national parties one on one, are strong enough and numerous enough to force multi-party coalitions. These parties either wind up pledging electors to one of the national parties in the EC, or force elections into the house of representatives. The problem is, the Early USA is probably too homogenous and small geographically for this to work out, unless you get a host of state and small regional parties which break up the electorate and pave the way for future parties.
 
Top