Wi Run off or instant run off elections were normal US procedure

WI the tradition in the US had been a second round when a candidate had not won 50% of the vote.

Would the US have a multi party system?

I Assume third party candidates would do better in first rounds than in OTL because there would not be a spoiler factor

(Of course is the electoral college vote were decided in round one voter turnout in states that went to a second round would b pretty pathetice)
 

Thande

Donor
John B. Anderson famously advocated instant-runoff voting (a.k.a. AV) after his independent run in 1980.

I don't think it would make much difference if you introduced it now, the two party system is too entrenched. Perhaps if it came earlier...but AV was only invented in the 1870s. Two-round runoff voting on the other hand is used for all elections in France, so that gives you some idea of what would happen.
 
Nationwide adoption would be pretty unlikely with a post-1900 POD, but it's certainly plausible for a number of individual states to adopt it. Perhaps Alaska or Hawaii could be the target of a successful campaign to adopt runoff voting in their initial state constitutions, or perhaps the Populist movement in the early 20th century could adopt runoff voting as part of their agenda alongside recall elections, initiative statutes, election of judges, and direct election of senators.
 
Nationwide adoption would be pretty unlikely with a post-1900 POD, but it's certainly plausible for a number of individual states to adopt it. Perhaps Alaska or Hawaii could be the target of a successful campaign to adopt runoff voting in their initial state constitutions, or perhaps the Populist movement in the early 20th century could adopt runoff voting as part of their agenda alongside recall elections, initiative statutes, election of judges, and direct election of senators.

Some states do require a runoff election if the winning/top-vote-getting candidate receives less then 50% of the vote.
 
In terms of the impact for third parties, if you look to Australia, the only place where instant runoff is in use for a national parliament, for single member districts, you basically still have a two party system Liberals/Nationals vs Labour. The Greens are starting to benefit from it a little and won one seat in the last federal election, and nationwide are getting in the healthy single digits in district after district. Many of those votes they are getting solely because their voters don't have to worry about "wasting" their vote and can put Labour down as their second choice (I believe about 80% of Australian Greens vote Labour second).
 
Run-off: TR '12, maybe Hughes '16, Humphrey '68, Gore 2000
That's what would change. In instant runoff, Nixon wins as Humphrey needed more time.
 
The Greens are starting to benefit from it a little and won one seat in the last federal election, and nationwide are getting in the healthy single digits in district after district. Many of those votes they are getting solely because their voters don't have to worry about "wasting" their vote and can put Labour down as their second choice (I believe about 80% of Australian Greens vote Labour second).

I wouldn't be so sure about not "wasting" their vote. Bob Gould (RIP)'s analysis of suburb occupational and socio-economic status data mapped onto booths indicates that Greens voters are white collars usually in public service or public instrumentality employment engaged in the provision of primarily cultural services or the "caring professions." The concentration of these individuals in inner urban areas, Labor's abandonment of a progressive reform agenda combined with the direct impacts of neo-liberalism on white collar workers who are part of the social-democratic service provision package, and the reinforcement of a progressive ideology throughout these white collars amounts—in my mind—to a white collar sectional working class basis for the Greens to be bent towards progressive "labourist" politics.

Ie: the Greens are acting in the role that the Labor party did between protectionist and free-traders in the late 19th century. Labor picked up seats then when geographically concentrated as an ideological group—and labor didn't have preferential voting.

At the same time today it is difficult as hell to win an argument with a fellow worker about not voting labor _despite_ preferential voting. My experience is that Australian working class voting habits are deeply embedded long term value sets: ie, working class ideologies. A worker who votes liberal is unlikely to vote labor, even if labor stakes territory in the liberal ideological terrain. My understanding is that US voting patterns do not display this ideological fixation and are related to loyalty to particular machine politics factions that remain in their home party despite occupying different ideological positions within that party.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Last edited:
Top