Re:Oppose the Earn IT Act
by glenda on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @01:57PM
(#23704412)
Exactly, we need way more political parties with direct representation. However, power seems to do a great job of consolidating itself so that won't be an easy task.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
First past the post voting tends toward a two party system, because there are strong incentives for smaller parties to consolidate to get to a majority.
Since this is a subject I find fascinating, I'll add this link that I first encountered here on HN long ago: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/
It's a mathematical model and accompanying explanation that shows that simple plurality (first past the post) voting produces bi-polarization, while other voting methods like approval voting do not. It also shows that the instant-runoff voting method that people are trying to replace FPTP with is non-monotonic, meaning that gaining a few points of support can actually hurt a candidate.
I don't like that this page links to Arrow's impossibility theorem, because it's kind of misleading. https://rangevoting.org/ArrowThm.html