Active Users:640 Time:17/05/2026 03:38:27 PM
The popular vote is the popular vote - one citizen, one vote, wherever they may live. Legolas Send a noteboard - 08/07/2024 10:37:56 PM

View original postI've made this point to you before (that the system(s) in Europe are even worse at getting to 'the person who gets the most votes wins the election' but maybe that's not your actual complaint?

I don't remember that previous discussion, but as I'm a bit of an electoral systems nerd, I'm going to have to point out that the systems in 'Europe' range all the way from the one extreme, Britain's FPTP which is precisely like America's except without gerrymandering and seats split over just 4 'states' rather than 50, to the other extreme, the Netherlands' perfect proportional representation with all seats allocated based on each party's share of the nation-wide vote. Many others are somewhere inbetween - with the country divided into a number of multi-member constituencies, then proportional representation within each constituency. Though as I mentioned to Greg, that's about legislative elections, not presidential ones (which a good number of European countries don't even have due to still having monarchies - one of those things which you couldn't possibly create from scratch anymore, but as long as we still have them, they're sure useful).

I just replied to Greg pointing out the absurd outcomes of the British election, which you also mention. But the US system is essentially the same as the British one and it sucks just as much, in fact arguably even more, at giving people a real choice. If you're a Green voter in the UK, you might well be sour at having so few seats for all the votes your party got - but hey, could be worse, you could be a Green voter in the US who may never get any seats at all, because in the US for several reasons the two-party duopoly is even stronger than the basic theory about FPTP predicts. It's difficult to put a number on how much the American system misallocates seats relative to people's preferences, because people are so thoroughly used to having only two real choices in every single election - so for psychological reasons, many end up adjusting their beliefs to bring them more in line with one of those two and develop a passionate attachment for it, so they don't really feel as deprived of choice as they really are.

One does occasionally see attempts to improve things - both Alaska and Maine recently introduced excellent reforms that give their voters more actual choice for Congress. Nebraska and again Maine still have their thing where they split their electoral college votes so they are at least marginally more representative of the states' voters. In the UK, there was for instance the London mayoral election where they had ranked choice voting. But then you immediately see other politicians trying to get rid of those innovations again so they can keep promoting the hyperpolarized duopoly - the last London mayoral election no longer had ranked choice, in Nebraska Trump allies are trying to change the system to gain an extra electoral college vote for him, etc.

Reply to message
When the NYT Editorial Board calls for the incumbent President to step down... - 29/06/2024 02:51:38 PM 646 Views
Yeah, pretty crazy stuff... - 30/06/2024 12:53:46 AM 293 Views
Not competent to run for president - 30/06/2024 03:46:13 AM 270 Views
Was Biden ever really competent, though? - 30/06/2024 01:33:00 PM 314 Views
Re: Was Biden ever really competent, though? - 01/07/2024 04:48:04 PM 287 Views
the slip - 30/06/2024 11:06:40 PM 282 Views
Now the Biden campaign is calling the people who are sounding these alarms 'bedwetters' - 01/07/2024 05:16:12 PM 260 Views
That term has been used for months if not years, they didn't just make it up... - 01/07/2024 11:52:54 PM 270 Views
How can you say this with a straight face? - 04/07/2024 03:24:48 PM 341 Views
Very easily, I assure you - though there's a difference between 'did' (past) and 'would' (future) - 04/07/2024 07:23:44 PM 292 Views
Re: Very easily, I assure you - 08/07/2024 05:35:19 PM 280 Views
I'm not fool enough to think I can go toe to toe with you on the Russian-American relationship. - 08/07/2024 09:33:57 PM 240 Views
Security doesn't exist in a vacuum - 09/07/2024 02:42:36 AM 286 Views
Sure, but Russia is a threat to others far more than others threaten it. - 10/07/2024 09:45:58 PM 288 Views
That's actually empirically not true - 11/07/2024 02:35:23 PM 271 Views
You're right that I was thinking of Eastern Europe re: NATO, not Central Asia or the Caucasus. - 12/07/2024 04:07:43 PM 282 Views
Let's not fool ourselves about Montenegro and Macedonia - 15/07/2024 03:41:14 PM 265 Views
A smarter NATO - 16/07/2024 11:35:46 AM 267 Views
I agree with most of this. - 16/07/2024 06:14:07 PM 274 Views
I don't think there's any issue to Ukraine joining the EU - 16/07/2024 06:42:27 PM 261 Views
I agree with this 100% - 16/07/2024 06:41:20 PM 273 Views
Sure, for those two it was clearly more the political factors. For others not, it varied. - 16/07/2024 06:02:47 PM 355 Views
You sound so naive there - 16/07/2024 06:57:38 PM 274 Views
It was a bad debate, but I can't imagine a lot of people are actually swayed by it. - 07/07/2024 01:56:44 AM 267 Views
I'm centrist enough to consider voting Red over voting Blue this year due to - 08/07/2024 10:51:46 AM 273 Views
I've voted Libertarian for President the last two times - 08/07/2024 02:55:35 PM 253 Views
You make a good point about the popular vote. - 08/07/2024 03:01:42 PM 269 Views
Re: You make a good point about the popular vote. - 08/07/2024 03:26:20 PM 320 Views
This is the part that bothers me as well. - 08/07/2024 03:46:15 PM 284 Views
Re: This is the part that bothers me as well. - 08/07/2024 04:00:14 PM 270 Views
Re: I've voted Libertarian for President the last two times - 08/07/2024 03:23:12 PM 252 Views
Your analogy is pretty poor honestly. - 08/07/2024 04:54:45 PM 269 Views
You also are trying to redefine how the score is kept - 08/07/2024 05:44:02 PM 274 Views
Sure, that's how it has always been - doesn't mean it's fair or that the popular vote is irrelevant. - 08/07/2024 08:06:01 PM 269 Views
If popular votes were paramount then Rassemblement National - 08/07/2024 08:29:13 PM 252 Views
FPTP sucks in general, yes, whether in the US, in France, or elsewhere. - 08/07/2024 09:53:57 PM 263 Views
Re: FPTP sucks in general, yes, whether in the US, in France, or elsewhere. - 08/07/2024 10:34:12 PM 265 Views
To be clear I didn't say it should be eliminated entirely, but as for what would happen if it was... - 08/07/2024 10:50:57 PM 301 Views
You're wrong. - 09/07/2024 01:19:30 AM 267 Views
You're still looking at it from the current two-party system framework. - 09/07/2024 07:17:39 AM 270 Views
Re: You're still looking at it from the current two-party system framework. - 09/07/2024 01:45:33 PM 258 Views
It doesn't necessarily require amending the constitution. - 10/07/2024 03:03:19 AM 265 Views
Re: It doesn't necessarily require amending the constitution. - 10/07/2024 04:13:02 PM 264 Views
I meant California - 08/07/2024 08:43:35 PM 270 Views
The popular vote is the popular vote - one citizen, one vote, wherever they may live. - 08/07/2024 10:37:56 PM 281 Views
I'm concerned about a lot of things. - 09/07/2024 04:41:03 AM 259 Views
From a left of center/liberalish substack author about the Republican national platform - 09/07/2024 11:15:00 AM 317 Views
It's an interesting read. - 09/07/2024 09:46:47 PM 280 Views
Trump is a Trumpist. Republicans are Republicans. - 10/07/2024 11:09:05 AM 268 Views
I think a significant wing of the party has become Trumpist. - 10/07/2024 02:23:45 PM 281 Views
The most interesting thing to me, so far, about this debate - 08/07/2024 10:54:50 AM 247 Views
Re: The most interesting thing to me, so far, about this debate - 08/07/2024 02:58:44 PM 265 Views
Re: The most interesting thing to me, so far, about this debate - 08/07/2024 03:20:14 PM 260 Views
James Carville has a pretty interesting suggestion in today's NYT - 08/07/2024 06:32:51 PM 293 Views
I think Biden and his Inner Circle are playing the clock - 10/07/2024 12:41:20 PM 256 Views
Re: I think Biden and his Inner Circle are playing the clock - 10/07/2024 04:14:17 PM 263 Views

Reply to Message