[b112]

It has nothing to do with first-past-the-post. You can have 10 parties, 100 parties, in fact first past the post is designed for more than two parties.

If you have people in 5 parties to vote for in your riding(district?), then first past the post is the only way it works easily! Seldom will one of those 5, get 50.1% of the vote!

And why would they? The most popular wins, the people have spoken.

[Groxx]

I... think you may have some reading to do. The subject is pretty well studied.

The main reason FPTP ensures at most 2 parties is that, say you have parties 1, A, and B, where A and B are relatively similar to each other. And say A and B are together more populous than 1, like a 40/30/30 split.

By splitting those 60% mostly-similar votes between A and B, both lose to the less-popular 1. It becomes in A and B's best interest to not cannibalize each other's votes, i.e. merge and dominate (or at least compete). The less fragmented ideology wins, not the most desired.

It's even more compelling during the formation of new parties when there are only 2: by not voting for one of the two dominant ones, you are literally throwing your vote away because it has no chance, and it's worse for your ideology than if you had chosen the most-similar of the dominant party.

[b112]

Yet, empirically, you're 100% wrong.

Canada has both Federal, and Provincial FPTP parliaments. On the Provincial level, new parties appear, and are elected , minority or majority, all the time. Constantly.

On the Federal level, things move more slowly. Yet new parties are appear, grow in popularity, and replace older parties.

Canada is not only a place of multiple parties, it is a place of constant party renewal.

And as a Canuck, I am all too familiar with vote splitting. We have party mergers. Parties that split and form new parties.

We know all about strategic voting, but because we have the concept of minority governments, and because we don't vote for who our Prime Minister is, the dynamic changes a bit.

FPTP isn't what causes two parties only, it is certain methods of government that do, mayhap combined with FPTP.

[maerF0x0]

It seems the split President (prime minister) and House voting leads to more issues compared to Canadas system. Canada also has no confidence votes vs fixed elections ...

[rsync]

"... by not voting for one of the two dominant ones, you are literally throwing your vote away ..."

That is incorrect. In your scenario, you would be figuratively throwing your vote away.

[lopmotr]

That makes sense if you think in terms of parties. But if you're interested in policies instead, I think it might be wrong.

For example, if you want them to do something about climate change you might vote for the Green party instead of Democrat. They won't win but your "stolen" vote might cause the Democrat party to lose. They don't want to lose so they might adopt policies from the Green party to attract you and all Green voters. That would be as good an outcome as multiple parties.

[lillecarl]

If someone is looking for a good explanation i must recommend this playlist by CGP Grey explaining different voting systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&list=PLNCHVwtpeB...

[jfim]

> FPTP ensures at most 2 parties

Canada uses FPTP, and yet there are five parties represented in the house of commons [0].

While it's true that two parties have the lion's share of seats (155 for the liberals, 121 for the conservatives), as there are 338 seats, the liberals can't just steamroll legislation unopposed; they have to get at least some approval from other parties.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_Canada

[Groxx]

Worth noting that Wikipedia uses Canada as its first example of "disadvantages" of the system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Dis...

But yes, Canada has soldiered on remarkably well in spite of it. USA used to be multi-party as well, the transition to 2-party takes time and there's nothing that truly guarantees it, just innately encourages. There are ways to slow it down / isolate sections... but the dominant parties can also whittle away at those over time.

[b112]

Yet Canada doesn't really have two dominant parties. Neither provincially, nor federally.

For example, the Conservative Party of Canada:

- formed from a merger between Progressive Conservative Party - and the Canadian Alliance

Of which, the "Canadian Alliance" appeared entirely from grass roots.

It started with the Reform Party, where the PC party lost all but two seats, but the new "Reform" party obtained significant seats:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Canadian_federal_election

Which then morphed into the Alliance Party:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Canadian_federal_election

Which then, after the merger, with what was left of the PCs, formed the minority:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Canadian_federal_election

And then formed the government:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Canadian_federal_election

It should be noted that the merger between the older PC party, and the reform/alliance party was with the Alliance party at massive strength, in the House of Commons with a respectable number of seats, and 100% in charge of the future of the merged party.

My point here is ; the willingness for people to embrace new parties, new ideas, and vote for people .. not parties, helps with real political renewal in Canada.

Further, while some provinces aren't, most are MORE dynamic than the federal level at party change. Take Quebec, which has had new parties appear and then even form governments, in a period of two election cycles.

FPTP does NOT mean 2 parties. At all.

[int_19h]

USA was never truly multi-party, except for very brief transition periods (like when Whigs collapsed and GOP appeared).

[lillecarl]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_electoral_system#Firs... > An absolute majority of the electorate is not needed, and is rarely achieved. As a result, power has been held by either of two parties for most of Canada's history. The party whose candidates win the second largest number of seats becomes the Official Opposition.

[b112]

This is untrue. It takes the position that any conservative party, is the same party as its predecessor. See here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24219888

[thu2111]

It doesn't ensure at most two parties. The UK has at least four major parties: Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, and then one or two other smaller parties.

[int_19h]

Districts are drawn more or less arbitrarily, and so their residents don't necessarily represent a single coherent political bloc. In practice, this means that you can have a party getting 30-40% of the vote in literally every district, and end up with zero representation.

Worse yet, because most FPTP elections only require plurality for victory, you can have a party get less than 50% of the vote in each district (but more than any other party), and still take all the seats. In which case you literally have the minority running the country - so much for "people have spoken".

[greycol]

>first past the post is the only way it works easily

The key word there is easily. Now that we have computers and instant communication we can do things that would be/used to be considered hard but give better outcomes.

I'll also point out you don't need a winning party in an election you just need to be able to form a government and there's no reason 2 closely aligned parties can't work together or even traditionally opposing parties.

[b112]

Point #1 -- computers have no place in an election. Or voting.

#2? Canadian parties do this all of the time. We have parties from coalitions, and then form the government.

[slaymaker1907]

Why not have a runoff election or instant runoff voting?

Additionally, why do we need to have a single representative for any individual instead of say 10 people representing a larger district?

[b112]

Why does someone need a magic number of 50.1% to be valid?

Why is that "the number"? Because it's more than 1/2? You're thinking "two parties".

If you're worried about "most people's support", then why isn't the number 80%? 99%? 100%? Why does '50.1%' make it 'OK' and less 'not'?

I don't get this arbitrary fixation on "but, that guy didn't get 50.1% of the vote!!". So?

Let's say there are 5 parties. One gets 40% of the vote. Yet if each party had equal votes, that would be 20% each. The party with 40% of the vote, received 2x the votes compared to the number of parties.

Is that OK? Why not?

I don't get what's wrong with a number less than 50%. I don't get why anything above 50% is fine.

Let's say you have 10 people, and 4 plans. Plans to defend the city from invasion. Each plan has its merits. You ask people to vote. 2 abstain. The next 2 receive two votes each. The last receives 4 votes.

4/10 is less than 50%, yes? Yet, clearly it is the most popular. Must the 2 abstainers vote? Must those that don't agree, be forced to vote for a plan they don't agree with?

How is this undemocratic? Were the people's voices heard? Was the most popular plan voted on?

I literally don't get it, or understand the issue.