[VK538FY]

I understand your point. 'First past the post' may not be ideal for your country. For other countries, it is appreciated despite its inconveniences. Example: Québec. We inherited 'first past the post' from England. The results are obvious: small parties with significant numbers of voters in many ridings don't end up in parliament. But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost half the population of the province. That city has a demography very different to the rest of the province. In a proportional system, the will of the big city would simply sweep away the rural regions that don't have the same weight. People have learnt to accept 'first past the post' and any change would upset the balance that exists today.

[culi]

I don't know if you've fully considered the alternatives here. Alternatives like Approval or even RCV (which admittedly has its own issues) don't at all weaken the rural vote here. Approval means all those rural parties can be voted for instead of having to be consolidated and also increases the chance that some city folk will vote for them. RCV allows rural people to vote for the longshot candidate they ACTUALLY want while making sure their vote isn't thrown away when their candidate does lose

This "balance" you're speaking of only benefits the duopoly that's developed BECAUSE of the FPTP system.

Organizations are like organisms. Organisms don't only have to replicate their DNA to be successful—they also need to replicate their environments (e.g. buffalo and elephants protected grasslands from being overrun by woodlands, pine forests making wildfires more common, etc). In this case these parties both have disproportionate power because of FPTP and are both interested in maintaining this "balance"

[VK538FY]

I appreciate your suggestions but would really need to see some simulations to digest the potential effects. Not that my opinion counts for much but it's always good to suggest alternatives when one criticizes. That said, the duopoly isn't always so bad historically. Many cases of individual candidates who broke party lines or walked the fine line. It depends to a great degree on party discipline or the lack thereof.

[culi]

you're probably asking for historical examples. Tbh I lack the knowledge of the specific politics of Montréal to think of the best comparisons, but if you want a more abstract toy to play around with the large variety of different voting systems available, I've made a toy just for that:

https://votevote.page/

sorry for the self-plug

[sph]

You should do a Show HN for this actually

[culi]

awh thanks :)

Maybe I will, but I've had this update pending (see preview here[0]) that adds some major algorithms that any self-respecting voting theory nerd would expect to see. I started my first software job right as I was wrapping that up though and never fully got through with it. Maybe this winter break I'll have time tho... I'd like to have that update out before sharing it more loudly

[0]: https://dev--votevote.netlify.app/

[aragilar]

You could look at Australia (which has multiple "rural" parties), and which uses RCV (called preferential voting here).

[int_19h]

The problem with what you describe is that it doesn't merely prevent large areas from dominating the smaller; it actually allows the smaller areas to gang up and impose policies on the majority. Tyranny of the majority sucks, but tyranny of the minority is even worse.

[VK538FY]

In the case of my small example: I am the rural vote so I don't see our collective force as tyranny of course. As long as basic rights are respected. Ours is a case of a region with specific identity and interests not shared by the single metropole so a purely proportional result is not ideal from our perspective. But I understand your point.

[int_19h]

If the goal is to prevent the metropolitan area from unilaterally imposing itself on the rest of the province, all you really need for that is some kind of veto power. For example, a bicameral legislature in which one chamber is elected through some proportional system and actually writes laws, and the other one that represents all the various interest groups (under whatever representation formulas people find agreeable) and approves them.

[chimeracoder]

> But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost half the population of the province. That city has a demography very different to the rest of the province. In a proportional system, the will of the big city would simply sweep away the rural regions that don't have the same weight. People have learnt to accept 'first past the post' and any change would upset the balance that exists today.

That's a very long-winded way of saying "some people's votes are weighted more than others", which is an inherently undemocratic principle.

[rayiner]

“Democracy” isn’t a unidimensional system. It’s a balance of many competing concerns. In particular, a key variable is not merely who wins the majority, but who votes. It wouldn’t placate Ukranians to say that if they became part of Russia, their vote would count just as much as a Russian’s. Simply winning 50%+1 isn’t sufficient. People must be willing to be bound into a body politic with other people to begin with.

Different voting mechanisms, along with federal systems, are a way of balancing those competing concerns. They allow you to form a larger body politic that would not necessarily be willing to be bound together in a simple “majority rules” system.

[blix]

> "some people's votes are weighted more than others", which is an inherently undemocratic principle.

Has there ever been, in the history of human civilization, any self-styled democracy that did not weigh the votes of some people more the votes of others? Whether by sex, gender, race, wealth, education, criminal status, party membership, age, or status as an elected official, I'm pretty sure every single democratic state has continuously subscribed to some non-uniform distribution of vote weights.

With modern technology, it maybe possible to create a truly direct and equal system where newborns have the ability to ratify trade deals, but this might not be desirable.

[VK538FY]

Sure, I won't argue semantics. I and many others don't want a democracy that relegates us to an anachronistic minority.

[timbit42]

There are numerous ways to implement PR. The problems you mention can be avoided.