[kitchi]

This is true for a direct democracy, but for a representative democracy like the US (and many other countries) there's more nuance. Combined with first past the post voting, there's a lot of room for suppression of voices that are not aligned with those already in power.

For say something like the state legislature race in a state, they count up all the seats they have won in each district, and whichever party has won the most seats wins the race. Voters are therefore put in buckets (districts) and their votes are counted in aggregate.

This allows a process called "gerrymandering" to redraw district boundaries arbitrarily. So if there is say a democratic-party majority voting bloc in a particular area, I can redraw the surrounding districts to split that geographic area into many parts, so their votes get split across multiple districts and hence "diluted".

The voting rights act asserted this is a form of voter suppression. Specifically related to black voter suppression, if a state is say 40% black by population and they have no black representatives, it warrants a closer look as to why.

I hope that wasn't too confusing of an explanation. I'm not from the US but I'm quite interested in these things.

[lokar]

Which state elects the governor via anything other than the total popular vote?

[kitchi]

That's a good point, and I've updated my comment. Thanks!

[sholladay]

You explained it well. Representative democracy complicates systems of fairness since it adds another layer that itself also needs to be fair. And each is an opportunity to be corrupted into unfairness.

Our education curriculum is also a big problem here. If I stopped random people on the street in the U.S. and asked them what first-past-the-post is, I suspect only a small number would be able to answer.

Yet people are baffled as to why we have the two party system, gerrymandering, and all of the other problems. You can’t fix what you don’t understand. We have to start there.

Ranked choice is starting to gain some traction in the U.S. But there are many different ranking methods and the one we are using is instant-runoff, which has many of the same problems as first-past-the-post, including polarizing candidates and winners. I think if these systems were more broadly understood, many people would prefer Schulze for its fairness properties and to reduce polarization.

Curious to hear your thoughts on all of that.