Lakhota
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #41
The countries with the least corruption use Proportional Representation. It's not a coincidence, Proportional Representation leads to a more open system.
In Germany they vote PR and FPTP on the same day. In 2017 the CDU/CSU (equivalent of the Republicans) gained 37.2% of the vote with FPTP and 77% of the seats.
With Proportional Representation they gained 33% of the vote, 4.2% chose to vote for another party because they didn't feel restricted by FPTP's limits. And they got 34.7% of the seats.
Which is fairer? 33% of people getting 34.7% of the seats, or 4.2% feeling they have to vote CDU/CSU when they'd prefer to vote for a smaller party and then 77% of the seats go to this party anyway?
The FDP, center right party got 7% of the votes with FPTP, and they got zero seats, simply because the system said "no". With PR they got 80 seats with 10.7% of the vote, or 11.2% of the seats. Why should 10.7% of the population get ignored because the system says "no"?
Also Germany has 6 political parties. This is because they have a 5% cut off. Meaning any party with less than 5% gets no seats. They could still get FPTP seats though, but it's harder to get FPTP seats.
In Denmark they have a 2% cut off, and they have 10 political parties.
In the US you have a farmer in Wyoming and a farmer in California. Perhaps they feel the same about policies. But in California the farmer will get totally ignored. It's the largest Republican state (at the 2020 presidential election at least) and all the Republicans got ignored at the presidential election.
But with PR the Wyoming farmer and Californian farmer could vote for the same party and their vote would count the same as everyone else's vote. Perhaps only one person in Wyoming wants to vote for this party, his vote still counts. He doesn't get drowned out by those around him.
You then have sensible politics. Instead of Democrats trying to attract more than 50% of people, parties would focus on core areas. Farmers, urban areas, liberals, fascists, whatever. They'd represent these people properly, if they didn't..... they'd get kicked out.
In German (again), they have the AfD. The AfD, a further right party, was founded in 2013. In that year they won 4.7% of the vote, not enough to get over the threshold, but a decent number of votes.
In 2017 they got 12.6% of the vote and became the third largest party taking a lot of votes away from the CDU/CSU (who had 41.5% of the vote in 2013 and then 33% on 2017). They got 91 seats.
In the UK, which has FPTP only, UKIP, a further right party, was founded in 1993. By 2015 they managed to get 12.6% of the vote (how ironic) and got one seat.
So, in Germany when people get fed up with a political party, they feel they can vote someone else and their voice will be heard. It means that politicians have to listen to the people, and they have to be on the ball.
With FPTP they don't need to, it takes small parties a long time to gain enough support for people to feel like they're not wasting their vote. Because when 12.6% of people vote for you and you get one seat, and almost no voice, but the Tories, who a lot of people wanted to punish, go on to form the government, only because the system says "yes", it's ridiculous.
Question is, who do you want to decide who represents you? You, or the system?
Election "officials" said there was no election corruption or fraud.