- Mar 7, 2014
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A lot of people seem to think the US has a Proportional Representation (PR) for of elections. It doesn't. It has a First Past The Post (FPTP) system.
The difference is that with FPTP people vote in constituencies. So, for example, in House elections, the country is divided into 435 different sections and people in those sections then vote and the person with the most votes wins the seat. It's all very localized. It favors larger parties as only the party with the largest number of votes wins in each area.
Hence why the US has, literally, two parties in the House.
With PR, people vote, and all over the country votes are counted. If you get 6% of the votes, you'll get about 6% of the seats. This means nobody's vote is ignored. It means if two people on either side of the country want the same person to represent them, they can have this.
In Denmark they have a 2% cut off. This means as long as you get 2% of the vote nationally, you get seats. In Germany it is 5%. 2% leads to about 10 political parties in Denmark, and in Germany it's about 5 or 6 parties.
This is democracy. This is people deciding who they want to represent them, going and voting, and their vote being counted EQUALLY with everyone else's vote.
1 million people voted for the Libertarians. It would have been more, but many Libertarian voters thing their vote is wasted on a third party. With PR, their vote wouldn't be wasted. They'd get way more than 2% of the voted (about 3 million voted needed nationally).
This would lead to more sensible politics, as politicians would have to appeal to voters. With FPTP negative voting is the norm. People look and say "hey, I don't like this party, so I'll vote the other viable party instead of the one I really want". That's not democracy. It's like Russian Roulette.
The difference is that with FPTP people vote in constituencies. So, for example, in House elections, the country is divided into 435 different sections and people in those sections then vote and the person with the most votes wins the seat. It's all very localized. It favors larger parties as only the party with the largest number of votes wins in each area.
Hence why the US has, literally, two parties in the House.
With PR, people vote, and all over the country votes are counted. If you get 6% of the votes, you'll get about 6% of the seats. This means nobody's vote is ignored. It means if two people on either side of the country want the same person to represent them, they can have this.
In Denmark they have a 2% cut off. This means as long as you get 2% of the vote nationally, you get seats. In Germany it is 5%. 2% leads to about 10 political parties in Denmark, and in Germany it's about 5 or 6 parties.
This is democracy. This is people deciding who they want to represent them, going and voting, and their vote being counted EQUALLY with everyone else's vote.
1 million people voted for the Libertarians. It would have been more, but many Libertarian voters thing their vote is wasted on a third party. With PR, their vote wouldn't be wasted. They'd get way more than 2% of the voted (about 3 million voted needed nationally).
This would lead to more sensible politics, as politicians would have to appeal to voters. With FPTP negative voting is the norm. People look and say "hey, I don't like this party, so I'll vote the other viable party instead of the one I really want". That's not democracy. It's like Russian Roulette.
