this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
65 points (92.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26875 readers
3289 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm hearing alot about the structural flaws of First past the post voting these days. Glad to see more people talking about the topic. Let's start making plans to fix this once and for all so people are free to vote how they want.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I’m having a hard time understanding the distinction of the voting method how its outcome differs from popular. I kinda feel like I get that there is a difference, but it’s not clicking. I’m probably just too tired.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

So imagine there's three parties up for election. Party A gets 40% of the vote, Party B gets 30%, and Party C gets 30%.

In this scenario with first-past-the-post, Party A wins because they get the majority. This means 60% of voters (also known as the majority) had no impact on the election because their candidates are thrown away.

On the surface, proportional voting might look similar. But when you consider the highly gerrymandered state of voting districts, you start to realize that the deck is stacked in a very unfair way.

This is sort of how you wind up in a situation where a candidate wins the election despite not attaining the popular vote - although as I understand it that has more to do with the electoral college (which frankly, also seems undemocratic)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

Party A gets 40% of the vote

Party A wins because they get the majority

Just going to point out, 40% is not a majority. In this case they have a plurality.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)