Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbie
I hope Gary Johnson runs again. And I hope that for once...people will listen to what he says he wants to do and not just follow the Dem VS Repub like it's some kind of sporting event.
|
Gary Johnson didn't even receive 1% of the vote in the 2012 Presidential Election, so good luck with that...
It would be interesting if the Libertarians, Green Party, and other people unhappy with the "two-party system", would spearhead a movement for
proportional representation, so that instead of being a spoiler which ends up actually hurting the party they are more closely aligned with, and actually helping the party they are less like, they could have some representation, or join a coalition with the party they are more like, in order to get parts of their minority agenda considered (examples in the US would be Ross Perot hurting Bush and helping Clinton, and Ralph Nader hurting Al Gore and helping Bush Jr).
Quote:
Proportional representation (PR) is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received.
For example, under a PR voting system, if 30% of voters support a particular party then roughly 30% of seats will be won by that party. PR is an alternative to voting systems based on single-member districts or on bloc voting; these non-PR systems tend to produce disproportionate outcomes and to have a bias in favour of larger political groups.
PR systems tend to produce a proliferation of political parties. There are many different forms of proportional representation. Some are focused solely on achieving the proportional representation of different political parties (such as list PR) while others permit the voter to choose between individual candidates (such as STV-PR). The degree of proportionality also varies; it is determined by factors such as the precise formula used to allocate seats, the number of seats in each constituency or in the elected body as a whole, and the level of any minimum threshold for election.
|
The current system is stacked against alternative candidates/parties, and makes third party challenges rather futile.
ADG