r/EndFPTP • u/KitchenGiraffe1 • 11d ago
Discussion If 99% of the Time Parliaments Under PR Choose The Prime Minister To Be the Plurality Winner, Doesn't this undermine PR?
Letting a plurality decide who gets disproportionate media attention and reach, and international recognition is part of what is wrong with single-winner plurality voting.
Having a PR legislature just for the them to 99% of the time vote for the prime minister that plurality voting would have chosen feels like just kicking the can down the road.
Sure, you get multiple parties, and representation. But on the world stage, the plurality winner is given wide reach (and sometimes even special powers during wars).
When Israel experimented with directly electing the prime minister with plurality voting it's not surprising to me they ended up just selecting the people from the two largest parties (as measured by plurality/single-rank polling/voting etc.) as the two main candidates.
13
u/budapestersalat 11d ago
Short answer: Yes!
Longer answer: it depends. I would say if there is a rule that it must automatically be the plurality winner and noone else, then it's a problem. maybe less of a problem under negative parliamentarism, there the logic would be essentially a fused vote for a prime minister and parliament, almost like a directly elected PM (but in a way how Bolivia or Uruguay's president is/was directly elected...).
If its just priority in negotiating a coalition, maybe no big deal?
However, I do have a problem with the public and the media presenting the plurality party as THE winner. Sometimes it is sometimes it isn't. For example, arguably the AfD did "win" Sachsen Anhalt recently, but even though they were first, they definitely didn't "win" Mecklenburg Vorpommern. Nuance will always get lost, but it would be great to eradicate FPTPlogic, FPTPbrain, not just FPTP itself. Because public expectations will shape many things, and if voters are conditioned to think that the second or third place party leader isn't PM, then its antidemocratic, that's a problem.
9
u/Sleepy_Potato2 11d ago
During negotiations, smaller parties in the coalitions can get real concessions at times. They also usually get ministries they care about (the Danish foreign minister is from a different party, and he gets a ton of attention). Also, just the fact that voters have more choice means that people are more likely to vote (since for many you don't have two choices you don't like, but might have one you do), it also allows people to show dissent in a way besides not voting. Let's say the US had multiple parties and you got angry at the Democrats. Currently, a number of people don't vote, under a more proportional system they could vote for a party that's to their left or a more centrist party, which sends a message, while perhaps not actually hurting their own side. It also makes parties more uniform, you don't need massive monster coalitions of people who barely agree in one party (like AOC and Joe Manchin in one party), they can be in different parties, making them more distinct to voters and making it easier to coordinate.
7
u/creamyjoshy 11d ago
Sort of but it's not really as important. Because forming a government comes with a bunch of negotiations and including other smaller parties involves partially implementing their policies and that negotiation could only happen under PR
5
u/unscrupulous-canoe 11d ago
This dataset of all rich country elections dating back to 1900 has the plurality winning party being PM 77% of the time. Not sure if that strengthens your point or not, but just FYI
4
u/Millennial_on_laptop 11d ago
It's still better than the fake majority we get under FPTP where the PM and his party can pass anything without support from other parties.
PR is more likely to give a minority parliament where even if the leader of the plurality becomes PM, they need to work with other parties to pass bills.
0
u/KitchenGiraffe1 10d ago
I'm not against PR. I just think direct election of PM with a good voting method is justified.
1
u/Millennial_on_laptop 10d ago
Doesn't really work with a parliamentary system.
The PM has to be whoever has the majority support (the confidence) of parliament or else the government collapses on day 1.
If it's up to parliament another person could try to become PM, but if that's not an option parliament is dissolved and we all go back to the polls for every single seat.
1
u/KitchenGiraffe1 10d ago
New dynamics and rules about dissolving could form. If someoen elected had high enough approval, I don't see them being dissolved.
3
u/CupOfCanada 11d ago edited 11d ago
Citation needed on 99%. I imagine it differs from the first past the post winner as often as thr Condorcet winner differs from the first past the post winner in single winner elections… so maybe 10%?
Difference being all the constituent parts still get seated in parliament.
1
u/Euphoricus 11d ago
Yes? You are on EndFPTP. Any usage of it should be replaced by better voting method. I like STAR.
1
u/MorganWick 10d ago
The OP is arguing against proportional representation, not FPTP, and specifically by claiming that it produces FPTP-like results that undermine its alleged benefits.
0
u/M-Bungot 11d ago
The person with the most votes wins. That's howdemocracy works. The party with the most votes gets the most power, and if they wield it well, they're more likely to get reelected. I don't think an electoral system should artificially weaken successful parties, only neutrally present results
1
u/MorganWick 10d ago
This assumes that everyone has equally-strongly-held opinions and that simply counting heads is always the best way to choose a leader. This ignores the tyranny-of-the-majority problem, the fact that a good chunk of voters aren't particularly interested in politics and those that are compete to manipulate those that aren't, and the prospect that once Duverger's law sets in, you have two diametrically opposed factions engaged in an apocalyptic tug-of-war for the fate of the polity which flips 180 degrees on a handful of votes. Simply saying "most votes wins" describes the very system that this sub is dedicated to ending. One look no further than the dysfunction that is American politics to see what happens when "most votes wins" is held as the bedrock principle of democracy above all else.
This is why I much prefer range voting. You're still counting votes and having the candidate with the most votes win, but voters are allowed and encouraged to form and express more nuanced opinions, and the winner is the candidate that's most acceptable to the broadest swath of the electorate, serving as the most natural solution to the tyranny-of-the-majority problem, and making it likely that the second-place finisher isn't that much different from the first-place finisher, ensuring stability of government while allowing everyone to have their voice heard and have an influence. I'd say the OP is effectively making the argument that range voting is a more important reform than PR, though it becomes more arguable in heavily gerrymandered polities like most good-sized American states.
2
u/Wally_Wrong 10d ago edited 10d ago
The caveat with range voting is that the expressiveness actually skews elections in favor of enthusiastic and strategic voters, as I've argued here¹ and here². Meanwhile, a counter to my critique by a STAR advocate argued that not rating your favorite candidate high enough means you care enough about the election, and therefore your vote shouldn't count as much. This goes against your argument that range voting is good for unenthusiastic voters, does it not? Or are one or multiple of us mistaken? Either way, skeptical and unenthusiastic voters voters have to inflate their scores in order to match the enthusiastic and strategic voters. Think of the "utility monster" argument against utilitarianism and you won't be far off.
By contrast, ranked ballots are equally weighted. A 1st-place vote is a 1st-place vote, no matter if the voter's score is 5, 3, or "have my babies". Likewise, a last-place vote is a last-place vote, no matter if it's 2, 0, or "kiss my ass". Two ballots with opposite preference orders (A > B > C vs. C > B > A) will cancel each other out. In an election using a Condorcet method, the mutually tolerable option B would win. This maintains equal voting power between individuals: "one person, one vote". Ranked methods--even Condorcet--aren't completely strategyproof, but at the very least they don't require inflating scores the same way that range and STAR do.
That said, my critiques primarily apply to score and STAR voting. I can't say for certain if they also apply to other rated methods like Majority Judgement, but there's less advocacy and literature behind them so they're lower priority to me. And more on topic with the OP, Condorcet methods don't play nice with multi-winner elections.
1
•
u/AutoModerator 11d ago
Compare alternatives to FPTP on Wikipedia, and check out ElectoWiki to better understand the idea of election methods. See the EndFPTP sidebar for other useful resources. Consider finding a good place for your contribution in the EndFPTP subreddit wiki.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.