Text for the lazy.
Duverger’s Law
In political science, Duverger’s law holds that single-ballot plurality-rule elections (such as first past the post) structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system.
Duverger’s law is the reason why U.S. voters select one of the two leading candidates when voting tactically, even if a third-party candidate would better represent their interests. This behavior arises out to fear of vote splitting
One consequence of Duverger’s law is that you can improve the viability of third-party candidates by changing the voting system. For example, Approval voting is more resistant to vote splitting and therefore more conducive to third-party candidates.
Yes, and until we DO change the voting system, vote blue or trump gets his way.
The problem is that many people see the system ending up with “vote blue AND the fascists get their way”. It ends up being totally discouraging.
I understand being discouraged that Blue doesn’t deliver
But I don’t understand how that matters when Red is openly promising death and destruction
Red only wins elections when Blue voters stay home so we could always at least stop Red
The thing is, what’s your preference? Disappointment on a regular basis, or transparent hate and naked greed? Destruction can only last so long, but a slow slide into depression can last forever. Voting Red often ends up being the accelerationist choice as much as support for their vile beliefs.
Accelerationism sounds nice, unless you have issues with a few million corpses, of them probably yourself.
Kinda hard to benefit from voting red after they kill you…
Oh no 🥲 besides being wholly divorced from reality you also think there’s a brighter future on the other side of accelerationist collapse
Politics has simply become an unserious affair
I’m not exactly set on “brighter”, but at least it will be “different”. Right now, I feel like something has to give. Voting alone won’t get us out of the hole we’ve been buried in. Trusting the same people who lied and brought us to this point won’t get us to a better place. I’m really not against a different path that makes push come to shove anymore, is all.
STAR or 3-2-1 voting are both much much better options than Approval Voting. Please advocate for one of those two rather than Approval or RCV. Yes, Approval is much better than RCV, but we’re only going to get one chance to change voting systems. If it goes wrong locales will switch back and never try again.
Cool, now I can really strut my stuff. Whenever someone comments “first past the post is bad” or “2-party systems suck” I can reply “Duverger’s law!”
