Roonie
09-10-2008, 09:08 PM
Perhaps this has come up before, but I haven't really heard people talking about it anywhere, so here's a post for you to chew on.
With all the talk about election reform, people seem to only focus on the financial aspects or the vote requirements to be considered a "party," "major party" etc. It seems (to me) that the most simple, effective answer has escaped consideration.
Why not let people vote for as many candidates as they want?
The duopoly is kept in place in large part because there is a public perception that no other party can win and a 3rd party candidate just wrecks it for the other two. But if voters could vote for all the candidates they had confidence in, voting for one party would not come at the expense of another, giving independants a chance to get just as many votes as the Big Two.
An election would not be about which side was stronger anymore; it would be about which candidate had built the largest coalition of followers. It would essentially be a vote of confidence on everyone running, the person with highest "approval rating" winning.
Negative politics wouldn't work anymore because one less vote for the other guy means one more vote for everyone in the race, not just you. Politicians would have to focus on (gasp!) the real differences between themselves because you couldn't just pound RED! or BLUE! into people's heads and expect to win.
This couldn't be done in the old days before the internet because it took a nation-wide political party just to get the candidate's name out there. But ever since the dawn of television, the power of the political party has been waning as the individual was able to do more and more on his or her own.
So, why not take it the last step and obliterate the institution of political parties altogether?
With all the talk about election reform, people seem to only focus on the financial aspects or the vote requirements to be considered a "party," "major party" etc. It seems (to me) that the most simple, effective answer has escaped consideration.
Why not let people vote for as many candidates as they want?
The duopoly is kept in place in large part because there is a public perception that no other party can win and a 3rd party candidate just wrecks it for the other two. But if voters could vote for all the candidates they had confidence in, voting for one party would not come at the expense of another, giving independants a chance to get just as many votes as the Big Two.
An election would not be about which side was stronger anymore; it would be about which candidate had built the largest coalition of followers. It would essentially be a vote of confidence on everyone running, the person with highest "approval rating" winning.
Negative politics wouldn't work anymore because one less vote for the other guy means one more vote for everyone in the race, not just you. Politicians would have to focus on (gasp!) the real differences between themselves because you couldn't just pound RED! or BLUE! into people's heads and expect to win.
This couldn't be done in the old days before the internet because it took a nation-wide political party just to get the candidate's name out there. But ever since the dawn of television, the power of the political party has been waning as the individual was able to do more and more on his or her own.
So, why not take it the last step and obliterate the institution of political parties altogether?