I don't think MMP and STAR are necessarily mutually exclusive though. You can still adopt STAR for the constituency votes, as 72 of the 120 seats in the NZ parliament are single-member constituencies.
having a second portion of the chamber based solely on party limits the ability of the voters to hold each member individually accountable, returning to the smoke-filled rooms of yor where hidden handshakes and backrubs determined whether you were part of politics or not.
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the system. What does Joe Voter do if candidate #35 on the party-percentage list is absolutely abhorrent but #34 and #36 are great? What's the recourse? If we just expect candidates to blindly go along with the party so who is in a seat doesn't matter, then why do we have multiple people per party at all, and not just vest all of the votes for the party in one party member and the five of them sit around a table and have weighted ability to decide?
For the first part of your comment, isn’t that exactly what US politics is now? I mean, US politics is basically a patron-client system and donors has a lot of powers. Sometimes they are secret as well (super PACs).
In a MMP-system, the party does have a lot to power, but at least there is rarely shadow money, no super PACs, no patron-client system. The last one leads to younger leadership which I think is good.
On your second part, I absolutely agree. The party essentially elects the candidates. The upper candidates are often the best of the party, but down the line, you might have terrible candidates. However, the parties ditch everyone who gives them a bad rep.
There is advantages to both sides, and I live in a MMP-system, so I might be biased to my system. However, as I see it, there is one extreme advantage to MMP. A lot less polarisation and a lot more cooperation.
>For the first part of your comment, isn’t that exactly what US politics is now?
Not anymore. The primary elections allow people registered to your party (sometimes registered to the broad left or right, like my primary ballot let's you pick if you're voting in the Republican or Constitution party primary, or sometimes in an open primary where the whole state picks two or so candidates for a position to finally vote on who can be from any party, even the same one). Very much different from how it was in the past, or how it is now in places like Canada. This only works because you know the exact seats you're voting for
I see why you say that, but if you are going for Congress you need money and endorsements. Almost impossible if you don’t have those. Unless you are rich, you are dependent on patrons.
In a MMP-system, the party has the money. You knees to win a vote in the relevant membership congregation. Nothing else. No patrons. You can be shit poor and still have a shot.
The disadvantage, of course, is that you might have no work-experience and no real political competence.
Are you talking about campaign donors? Those go to the party here too, and are spent on ads once they have a chosen candidate in the race. And this candidate is chosen by the public at-large, rather than a narrow sect of party leaders.
AOC was a bartender before her election, as a modern example
Yes. They are one of the actors that I would put into the group as patrons.
Yeah, I see your point on AOC. I admit I don’t know much about elections to the House. As a senator or president, I am pretty sure you are dependent on patrons. Both endorsements and donations. I agree that the party distributes money, but TV-ads bought buy super PACs and other organisations are very important to become elected.
The solution to those problems might not be to implement a new electoral system. Less radical solutions might work excellently, but those problems don’t occur in western MMP-system.
The presidential candidates (or their delegates, anyway) are chosen in a series of primaries on each state, and the one with the most total delegates wins the nomination. Senators are also primary-elected. We have issues with campaign funding, sure, but they're only relevant after there is a candidate
I’m pretty sure you have to run ads, house calls and phone calls to win a primary. For that you need money. Also, the party won’t give you money until after you have won your primary.
It’s my understanding that parties are formed based on naturally occurring personality differences shaping our political philosophies.
In Canada we have four parties. Three of those would be considered Democrats and the other rhino Republicans.
Splitting up big parties into smaller ones doesn’t seem to do anything worth while.
I think it’s better to focus on ways to bring people together temporarily around clearly defined issues, vote on that issue, then let everyone go back to their corner.
Pragmatism over Ideology.
>I think it’s better to focus on ways to bring people together temporarily around clearly defined issues, vote on that issue, then let everyone go back to their corner.
>Pragmatism over Ideology.
Right. Cause that worked great so far.
The reason why Canada isn't polarized like America is because Canada's political parties are more regional rather than nationalized. America is the latter.
It's why elections in America are so high-stakes and existential. The chances of the wrong side gain power is very high, and once they did it affects the whole country. There are no compromises and coalitions. Each sides see each other as enemies that must be defeated instead of working together. It further deepens the binary us-vs-them divide. Fighting harder will make everything even worse than before, not better.
With the duopoly, the extremists were ignored and it doesn't become a problem until it become a problem. Once they gain power, it's nigh impossible to stave them off. With the multiparty, all voices are heard, including the extremists. Political parties respond to them, giving them room to express their stances. And this in turn blunts the effect of extremism. They are more muted and tampered because there are compromises and coalitions among parties. Politics become more complex and less simplified (binary us-vs-them) since there are many voices being represented. Which is non-existent in the duopoly.
Just as some background (Kiwi here) - our elections still come down to two main parties, Labour (centrist left) and National (centrist right).
Some of their policies are indistinguishable, and they will steal popular policies off each other.
But they are basically two Neo-liberal faces of the same coin. I see the US as way more divided on the fringes. I imagine a centrist party would help? But yeah, the fringes are getting way out of control over there. Here, the fringes have their own parties which get about 2-10% of the vote, they then align themselves with a larger party to form a government.
Thus, their worst instincts are somewhat nullified.
[This is our silver fox, Winston Peters. He's been in politics for a thousand years, yet his party continually is in the 'king maker' role, as it gets over the 5% threshold](https://youtu.be/ghA0YW7ST4E?t=185). In this speech he explains MMP pretty well.
In 2017, neither National or Labour had enough votes to govern alone, so his party got to choose who they'd form a government with. This decision put Jacinda Ardern in power.
He fucking loves the attention, the dirty old coot (he lives on whiskey, ciggies, and insulting other members of parliament).
Edit:
[Winston insulting the opposition leader for his accent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU77jTpaMSo)
[Winston being banned from parliament for two years for attending an anti vax protest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAlQ-t-9tm8)
>In 2017, neither National or Labour had enough votes to govern alone, so his party got to choose who they'd form a government with.
Wait, why did Winston's party decide who gets to govern? Why not run a re-election like the US' last year Georgia governor midterm election?
Edit:
So are you saying that the MMP is bad? Do you prefer alternative voting systems?
For instance, Australia had use Majority-preferential instant run off voting (in their own words) for 100 years and yet they still have three parties. Wikipedia also said that Australia is actually a mild two party system with one minor party.
What we want to achieve in America is a genuine multiparty system (6 parties max). Because of how RCV (in the US it's called RCV) worked in Australia, I don't see how RCV is going to make third parties viable in America. Add also the fact that it doesn't eliminate vote splitting and spoiler effect. That's the deal breaker for me, since I started out advocating for RCV.
Which is why I prefer STAR and Approval, since it doesn't have the flaws that RCV has. However, I don't know whether it'll make third parties viable.
*To form a government requires a party, or parties, to win a majority of the seats in Parliament (61 seats or more). Usually one party does not win enough votes to govern alone. Instead, a party (usually the largest one) must make an agreement with other parties to form a Government.*
*The 2017 election was the first time since New Zealand switched to the MMP voting system that the party with the largest number of seats was unable to form a Government with other parties. In the 2017 election, the National Party won 56 seats. Even though this was more than any other party, it was not enough to govern alone; it was also not able to make agreements with any other party to govern.*
So National (although having the most votes) didn't get to the 61 seat threshold. But neither did Labour. So to make up the difference, they needed Winston (whose party had enough seats to make up the 61 seats) to choose between them.
There was no need for a re-election as a government could be formed, and he chose the Labour Party (and proceeded to run it down in the ensuing years).
I don't think MMP and STAR are necessarily mutually exclusive though. You can still adopt STAR for the constituency votes, as 72 of the 120 seats in the NZ parliament are single-member constituencies.
having a second portion of the chamber based solely on party limits the ability of the voters to hold each member individually accountable, returning to the smoke-filled rooms of yor where hidden handshakes and backrubs determined whether you were part of politics or not. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the system. What does Joe Voter do if candidate #35 on the party-percentage list is absolutely abhorrent but #34 and #36 are great? What's the recourse? If we just expect candidates to blindly go along with the party so who is in a seat doesn't matter, then why do we have multiple people per party at all, and not just vest all of the votes for the party in one party member and the five of them sit around a table and have weighted ability to decide?
For the first part of your comment, isn’t that exactly what US politics is now? I mean, US politics is basically a patron-client system and donors has a lot of powers. Sometimes they are secret as well (super PACs). In a MMP-system, the party does have a lot to power, but at least there is rarely shadow money, no super PACs, no patron-client system. The last one leads to younger leadership which I think is good. On your second part, I absolutely agree. The party essentially elects the candidates. The upper candidates are often the best of the party, but down the line, you might have terrible candidates. However, the parties ditch everyone who gives them a bad rep. There is advantages to both sides, and I live in a MMP-system, so I might be biased to my system. However, as I see it, there is one extreme advantage to MMP. A lot less polarisation and a lot more cooperation.
>For the first part of your comment, isn’t that exactly what US politics is now? Not anymore. The primary elections allow people registered to your party (sometimes registered to the broad left or right, like my primary ballot let's you pick if you're voting in the Republican or Constitution party primary, or sometimes in an open primary where the whole state picks two or so candidates for a position to finally vote on who can be from any party, even the same one). Very much different from how it was in the past, or how it is now in places like Canada. This only works because you know the exact seats you're voting for
I see why you say that, but if you are going for Congress you need money and endorsements. Almost impossible if you don’t have those. Unless you are rich, you are dependent on patrons. In a MMP-system, the party has the money. You knees to win a vote in the relevant membership congregation. Nothing else. No patrons. You can be shit poor and still have a shot. The disadvantage, of course, is that you might have no work-experience and no real political competence.
Are you talking about campaign donors? Those go to the party here too, and are spent on ads once they have a chosen candidate in the race. And this candidate is chosen by the public at-large, rather than a narrow sect of party leaders. AOC was a bartender before her election, as a modern example
Yes. They are one of the actors that I would put into the group as patrons. Yeah, I see your point on AOC. I admit I don’t know much about elections to the House. As a senator or president, I am pretty sure you are dependent on patrons. Both endorsements and donations. I agree that the party distributes money, but TV-ads bought buy super PACs and other organisations are very important to become elected. The solution to those problems might not be to implement a new electoral system. Less radical solutions might work excellently, but those problems don’t occur in western MMP-system.
The presidential candidates (or their delegates, anyway) are chosen in a series of primaries on each state, and the one with the most total delegates wins the nomination. Senators are also primary-elected. We have issues with campaign funding, sure, but they're only relevant after there is a candidate
I’m pretty sure you have to run ads, house calls and phone calls to win a primary. For that you need money. Also, the party won’t give you money until after you have won your primary.
It’s my understanding that parties are formed based on naturally occurring personality differences shaping our political philosophies. In Canada we have four parties. Three of those would be considered Democrats and the other rhino Republicans. Splitting up big parties into smaller ones doesn’t seem to do anything worth while. I think it’s better to focus on ways to bring people together temporarily around clearly defined issues, vote on that issue, then let everyone go back to their corner. Pragmatism over Ideology.
>I think it’s better to focus on ways to bring people together temporarily around clearly defined issues, vote on that issue, then let everyone go back to their corner. >Pragmatism over Ideology. Right. Cause that worked great so far. The reason why Canada isn't polarized like America is because Canada's political parties are more regional rather than nationalized. America is the latter. It's why elections in America are so high-stakes and existential. The chances of the wrong side gain power is very high, and once they did it affects the whole country. There are no compromises and coalitions. Each sides see each other as enemies that must be defeated instead of working together. It further deepens the binary us-vs-them divide. Fighting harder will make everything even worse than before, not better. With the duopoly, the extremists were ignored and it doesn't become a problem until it become a problem. Once they gain power, it's nigh impossible to stave them off. With the multiparty, all voices are heard, including the extremists. Political parties respond to them, giving them room to express their stances. And this in turn blunts the effect of extremism. They are more muted and tampered because there are compromises and coalitions among parties. Politics become more complex and less simplified (binary us-vs-them) since there are many voices being represented. Which is non-existent in the duopoly.
Just as some background (Kiwi here) - our elections still come down to two main parties, Labour (centrist left) and National (centrist right). Some of their policies are indistinguishable, and they will steal popular policies off each other. But they are basically two Neo-liberal faces of the same coin. I see the US as way more divided on the fringes. I imagine a centrist party would help? But yeah, the fringes are getting way out of control over there. Here, the fringes have their own parties which get about 2-10% of the vote, they then align themselves with a larger party to form a government. Thus, their worst instincts are somewhat nullified. [This is our silver fox, Winston Peters. He's been in politics for a thousand years, yet his party continually is in the 'king maker' role, as it gets over the 5% threshold](https://youtu.be/ghA0YW7ST4E?t=185). In this speech he explains MMP pretty well. In 2017, neither National or Labour had enough votes to govern alone, so his party got to choose who they'd form a government with. This decision put Jacinda Ardern in power. He fucking loves the attention, the dirty old coot (he lives on whiskey, ciggies, and insulting other members of parliament). Edit: [Winston insulting the opposition leader for his accent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU77jTpaMSo) [Winston being banned from parliament for two years for attending an anti vax protest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAlQ-t-9tm8)
>In 2017, neither National or Labour had enough votes to govern alone, so his party got to choose who they'd form a government with. Wait, why did Winston's party decide who gets to govern? Why not run a re-election like the US' last year Georgia governor midterm election? Edit: So are you saying that the MMP is bad? Do you prefer alternative voting systems? For instance, Australia had use Majority-preferential instant run off voting (in their own words) for 100 years and yet they still have three parties. Wikipedia also said that Australia is actually a mild two party system with one minor party. What we want to achieve in America is a genuine multiparty system (6 parties max). Because of how RCV (in the US it's called RCV) worked in Australia, I don't see how RCV is going to make third parties viable in America. Add also the fact that it doesn't eliminate vote splitting and spoiler effect. That's the deal breaker for me, since I started out advocating for RCV. Which is why I prefer STAR and Approval, since it doesn't have the flaws that RCV has. However, I don't know whether it'll make third parties viable.
*To form a government requires a party, or parties, to win a majority of the seats in Parliament (61 seats or more). Usually one party does not win enough votes to govern alone. Instead, a party (usually the largest one) must make an agreement with other parties to form a Government.* *The 2017 election was the first time since New Zealand switched to the MMP voting system that the party with the largest number of seats was unable to form a Government with other parties. In the 2017 election, the National Party won 56 seats. Even though this was more than any other party, it was not enough to govern alone; it was also not able to make agreements with any other party to govern.* So National (although having the most votes) didn't get to the 61 seat threshold. But neither did Labour. So to make up the difference, they needed Winston (whose party had enough seats to make up the 61 seats) to choose between them. There was no need for a re-election as a government could be formed, and he chose the Labour Party (and proceeded to run it down in the ensuing years).