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Comment by craftyguy | Hacker News Reader

> you still end up with a two party system

Can you explain why you think that is the case?

In Australia (which has 2 chambers - 1 under this system and the other proportional):

It is very difficult for a 3rd voice to gain traction. A party which has attracted over 10% nationwide for the past 2 decades, Greens, has exactly 1 seat out of 150 under this system.

We've had this method of voting for a century but voters generally see it as a binary choice - Roughly 35-40% will vote for A and 35-40% will vote for B. Typically there will be up to 5-10 candidates on the ballot paper. So that 20-30% of the "neither of major 2" could be split 8 ways across a wide political spectrum. Inevitably, most outcomes fall back to the 2 majors.

This is a feature, not a bug. In a Westminster system the government is formed on the floor of the House of Representatives by being able to pass motions of confidence and supply. Australia provides an unusually generous opening for minor parties through the Senate, which is a proportional system.

Your statistic about the Greens, in particular, is true only for the House. The Greens hold 9 Senate seats out of 76, or approximately 11% of the Senate. Given that their national Senate vote was 8.7%, I think this is a pretty reasonable outcome.

Well, if San Francisco's IRV races are to be used as an example, you end up with a one-party system. But more seriously, I think "clone-proof" electoral systems tend to better allow for more than two parties, or at least more than two candidates at a time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_clones_criteri...

When I look at the UK for instance, which has real variety of parties, you see a parliamentary system with first-past-the-post voting.

That doesn't explain why the instant runoff system will result in a two party system..

Places with IRV generally still have two major parties, even if weaker, like I said in the original comment. I'm just saying that how this normally plays out is you still end up with 2 major parties (though weaker).

> which has real variety of parties

We really don't, historically (for the last century or so) it's been pretty cut and dry between either Labour or Conservatives with the occasional coalition (always involving one of those two parties).

Hm, I must be mistaken then. Thanks!

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