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Comment by temporarely | Hacker News Reader

I have a "radical" idea: why not actually let the constituency of this party make the choice.

Or actually radical: switch from our terrible first-past-the-post voting system to - say - ranked choice (or one of many alternatives; they're almost all better than fptp) and then primaries won't be so important and parties won't have so much power over our kinda-democratic-but-actually-oligarchic political system.

California state primaries are top-2, not FPTP turning the general election into essentially a run-off. Parties still dominate. Same with my city elections which use RCV.

I’m not sure why they would reduce party influence either. Features like being robust against spoilers would seem to most benefit major party candidates.

Top-2 is a primary system, not a voting system. When combined with (essentially a generalized version of) FPTP you get most of the same problems.

It's a two-round voting system. It is, by definition, not FPTP.

There only functional difference between it and say, the original French two-round system that Maurice Duverger (of Duverger's law) contrasted with FPTP is that someone who wins an outright majority in the first election (an open "primary" in California) is not immediately elected.

The fact the second round is FPTP doesn't change the overall voting system. With only two candidates for a single seat, most voting systems degenerate to FPTP, but none of the issues related to FPTP are present either (there are no clones, no strategic voting, etc.)

By more-or-less eliminating spoiler effect RCV actually benefits major and minor party candidates (and of course, voters!).

For majors the benefit is clear: you don't get spoiled.

For minors, you don't have to overcome the barrier of being a spoiler if the race looks remotely close.

And of course voters are not disadvantaged just for having two acceptable choices rather than one.

It would be kinda funny to keep the electoral college but change the ballots to ranked choice.

There's no reason this couldn't happen. States have great latitude to determine their own election laws, including how they allocate electoral votes or elect federal offices. Nebraska and Maine can split their electoral votes. Georgia requries 50% + 1 for US Senate and Governor instead of a plurality, and will have a runoff election if no candidate gets a majority in the general election. Ranked choice would just be another method. The problem is that the two ruling parties have very little incentive to introduce this.

because we cant do that in the next 4 months as it would require a overwhelming enough demand from the electorate that a super majority of representatives in the house and senate along with the president would have to pass a constitutional amendment that is otherwise considered against their own interests, then it would need to be ratified by the states and pass through the inevitable challenges in the supreme court that seem dead set against anything resembleling democracy this year.

This sometimes turns out very badly - in the UK it led to "faster than a lettuce goes bad" Liz Truss for example. Conservative party members are an odd bunch.

Labour also picked Jeremy Corbyn an election back. Ultimately the rest of the country didn't want to vote for him.

Two party systems are the problem here, not the candidates

Notably Corbyn actually got more votes than Starmer in both elections he ran - the change is more to do with the right vote being split between the conservatives and reform, the conservatives losing the centrist vote after the clown show of the last 5 years, and a unofficial pact between Labour/LibDems prevented splitting the centrist/left vote the same way the right vote was split.

the fact that they were able to make that pact is probably because they're not miles apart and Corbyn couldn't get that to happen. e.g. I don't think I could ever have voted for him given his attitude on Ukraine but I could have voted for Starmer if that was what made sense in my area.

Sure, but people like you weren't sufficient to change the fact that Corbyn still got more votes.

The libdems of 2024 have a very different situation in that despite the Tory implosion they are weaker than ever. I'd put my money on them either still making the deal or getting buried if Labour had even more votes.

I think you could posit the opposite - that he lost because he motivated more people to vote against him.

Labour now hasn't united its opposition because I think nobody fears it much.

That's just not true, though. Starmer has only increased Labour's vote share by 1.7%. He didn't significantly outweigh the loss in votes by demotivating opponent vote. Tory voters were more likely to vote for Reform or the Lib Dems than stay home.

Labour's opposition not being united is probably more attribuable to the Conservative party itself not being united. The amount of voters leaving the Tories to go to the Lib Dems and Reform has steadily been increasing.

Besides, a significant part of motivating people to vote against Corbyn came from Starmer's wing of the party itself.

Labour's share of the vote hardly changed from 2024 to 2019; fewer people voted Labour in absolute numbers.

Labour's electoral prospects improved because of the implosion of the Tories, not anything they did.

It's too late to organize that for this election.

It's barely been a few hours yet I've seen this idea making the rounds. Seems manufactured.

I find that rather offensive. Implication that what, moi can't think for myself or am a sock puppet?

> "Speak ill of no man"

Aha.

The events leading up to it are far older than a few hours, giving people plenty of time to run different scenarios in their minds.

It's a common system in other countries, though.

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