Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

Australia implements a form of proportional representation where the votes of losing candidates in an election can be directed to other candidates who remain viable, so as to ensure they are not wasted even though they are no longer optimized. Candidates encourage their supporters to vote themselves #1, and give their second-preference votes to someone else, though voters are free to disregard this. In such a system, by voting for every candidate in order you can also make sure that your least favorite candidate is disadvantaged, essentially an explicit vote for 'anyone but X'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

'white-anted' refers to erosion from within, as by termites.

As for the particular events of the story, I am somewhat surprised (eg by the idea of giving preference to right-wing candidates), but also not. Assange's comment that Wikileaks is a party of accountability and not government sounds to me like a desire for power (as a kingmaker) without responsibility. The coalition structures that often emerge in proportional representation systems lend themselves to this sort of politicking.

Politicking? I would see that as a good thing, and part of a healthy negotiation about issues, eg. transparency in government, the environment or civil rights.

Compare that to the first-past-the-post systems of the UK and US, where there are essentially no minor parties with any hope of having a say.

> first-past-the-post systems of the UK and US

Also known as the 'choose between two dictators every couple of years' style of democracy.

All mature democracies, regardless of the voting system, exhibit similar characteristics. The proportional representation systems prevalent in most of continental Europe don't return significantly different results from the FPTP systems in the US and UK.

Having witnessed a party going from nothing [1] to becoming part of the coalition and the biggest party in the polls [2] in under a decade I'd beg to differ.

That's not even taking into account the influence tiny parties can have merely by virtue of having a seat at the table and engaging in the discussions.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_Freedom [2] http://www.powned.tv/nieuws/politiek/2013/08/peiling_coaliti...

The "Tea Party" movement did much the same thing inside the context of the Republican party in the US in roughly the same timeframe.

Obviously, the mechanics are different (and, IMO, more colourful) in a multi-party system, but at the end of the day, Wilders can only decide to support Rutte as PM or, after applying the full might of his party, not supporting Rutte, who, never the less, remains PM.

They are probably an important factor in shaping public debate, and thus, shaping general policy, but you don't need to be a member of parliament to do that and plenty of non-MPs in FPTP and PR systems alike do just that.

But from what I know democracy had no hand in the rise of the Tea Party, apart from the Tea Party consisting of the dêmos.

In general, simplifying the situation, PR-systems simply give the population more degrees of freedom in steering the government.

Even though it's still just a handful of options over a single binary choice I'd argue that this difference is not inconsequential.

My usual argument against FPTP is that it's much harder for the population to challenge the two dominant parties in case they choose to collude (or more precisely: impossible to challenge the degree to which they collude) which seems to be the failure mode the US democracy is currently experiencing.

If it was possible to flat out buy 10% of the US congress with no involvement from the actual democratic process, it would be done more often. The Tea Party might be less grassroots than it lets on, but let's not get carried away. Millions of voters cast votes for tea party candidates in multiple elections, and democracy starts and ends with that fact. The best argument against democracy is five minutes with the average voter, yet it's what we have.

But instead of arguing over the Tea Party: How has Wilders caused the dominant parties in the Netherlands to collude less than the ruling parties in the US and the UK?

Basically, my thesis is that parties are mostly irrelevant. If there are important wishes in the population at large (ie. showing up significantly in polls), those will mostly be accommodated, not because of ideology, but because of self-preservation. For the 99% of stuff that we don't hear and care about in our day-to-day lives, the bureaucracy is in charge in all important aspects, and the iron law of bureaucracy[1] applies supreme.

It is a dangerous distraction that changing the voting system actually changes anything that matters.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bur...

Thanks for the information; so if I understand correctly US democracy mostly comes from which officials inside each party you vote on?

As for Wilders, you could say that the dominant parties were all colluding on treating low-wage earning immigrants the same as low-wage earning Dutchmen. As painful as it is, Wilders did result in changing that.

As for the dangerous distraction, that could well be true.

What happens instead of minor parties is that you get intra-party factions, which the party leader must then try to string into a coalition. So it's not completely as bad as it sounds, even in the U.S.

I come from a country with a similar system (Ireland). The mechanism isn't inherently any more or less transparent, it just makes the political calculus and incentives different. Tactical considerations are seen as necessary compromises by some, selling out by others.

I like IRV in that it gives voters a greater say over who finally gets elected (though it can often lead to the surprise selection of the least unpopular candidate, to the consternation of the electorate - see Oakland, CA) but I am no convinced it makes politics and governance better automatically.

The preferencing of Family First and Hunters and Shooters was a (very, very big) balls up [1] and sadly, will likely lead to an implosion of the political party.

[1] http://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/the-wikileaks-party-announc...

I was intrigued to find that the link required me to fill out a CAPTCHA to prove that "I'm a human". I wonder what the reason is that programs are disadvantaged from reading the site.

The Australian senate is elected by a different and more complex system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation

Instant run-off is used for the house of representatives.

Well, I'm not surprised at all (nor should any liberals be who understand Assange's expressed political views), though I agree with your diagnosis of reaching for the throne.

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