[EM] What's wrong with the party list system?

[Jameson Quinn]

>
>
> Political parties can be a good thing because people normally take
> shortcuts when deciding whom to vote for - by selecting the political
> party that agrees with their own ideology. Especially under the party
> list system, parties can be beneficial because smaller political
> parties that challenge the major parties have a far greater chance of
> winning seats in a large legislature, so that voters can vote for
> minor parties without wasting their votes or causing a spoiler effect,
> unlike with IRV/STV methods.
>

Under non-list systems, parties would still exist to guide the voters. But
the distinctions between coalitions, parties, and intraparty factions would
be more fluid, without the system artificially privileging one of those
levels.

Oh, and the spoiler problem in STV is many times less than under IRV; and
there are a broad array of STV-like systems which avoid it entirely.


>  So you think the open list method is worse than the nonproportional US
> system then of two-major political parties and single member districts
> or entire states?
>

You weren't asking me, but my answer is an obvious no. Still, I hope we can
do better than just "better".


>
> I definitely believe strongly that the IRV/STV methods are far far
> worse than the current US plurality system.
>

Please don't lump IRV and STV. Yes, they use the same underlying mechanisms,
but the effects are totally different. STV can, in practice, completely
eliminate the partisan spoiler problem; IRV cannot. And, as I've said above,
the core STV insight - the part that's shared by other STV systems like
Schulze-STV - is not the bottom-up elimination, but the transfer and
assignment of votes.

JQ
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