[EM] Re Raph Frank wrt 3-seat LR Hare and RV for US Senators by proxy.

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi,
 

 
De : David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com>
>À : Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com>; EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com> 
>Envoyé le : Mardi 7 février 2012 13h20
>Objet : Re: [EM] Re Raph Frank wrt 3-seat LR Hare and RV for US Senators by proxy.
>
dlw: I argue that the strength of the US presidency and regular presidential elections has the effect of building up our two-party system.  
>
>This is why I take as a given that there tend to be 2 bigger major parties and not as many serious candidates in "single-winner elections".  This in turn tends to 
>reduce the import of the diffs among the wide variety of single-winner elections.  

I think it works like this:
President isn't responsible to or chosen by Congress ->
There is not that much prize for having a majority of a house ->
Weak party discipline (because of less focus on party: a candidate can get reelected even if his peers are unhappy) ->
If you are a viable candidate, there is no need for you to carve out a new party. There is only room for two contenders per
race (under FPP), and there are two parties that will take you as long as you can win for them.

I think we could have three "parties" (if not a much greater variety of viewpoints) with the right method. I wouldn't care
if they are actually parties or just a higher number of real choices, on average, in a race.

Kevin
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20120207/91a83167/attachment-0004.htm>