And then you look at democracies with more pluralistic forms of voting and Green parties actually have decent representation. Here in Australia they teeter between being the third and fourth largest party (depending on the jurisdiction) and have been in governing coalitions a good number of times. Mandatory voting + ranked choice voting + proportional representative voting really changes things.
It’s a real privilege to know that your vote can never be cast away, wasted or exhausted. I’ve literally never voted for the two biggest parties as my #1 choice, but my vote usually ends up with whomever I preference higher. In Australia we also give a candidate/party election funding based only on #1 votes, if they reach a certain quota, so even when my vote ends up with Labor (our major centre-left/centrist party) I’m actively contributing to the election coffers of a smaller party or independent and sending a message to the major parties.
Scotland’s greens, even when not managing to get into coalition government, hold the other parties to higher standards, managing to affect good change, punching above their weight.
You must be talking about the American FPTP voting system, right? Yeah, they have some serious problems with that, now don’t they.
And then you look at democracies with more pluralistic forms of voting and Green parties actually have decent representation. Here in Australia they teeter between being the third and fourth largest party (depending on the jurisdiction) and have been in governing coalitions a good number of times. Mandatory voting + ranked choice voting + proportional representative voting really changes things.
I’ve heard good things about ranked voting. I really think that feature alone would improve many elections.
It’s a real privilege to know that your vote can never be cast away, wasted or exhausted. I’ve literally never voted for the two biggest parties as my #1 choice, but my vote usually ends up with whomever I preference higher. In Australia we also give a candidate/party election funding based only on #1 votes, if they reach a certain quota, so even when my vote ends up with Labor (our major centre-left/centrist party) I’m actively contributing to the election coffers of a smaller party or independent and sending a message to the major parties.
Oh, that’s a pretty cool system. Every vote really matters.
Yup.
Scotland’s greens, even when not managing to get into coalition government, hold the other parties to higher standards, managing to affect good change, punching above their weight.