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Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (5505)	6/11/2007 2:19:19 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

Its is true that the two parties have manipulated the system to their own advantage. But that really isn't the biggest reason they have an advantage. In "first past the post" elections there is a strong incentive to vote for one of the two largest parties. If on a scale of 1 to 10, you give one party a 2, one a 5, and a small party a 10, you'd like to vote for the party you give a 10, but to the extent that it has any practical effect the vote is likely to shift the outcome towards the party that you would give a 2. I consider myself both conservative and libertarian. Both the Republican and the Libertarian parties have their downsides IMO. Lets say you removed what I see as the downsides of the Libertarian party (other then their lack of enough support to win). Well then the Libertarian party would clearly be a better match to my opinions then the Republicans. But if I vote for the Libertarians they won't win, while the Republicans lose my vote. post-WW II adoption of such ideas as 'winner take all' Winner take all didn't come about since WWII, although perhaps it has become more common since then. However even if you give electoral votes from a state according to the proportion of popular votes received in that state, the point I raise above would still apply.