Thanks Elon but we're good on billionaire and authoritarian parties. But if you want a real multi-party democracy, here are some things you should know.
https://leedrutman.substack.com/p/so-you-want-to-start-a-new-political #democracy #fusionVoting #RankedChoiceVoting #proportionalRepresentation
Why Conservatives in #Canada should care about Proportional Representation https://thehub.ca/2025/05/30/paige-saunders-and-sean-speer-the-contrarian-case-for-why-conservatives-should-embrace-electoral-reform/
Unelected Liberals: #NDP Voters! You must vote in #MarkCarney for #Canada, help us prevent a Poilievre right wing takeover!
Elected Liberals: Fuck off NDP voters! Everyone knew Mark Carney was a progressive Conservative, no take backs!
@jpaskaruk Extremists can rise in any system but #ProportionalRepresentation just means they can't seize total control unless they win a majority of the votes.
Currently Reform in the UK is on track for a FPtP majority gov with 30% of the votes.
The time to effectively secure our electoral system from fash and being hollowed out the way it has been was a couple of decades ago but never doing it will crush it.
@jpaskaruk No one *at all* is suggesting Canada adopt Israel's system of having only one riding covering the whole country.
It's not that #ProportionalRepresentation cannot elect an extremist gov, but that it does not elect an extremist *majority* government.
FPtP can elect an extremist majority gov like in the US but #ProportionalRepresentation cannot.
Israel would like a word.
This was so brilliant yesterday.
I learned so much.
Always learn from Pilon's lefty historical perspective and Coyne has been #ProportionalRepresentation 's most eloquent advocate imo for 30 years.
As our politics becomes more polarized, important to note that FPtP can elect an extremist majority gov like in the US but #ProportionalRepresentation cannot.
#cdnpoli
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t183TXmaGio
An insightful, and kind of sobering, walk-through from Fairvote's Steven Hill of the possibilities and pitfalls for advancing #RankedChoiceVoting and #ProportionalRepresentation Electoral reform is hard. But worth it if we're going to preserve and build a better #democracy
(Not crazy about the AI art though. What the hell is even going on with those raccoons and bears and... lemur?)
https://democracysos.substack.com/p/the-reform-pathway-for-pro-rep-and
This started off promising, noting the collapse in trust in the two parties and Americans' feelings that neither party represents them on the most important issues. But then disappointingly the author concludes the solution is for "either one or both traditional parties must become bigger tents that bring in more voters with more diverse views held together by a common but limited agenda that delivers for people." In other words, the parties should just embrace his preferred policy agenda, in this case centrism.
Lots of people are centrists and want to be in a centrist party. That's fine. But we already have incoherent, ineffective "big tent" parties that people can't stand. Maybe the solution to the failure of the two-party system is to break down the two-party system, and give voters choices that actually represent them.
This article is obviously UK oriented, but it's not hard to see how the two-party system in #California inevitably lets down #lgbtq #lgbtq_plus folks. What's the alternative to voting Democrat when the party's leaders throw trans kids under the bus? How can a tiny legislature with only (barely) two political parties even begin to represent the gender diversity, culture and political diversity of a nation-sized state of 40 million people? #democracy #ProportionalRepresentation #EndTheDuopoly
The united Conservative Party was supposed to win elections. By attempting to appease all types of conservative this big tent party scares away voters who do not like all types of conservatism.
Canada’s conservatives would win more elections if they offered voters a range of options and hammered out formal coalitions.
"Our politics are far, far. far less toxic in Australia...because there are other outlets."
"...Dr. Zeitz is joined by Vinay Orekondy, an Australian-born... democracy innovator… Together, they unpack the failures of winner-takes-all politics, the transformational potential of... #ProportionalRepresentation, and... civic hubs…" (at 6:06)
https://www.europesays.com/uk/141023/ The Farage phenomenon | TheArticle #Brexit #Britain #ElectoralReform #EU #Europe #European #EuropeanUnion #FarageEffect #FragmentedDemocracy. #GreatBritain #InstitutionalDecay #PoliticalDysfunction #ProportionalRepresentation #PublicDisillusionment #SystemicFailure #TribalPolitics #UK #UnitedKingdom #WorkingClassShift
This should be happening throughout #Canada. #Electoralreform is way overdue. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/elections-yukon-gearing-up-for-plebiscite-on-electoral-reform-1.7541239
#LA! Do you like #democracy ? How about #beer?
Join #ProRep Coalition at Santa Monica Brewworks on Tuesday @ 6 pm, help break up the two-party system and bring multi-party democracy to California!
tin.al/OrXzDI
#California #democracy #LosAngeles #SantaMonica #SoCal #ProportionalRepresentation
Proportional Representation in...
Are you in #LA? Do you like #democracy ? How about #beer?
Then join #ProRep Coalition at Santa Monica Brewworks on Tuesday, May 27 at 6 pm to learn about our campaign to break up the two-party system and bring multi-party democracy to California!
#California #democracy #losangeles #santamonica #ProportionalRepresentation #ElectoralReform
https://prorepcoalition.org/so/24PRghVA6?languageTag=en&cid=33236bf0-25f4-457e-a9cc-eb94ad334421
Lots of smart folks say Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) is the "best of both worlds" when it comes to election systems. Voters get to select a representative for their local area, and their partisan political preferences are reflected accurately across a larger region.
MMP is used in Germany, the Scottish Parliament, London, New Zealand, and apparently The Animal Kingdom.
And maybe California one day soon!
It’s hard not to be angry at the defenders of First Past The Post sometimes.
How wrong their theories were about the system keeping out radicals and creating strong stable government.
@chris I gave a presentation to the BC Citizens' Assembly. My main point was to argue against #ProportionalRepresentation .
The major flaw of the BC-STV system the Citizens' Assembly recommended was its complexity. I gave a presentation about it at a luncheon (before the referendum), and though the ballots were simple enough to use, the people I explained it to weren't comfortable with the way it converted votes into elected legislators.
What a shame this was. The BC Citizen's Assembly came up with a really great made-for-BC form of Proportional Representation that checked off all the boxes. It would, in fact, be a great model for a PR system in the whole of Canada.
It gave people ranked choice, it preserved and emphasized local representation, it gave opportunities to small and large parties as well as independents even within large multi-member ridings, it ensured the results were still fair and representative, and it may have even reduced the tendency toward partisanship. And it could all still easily be done with a simple paper ballot.
But the entrenched interests in the BC Liberals and NDP could not possibly give in to the will of the people… and they spent the next decade destroying the consensus for it.
https://citizensassembly.arts.ubc.ca/public/extra/stv_resources.xml2.htm
Here are their resources:
a PowerPoint/PDF: https://citizensassembly.arts.ubc.ca/resources/Weekend%20Session%20Readings/Weekend4Session2PPT.pdf
A/V presentations (in WMV format): https://citizensassembly.arts.ubc.ca/public/learning_resources/learning_materials/av.htm
And a full report and other info: https://citizensassembly.arts.ubc.ca/public/extra/deliberation_weekend4.xml.htm
It was a top-tier effort that I think the result of the referendum proved was appreciated, valued and accepted by the majority of the population across the province but which the government and political parties felt did not serve their purpose, so they shut it down.
And this is why people get so cynical.
