I love this development, but we need to get rid of our first past the post voting system. I’d love to move to one that doesn’t normalize to only two parties.
Fat chance though, it would have to be universally agreed upon by those in power. Right now we have a bunch of people that can’t get away from the status quo and are their own worst enemy, and another group that can’t get away from the status quo, and protects pedophiles (not an exhaustive list for either party of course)
I’d love to move to one that doesn’t normalize to only two parties
UK has first past the post and they have for example; Tories, Labour, Greens, Lib Dems and Reform all having members in parliament, along with a few Independents.
Australia has ranked choice and has ALP, LNP, a single Green and a bunch of Independents in it’s lower house (congress equivalent). The only sane party Australia has are The Greens
While I don’t disagree that ranked choice is perhaps a better system, it’s not the curative for democratic sanity some seem to think it is.
The Greens are also the only sane UK party tbf
The only way to make that happen would be for Working Families to become one of the two major parties first, in order to be in a position of power to change it.
When I read the headline my heart sank and I thought “oh no, they are going to act as spoilers and help the Republicans win” but then I read the article and it’s actually good. What they’re doing is endorsing candidates who run as Democrats or for states that allow it they can appear on the ballot as both a Democrat and as “Working Families”.
What would be really nice is to have ranked choice voting. Ranked choice is easier to understand for people because you just rank who you like most and go down the list and don’t rank people you really don’t like. Telling people you can’t vote third party because it helps the politician you like the least is kind of confusing for some people even though that’s our current system.
I’d personally rather approval or star voting, since ranked choice can create voter apathy through too many candidates (look up the voter response to portland oregons’s last election for an example). Having to pick a unique rank for everyone is kind of arbitrary imo, but honestly anything is better than what we have
Australia has ranked choice voting but to deal with the inevitable cavalcade of candidates, the process and parties are prepared and offer cheat sheets for their ideologically aligned supporters who are lazy, apathetic or conscientious but less than ideally informed. A candidate and/or their party (there are many, many minority parties) will hand out “How to vote” pamphlets which basically explains to supporters who wish to vote for them, how they recommend ranking the other parties (or candidates for Independents) in the race. In the AUS version of the House of Reps they do this per candidate (many fewer options).
For the senate race with many times more candidates, they have a split on the voting form with a line drawn between the top and bottom of the ballot. Above the line the parties are listed and below the line, each candidate from each party is listed. States all get 12 senators with half up for election each cycle. Ie in an election 6 senators per state are being chosen. There may be 10 or 12 or more columns to choose from but since only 6 senators are getting elected, in order to cast a vote one can number at least 6 parties in order of preference ABOVE the line, or BELOW the line, you may select at least 12 of the potentially dozens of candidates.
Basically it helps your average Joe Blow navigate the process if they have a general alignment with at least one of the parties, or often people find themselves ranking backwards based on the lesser of evils.
This link explains the senate ballot way better than I do. https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/your-questions-on-notice/questions/how-are-senate-below-the-line-votes-directed-what-if-none-of-a-voters-12-preferences-gets-a-quota
Working families party needs proportional representation to get more of their candidates in office.
Primary season will be interesting to see this year
Let’s goooo!
As a third party voter, I firmly support these guys.
Electoralism is not a path for socialist change. That said they may be able to improve certain aspects of our current shit show so I support them. Of course they can only improve anything electorally because of fusion voting which most states do not allow.
