OT: Voting results in NH

[pardsbane at offthehill.org (Joshua Pollak)]

On Jan 29, 2004, at 11:43 AM, Zack Cerza wrote:

>> Would this change things?
>
> No. But scrapping the party system altogether would change things. 
> Maybe then
> people would actually know what each candidate stood for. Notice how 
> on the

I think the solution is not to scrap the party system, but to rearrange 
our electoral system so that it better supports multiple parties. Our 
electoral system (all or nothing, the candidate wins the state or not) 
encourages a bi-polar system with two parties fighting to get everyones 
vote. This keeps everything nice and simple, but it alienates the 
people who don't agree with either party and forces the parties to be 
as broad and as inclusive as possible, which weakens their positions.

A parliamentary system, (or perhaps something in between), would allow 
'partial credit', allowing smaller parties a better foot hold in 
congress, which would allow more diversity of opinion. People wouldn't 
feel alienated, because their party would have more power, and the 
political opinion spectrum in congress would better reflect the 
diversity in the nation.

-- 
Bush/Cheney '04:
Thanks for not paying attention.