zlacker

The problem was that electoral system in the US takes no steps to mitigate the issue. Without a preferential voting system of any kind, there's no possible way to have anything other then 2 viable parties, and an attempt to create a third rewards whichever side has a more entrenched voting block.

It also robs the US of a signalling mechanism: there's no way for the Republicans or Democrats to see that they didn't get primary vote share and only recovered it after specific-issue or more focused parties dropped out.

The US desperately needs preferential voting and mandatory voting. The default supposition of the US has to be that there must be exceptional circumstances as to why any individual did not vote.

>>XorNot+(OP)
Australia has both preferential and mandatory voting, and the end result isn't much better.

It's still a two-party system, but then there are also single-issue or hardline minor parties who often have the ability to hold the government hostage on their demands.

>>tooman+Q1
The Australian senate which use proportional representation rather than two-party preferred preferential has a more reasonable spread imho.

>>tooman+Q1
I'm Australian. It's definitely not perfect, but our politics has managed to stay moderate in a way the US has not.

I shudder to think what we'd look like if disenfranchising voters were a more viable strategy.

>>tooman+Q1
Yes, it's a two-party system, but because voting is mandatory, it means that the overwhelming majority of people (who are largely centrist with differing flavours), electorally punish politicians that stray too far from the political centre. At the same time, the "loony fringes" have much less relative voting power compared to the overwhelming majority. Remember, in voluntary voting regimes, its the loonies that are most invested in getting out the vote, whereas a majority of reasonably centrist people are more likely to think, "Why bother? My vote won't change anything". If any Australian politician or party promotes voluntary voting BEWARE!

>>XorNot+(OP)
> The US desperately needs preferential voting and mandatory voting.

The problem is not that people don't want to vote, it is that people can't vote: voter suppression (e.g. voter roll manipulation, ID requirements abused to specifically target PoC) or people working two/more jobs combined with the fact the US unlike almost all other countries do not vote on a Sunday or have it a national holiday are quite powerful.

To add to that mix, mail-in voting is not accessible by default for everyone, and extreme gerrymandering (local/state elections) and the "electoral college" system (presidential elections) make it effectively moot to vote in states that are either hard blue or hard red.