SpankyMcFarland Posted February 21, 2019 Report Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) Sorry, I meant that in DRC and the US the presidential election is a one-off event with multiple candidates, unlike France and many other countries which have a two-round system. In general, this means that if no candidate gets a majority of votes in the first round then there is a run-off election between the two candidates with the highest number of votes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system Thus marginal candidates are out of the running in the second round and can’t split the vote. I suspect we will see more of these third, fourth and n’th party candidates in the US. The other problem stateside is the Electoral College with its basis in a (generally) winner-take-all, state-by-state system rather than a simple, national vote. Republican candidates are tending to get a smaller proportion of the popular vote over time so the only way they can win is by getting all the Electoral College votes in a sufficient number of smaller states to overcome that disadvantage. It also means that candidates ignore states where the outcome is already decided like California and concentrate on the ‘battleground’ states. Edited February 21, 2019 by SpankyMcFarland Quote
JamesHackerMP Posted February 21, 2019 Author Report Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) 4 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said: Sorry, I meant that in DRC and the US the presidential election is a one-off event with multiple candidates, unlike France and many other countries which have a two-round system. In general, this means that if no candidate gets a majority of votes in the first round then there is a run-off election between the two candidates with the highest number of votes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system Thus marginal candidates are out of the running in the second round and can’t split the vote. I suspect we will see more of these third, fourth and n’th party candidates in the US. The other problem stateside is the Electoral College with its basis in a (generally) winner-take-all, state-by-state system rather than a simple, national vote. Republican candidates are tending to get a smaller proportion of the popular vote over time so the only way they can win is by getting all the Electoral College votes in a sufficient number of smaller states to overcome that disadvantage. It also means that candidates ignore states where the outcome is already decided like California and concentrate on the ‘battleground’ states. Well, that's the danger of being a "predictable" voter, or someone who is loyal to one party: your vote is "expected" and the party or candidate in question doesn't have to work for your vote, since you've just given it away readily. Notice that battleground states are the ones that can go either way. Ohio for example, which is the mother of all battleground states, has a large percentage of moderate unaffiliated voters. Maybe if people stopped treating federal politics like baseball (rooting for the "home team" and only caring that they win) they would have more power over politicians, however many parties there were/are. Edited February 21, 2019 by JamesHackerMP Quote "We're not above nature, Mr Hacker, we're part of it. Men are animals, too!" "I know that, I've just come from the House of Commons!" [Yes, Minister]
-TSS- Posted March 21, 2019 Report Posted March 21, 2019 Has any state yet passed the proposed law that its electoral college-votes would go to the winner of the nationwide popular vote irrespective of the result on the state in question? Quote
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