People acting in their best interests is how it happens. It’s an electorate avoiding splits. Given the system you’re voting under - you should vote for someone who has a chance of winning. Otherwise you might write-in some special favorite candidate that no other human being cares about, and accomplish literally nothing. Voting for a third party with single-digit support is not much better.
People voting against their own interests would be… not bothering to write in a second preference. It is the same fuckup: someone who cannot imagine their very favorite guy losing.
Dude had 3% support despite everyone being able to toss him a vote just-in-case. Anyone who voted for only him, “last election,” was a fool. That negligible support is not what made him a viable candidate in the separate election they “just did.”
No kidding your choices depend on how other people vote, that’s what democracy is. If you can’t rally a shitload of people behind your guy… you lose. That part is not the failure of Plurality. Plurality blows because two similar groups can be wildly popular and still get destroyed by a minority of schmucks.
The winner of this election was not decided by everyone seeing through The Matrix or whatever and deciding to defeat a broken electoral system. It sounds like 95% of them are functionally unaware of which electoral system they have.
Anyone who voted for only him, “last election,” was a fool.
Or they were the people who made this year’s result possible.
If you can’t rally a shitload of people behind your guy… you lose.
Yes, but you show that so-and-so’s platform has x amount of support, putting them in a better position next time around.
The winner of this election was not decided by everyone seeing through The Matrix or whatever and deciding to defeat a broken electoral system. It sounds like 95% of them are functionally unaware of which electoral system they have.
It’s incredible how one can see some piece of evidence that contradicts their pet theory with their own eyes and say, no, the reality is wrong and my theory is right. I mean, it makes sense sometimes - the discovery of Neptune is a famous example - but in general, it is better to adjust theory to fit the facts, rather than the other way around.
If most voters keep picking one guy, these three parties will become two parties, or the two more-similar parties are fucked. That is what Duverger’s law is about. It doesn’t mean third parties can never win - it means a three-party system cannot last.
If Sri Lankan voters remember how they own goddamn electoral system works, they can have a four-party system, no problem. But as you point out, they’re acting like they have America’s elections, where this schmuck who got 17% is now a massive liability to the runner-up who got 33%. If those two presumably-liberal blocs got together, they could handily oppose the leftist bloc. But if they’re competing for the same exclusive votes then they’ll both become irrelevant.
Sri Lanka already fixed the thing that breaks Plurality. Their voters just aren’t using it, for some goddamn reason.
Or they were the people who made this year’s result possible.
Objectively not. Every single person who wanted him, last time, could have listed him… also. They sure didn’t. His support was three percent. That’s not a viable path to power, that’s a punchline.
He’s done stuff since then. Right? Campaigned, presumably? Been in the news? Built up the expectation that a meaningful number of people would prefer him over other major candidates? That is what made this result possible. Losing a prior election is not a prerequisite.
People acting in their best interests is how it happens. It’s an electorate avoiding splits. Given the system you’re voting under - you should vote for someone who has a chance of winning. Otherwise you might write-in some special favorite candidate that no other human being cares about, and accomplish literally nothing. Voting for a third party with single-digit support is not much better.
People voting against their own interests would be… not bothering to write in a second preference. It is the same fuckup: someone who cannot imagine their very favorite guy losing.
The problem is that who ‘has a chance of winning’ is decided by who people vote for.
Uh, that’s what the Sri Lankan voters just did? The winner this time had 3% of the vote-share in the last election.
Dude had 3% support despite everyone being able to toss him a vote just-in-case. Anyone who voted for only him, “last election,” was a fool. That negligible support is not what made him a viable candidate in the separate election they “just did.”
No kidding your choices depend on how other people vote, that’s what democracy is. If you can’t rally a shitload of people behind your guy… you lose. That part is not the failure of Plurality. Plurality blows because two similar groups can be wildly popular and still get destroyed by a minority of schmucks.
The winner of this election was not decided by everyone seeing through The Matrix or whatever and deciding to defeat a broken electoral system. It sounds like 95% of them are functionally unaware of which electoral system they have.
Or they were the people who made this year’s result possible.
Yes, but you show that so-and-so’s platform has x amount of support, putting them in a better position next time around.
It’s incredible how one can see some piece of evidence that contradicts their pet theory with their own eyes and say, no, the reality is wrong and my theory is right. I mean, it makes sense sometimes - the discovery of Neptune is a famous example - but in general, it is better to adjust theory to fit the facts, rather than the other way around.
If most voters keep picking one guy, these three parties will become two parties, or the two more-similar parties are fucked. That is what Duverger’s law is about. It doesn’t mean third parties can never win - it means a three-party system cannot last.
If Sri Lankan voters remember how they own goddamn electoral system works, they can have a four-party system, no problem. But as you point out, they’re acting like they have America’s elections, where this schmuck who got 17% is now a massive liability to the runner-up who got 33%. If those two presumably-liberal blocs got together, they could handily oppose the leftist bloc. But if they’re competing for the same exclusive votes then they’ll both become irrelevant.
Sri Lanka already fixed the thing that breaks Plurality. Their voters just aren’t using it, for some goddamn reason.
Objectively not. Every single person who wanted him, last time, could have listed him… also. They sure didn’t. His support was three percent. That’s not a viable path to power, that’s a punchline.
He’s done stuff since then. Right? Campaigned, presumably? Been in the news? Built up the expectation that a meaningful number of people would prefer him over other major candidates? That is what made this result possible. Losing a prior election is not a prerequisite.