Weighted democracy (cumulative voting)

[Husar]

Which seems like a really stupid idea to be working towards. The man on the street does not have the time and patience to to study each and every issue to figure out the best course of action.

Maybe we should change the time the man on the street has then instead of just accepting that proper politics are only a thing of the political and monetary nobility who have the time to entertain such complicated thoughts.

[Greyblades]

Maybe we should change the time the man on the street has then instead of just accepting that proper politics are only a thing of the political and monetary nobility who have the time to entertain such complicated thoughts.

Perhaps, though when given the choice between spending time understanding politics or using that time to enjoy themselves or even working to earn more money, most would not utilize that time on politics.

What we (I speak mostly of the UK) have isnt perfect but it is fairly functional; we have a political class that anyone can immigrate to that is able to dedicate their time and effort dealing with the things necessary for society to function that most people dont want to think about and when they screw up or does something the rest of society does not want done they can be removed without bloodshed.

[Greyblades]

I missed this first time around.

This topic is about splitting the vote, which is something you do when you do not have a favourite. It's about being able to vote according to my own preferences without having to implicitly endorse the entire package that any political party comes up with (but it would still perfectly possible to not split one's vote).

No. It is something that you want to do when you want to vote for someone but also want to have your vote shifted to someone else in case the first guy doesnt win, which will inevitably be used to direct votes to "anyone but that guy".

It's useful I suppose as it increases third party chances, though not by much and each election will boil down to everyone rallying to which of the 2 biggest parties annoys them the least, which is basically what happens anyway, but they dont have to feel guilty about not voting for the little parties.

The proponants of cumulative voting are typically those that believe that the third party votes, that first past the post essentially wastes, would have let their party win instead of the opposition in the last election, they are usually silent 4-5 years later if they win.

[Viking]

Which seems like a really stupid idea to be working towards. The man on the street does not have the time and patience to to study each and every issue to figure out the best course of action.

That's not the goal, the goal is being able to split the vote. Politicians will still make the individual decisions, except where they arrange referendums (like usual).

I missed this first time around.
No. It is something that you want to do when you want to vote for someone but also want to have your vote shifted to someone else in case the first guy doesnt win, which will inevitably be used to direct votes to "anyone but that guy".

It's useful I suppose as it increases third party chances, though not by much and each election will boil down to everyone rallying to which of the 2 biggest parties annoys them the least, which is basically what happens anyway, but they dont have to feel guilty about not voting for the little parties.

The proponants of cumulative voting are typically those that believe that the third party votes, that first past the post essentially wastes, would have let their party win instead of the opposition in the last election, they are usually silent 4-5 years later if they win.

This sounds like a heavily US/UK-centric analysis. In the Norwegian parliament, there are usually between 7-8 political parties represented, seven of them are pretty much regulars; even if some of them are close to the thresholds for representation.

Neither of the two political parties I could consider splitting my vote between are likely to drop out of the next parliament (quite the opposite, in fact; one is part of the current government, one was part of the previous government), I just don't want to exclusively vote for either of the two.

But someone's motivation is irrelevant for the inferiority or superiority of voting systems, anyway. That's just a distraction.

[Greyblades]

This sounds like a heavily US/UK-centric analysis. In the Norwegian parliament, there are usually between 7-8 political parties represented, seven of them are pretty much regulars; even if some of them are close to the thresholds for representation.

Neither of the two political parties I could consider splitting my vote between are likely to drop out of the next parliament (quite the opposite, in fact; one is part of the current government, one was part of the previous government), I just don't want to exclusively vote for either of the two.

I admit it is a UK/US centric view, but my understanding is that cumulative voting is intended to break a two part system; if your nation's parties are fractured what's the point?

But someone's motivation is irrelevant for the inferiority or superiority of voting systems, anyway. That's just a distraction.

A distraction from a distraction, Disception!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

...Distraption! Distracption? Man the inception joke really doesnt work with the word distraction.

[Papewaio]

In Australia both compulsory voting & Preferential voting are used at all three levels of government.

Preferential voting has proven such a thorn in the side to the current incumbent Coalition that they are attempting to change the senate voting system so it benefits the large parties. Once that new law gets past they will call a snap election / dissolve parliament in a double dissolution and avoid any mention of publishing a budget.

[Viking]

It will make the counting of votes too complicated. And it would be difficult to explain the system (and its expediency) to an average citizen and even more difficult to assure him there were no voting frauds if this system gets implemented.

Assigning 100 points just as you like among the different parties seems easy enough to me. Might want to have a calculator ready in the polling booth, though. An increase in invalid votes may be possible (although votes could be normalised if the sum of votes exceeds 100%).

As for the counting, using digital polling would obviously be beneficial; but I doubt it would be necessary. Certainly not so if you only have 5-10 points to assign.

Don't see how it relates to voting fraud.

I admit it is a UK/US centric view, but my understanding is that cumulative voting is intended to break a two part system

Single transferable vote/Instant-runoff voting should be more effective for this purpose. Yet, it should be possible to combine such systems with cumulative voting; e.g. like I did in post #3.

if your nation's parties are fractured what's the point?

Even if I got 100 different political parties to chose from, I might still want to split my vote. Maybe 98 of them have small variations of far-right and far-left ideology as their platforms, and the two remaining ones both have ideas I absolutely do not agree with, even if they are infinitely much better than the other 98 parties.

If a large fraction of the votes for political party A is split between it and political party B, this could send a signal to party A that it might want to change some of its policies, or that some of its politicians could splinter off and form a new political party that would cater to this specific part of the electorate that evidently already exists.

Another example is that if a large fraction of the voters of party A temporarily feel like voting for party B (because something big suddenly changed), but really disagree with party B on one part of their platform, they might be able to also vote for a third party that also strongly disagrees with party B at this point, but do not have much of an opinion on the matter that made voters consider party B over party A in the first place.

That way, you might be able to get the important policy change through without completely sacrificing another issue that is important to you.

[a completely inoffensive name]

You can't improve democracy through math.

Preferential voting increases the influence of extremists on both sides as their candidates shore up the construction of coalitions or provide the additional # of votes needed for large parties to achieve a decisive victory.

Coalition governments only bring about increased resentment towards governments as separate interests grow more disillusioned with their policy achievements (either too moderate or too extreme). Two parties allow for a clear mandate "this is the direction we go in, if you don't like it, vote for the other team".