FPTP is fine in many small scale applications. How should a town of 5,000 people elect their mayor otherwise?
well, to be fair, shitty electoral systems should be banned, like FPTP, because they aren’t representative. what’s happening here is sadly the opposite.
Saleh@feddit.org 3 days ago
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Ranked choice is still better though… scale doesn’t really matter here, the point is to let people vote for who they want, not for who they think might win.
Saleh@feddit.org 3 days ago
On that level you often only have two, one or sometimes no candidate.
There is no need to enforce a more complicated system that needs to be explained to everyone, risks more people accidentally voting different than they wanted or invalidating their vote by misunderstanding the rules.
I have helped with elections in Germany where the parliament has two votes. One for the local candidate FPTP and one for a party, where the parties proportional rates are then assembled in the parliament. I had to explain people the votes and what they do all the time. Because the two votes are on one paper it is a mess to count, as you can’t just stack them easily because of the possible combinations.
When it gets to state and national levels having proportional systems for parliaments and ranked choice for single candidates i am all for it. But there is no point in pushing for a more complicated system for smaller elections.
Zexks@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s not anymore complicated. This is the exact argument that got it banned in my state. Because some people think we’re too stupid to count to 2. No if there are only 2 candidates you vore for one or the other and if you really want to be special you can rank them even if it won’t matter. This is not a difficult concept.
Bravo@eviltoast.org 3 days ago
or sometimes no candidate
How does FPTP help in that scenario?
risks more people accidentally voting different than they wanted
Can you describe how that might happen?
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yeah that makes sense. I guess once people get used to ranked voting in large elections, then you could have it in small elections too. Thanks for the reply.
nico198x@europe.pub 3 days ago
Approval
iglou@programming.dev 3 days ago
It still shouldn’t be banned, it should be up for debate when picking a system. Explicitely banning a system is pretty much anti-democratic by nature.
nico198x@europe.pub 3 days ago
No it is not. Agreeing on that it should be banned is a democratic choice. It is an anti-democratic system not fit for purpose in 2025. our understanding of electoral science and maths is much more advanced now. FPTP should NEVER be on the table.