Is there something I’m missing? They won because they got the most votes between three parties(but not a majority) and then the most again during the second round of voting between the top two. They won both times.
Ideologies aside your comment is written like you suspect foul play or something. “It’s broken because they could never win if there was competition” is just a terrible take so I assume I must be interpretting it wrong, right?
The new guy won despite winning <5% of votes in the last election. If people vote for the candidate they like instead of trying to game the system by calculating who they’d rather not win the most, then maybe we can kick out corrupt incumbents and get in fresh faces (they’ll get corrupted over time too, at which point you rinse and repeat).
By the sound of things it’s more like nobody wanted anything to do with the major-party incumbent. Duverger’s law is about how there tend to be two parties. Three and one are equally unstable. When a race becomes a total rout, like a 30-point spread, that dominance can be seen as a power vacuum.
… also, Sri Lanka has ranked ballots. It’s not a Plurality voting system. They have an automatic runoff. That’s one of the more obvious fixes that allows people to even consider supporting a third party, without playing Russian roulette against their own foot.
Duverger’s law is about how there tend to be two parties.
Emphasis on the ‘tends’. It’s a probabilistic observation, not a law of nature. Treating it as the latter leads to people acting against their best interests.
Sri Lanka has ranked ballots. It’s not a Plurality voting system.
You are right, in theory, but please check how many additional votes the winner (or the runner-up) got as second-prefrence votes. It was around 2% of their totals. This is because in practice, most voyers didn’t bother putting second and third preferences.
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 their 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.
This is a very very late reply to your comment. But this party isn’t really a Marxist party, they used to be called JVP but they renamed themselves as “NPP” and rebranded themselves as a center left party hired a banger marketing team. And their leader has been very vocal for the longest time about the corruption in the government. But they never won cuz their party had a big black mark cuz of their past (JVP uprising) and no one really wanted to risk it voting for a party that has never ruled before. The two major parties that always used to grab the highest votes didn’t win this time cuz people were tired of their leaders, every term the ball gets passed from one side to the other and that’s it at the end of the day they’re all same they’re all buddies, it’s just all show in front of the cameras but thet done and wine behind closed doors. Both parties have been taking turns robbing the country. So naturally this time because of all the talk on social media people wanted a third alternative and this so called Marxist party was their answer. During their campaigns all they said was we know you’re fed up with the the rest, give us a chance we’ll do things differently and we’ll do it right that’s all. In a way this party winning is a people’s experiment. Cuz everyone collectively was like “we’re fed up of these two other parties, this third guy has been very vocal and open about all the corruption mismanagement so let’s see what he can do different to the other two, if he too starts stealing we chased one guy out we can chase him out too” and that’s basically how they achieved a landslide victory. And tbh so far the ship has been smooth sailing. But time will tell.
Oh yea for sure, that I’m behind 100%. “Strategic voting” is just silencing your one chance to have a real voice based on whoever’s PR team is doing better.
I just read it as supporting third parties. I thought you were going to mention what happens if a third party were to get more votes but not a majority. I actually don’t know. Would there still be a runoff between Dem and Rep or would the third party actually win it? I’d assume theres some rule that the third party has to win a majority or some bs
Is there something I’m missing? They won because they got the most votes between three parties(but not a majority) and then the most again during the second round of voting between the top two. They won both times.
Ideologies aside your comment is written like you suspect foul play or something. “It’s broken because they could never win if there was competition” is just a terrible take so I assume I must be interpretting it wrong, right?
The new guy won despite winning <5% of votes in the last election. If people vote for the candidate they like instead of trying to game the system by calculating who they’d rather not win the most, then maybe we can kick out corrupt incumbents and get in fresh faces (they’ll get corrupted over time too, at which point you rinse and repeat).
Didn’t that happen in France in 2017? A party got founded and won.
That happens sometimes even in first-past-the-post systems.
By the sound of things it’s more like nobody wanted anything to do with the major-party incumbent. Duverger’s law is about how there tend to be two parties. Three and one are equally unstable. When a race becomes a total rout, like a 30-point spread, that dominance can be seen as a power vacuum.
… also, Sri Lanka has ranked ballots. It’s not a Plurality voting system. They have an automatic runoff. That’s one of the more obvious fixes that allows people to even consider supporting a third party, without playing Russian roulette against their own foot.
Emphasis on the ‘tends’. It’s a probabilistic observation, not a law of nature. Treating it as the latter leads to people acting against their best interests.
You are right, in theory, but please check how many additional votes the winner (or the runner-up) got as second-prefrence votes. It was around 2% of their totals. This is because in practice, most voyers didn’t bother putting second and third preferences.
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 their 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.
This is a very very late reply to your comment. But this party isn’t really a Marxist party, they used to be called JVP but they renamed themselves as “NPP” and rebranded themselves as a center left party hired a banger marketing team. And their leader has been very vocal for the longest time about the corruption in the government. But they never won cuz their party had a big black mark cuz of their past (JVP uprising) and no one really wanted to risk it voting for a party that has never ruled before. The two major parties that always used to grab the highest votes didn’t win this time cuz people were tired of their leaders, every term the ball gets passed from one side to the other and that’s it at the end of the day they’re all same they’re all buddies, it’s just all show in front of the cameras but thet done and wine behind closed doors. Both parties have been taking turns robbing the country. So naturally this time because of all the talk on social media people wanted a third alternative and this so called Marxist party was their answer. During their campaigns all they said was we know you’re fed up with the the rest, give us a chance we’ll do things differently and we’ll do it right that’s all. In a way this party winning is a people’s experiment. Cuz everyone collectively was like “we’re fed up of these two other parties, this third guy has been very vocal and open about all the corruption mismanagement so let’s see what he can do different to the other two, if he too starts stealing we chased one guy out we can chase him out too” and that’s basically how they achieved a landslide victory. And tbh so far the ship has been smooth sailing. But time will tell.
Oh yea for sure, that I’m behind 100%. “Strategic voting” is just silencing your one chance to have a real voice based on whoever’s PR team is doing better.
I just read it as supporting third parties. I thought you were going to mention what happens if a third party were to get more votes but not a majority. I actually don’t know. Would there still be a runoff between Dem and Rep or would the third party actually win it? I’d assume theres some rule that the third party has to win a majority or some bs
I’m a Marxist-Leninist, it’s a good thing.