this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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It's kind of why we need Ranked Choice Voting.
Alternative voting systems have in practice been proven useless, whether in South Korea, Japan, Australia, and many other capitalist dictatorship countries that use it. It might make bribery a bit more expensive, since there are more candidates to buy off, and more political advertising necessary, but it hasn't fixed anything.
The root problem is capital standing above political power. And that can't be undone using it's own platform.
How are you measuring useless?
Australia has RCV and has more than 2 active political parties.
RCV hasn't stopped right wing governments from coming to power, nor returned lands to indigenous Australians, nor done anything to reverse concentration of wealth or media ownership.
True, it's just a voting system. It can't do those things unless people vote for those things to happen.
The thing RCV does do is break us out of the control of a 2-party government. So we could have a communist party with RCV, but can't in our current system.
You can't achieve a democracy through voting, it always results in an oligarchy. The wealthy / economically dominant classes are the only ones who have enough money / prestige to finance their campaigns and win the popularity contest. It makes any political system based on elections nothing more than political theatre.
This is basic stuff even the ancient greeks knew, and communists learned through trial and error, yet liberals in the 21st century can't wrap their heads around it.
That's an interesting perspective on things and gives me something to think about.
No probs. Here's an overview of how communists view democracy.
There's never been an imperialist nation where any communist party has come to power via the ballot box. It's never happened even a single time.
RCV specifically is worse than say Ranked Robin voting, STAR voting, or score voting which all would make the least liked candidate winning less likely compared to RCV or FPTP.
Most countries stopped at RCV, but Ranked Robin or STAR would be a big upgrade.
Fixing the voting system is just one of the key things that needs to happen though. Education desperately needs reforms. Our media desperately needs reforms such as the Fairness Doctrine coming back and being expanded to all media and social media influencers/podcasters as well.
Ranked Robin voting?
Never heard of it but sounds nice. We all vote for Robin Hood and then steal from the rich.
No need to steal, they should pay out what they owe through taxes, which should be a considerably higher sum than it is currently.
This helps explain Ranked Robin better than I could, but it’s a great starting point for electing leaders from third parties and for helping to change the media landscape for winning elections.
most countries that are not the US have more than 2 political parties.
The CIA killed the Australian Prime Minister and covered it up when he went against US interests. They are a cucked vassal state, nothing they vote on matters whatsoever. They have to obey America.
i live somewhere with mandatory voting, and have looked into places with ranked choice. it doesnt do much.
the problem is capitalism and the rich's interests being paid for instead of ours. not how the ballots are made or counted.
I used to be where you were a decade ago. Studying all the voting systems and trying to think of tweaks to the electoral system to fix democracy and make it more reflective of popular will. By the way, Single Transferable Vote is much better than simple Ranked Choice systems, but that's besides the point. This is a dead end. There's no tweaks that will fix this fundamentally broken machine made to serve the rich. You have to give up on this idealism and accept that the entire thing is irredeemable and corrupt.
Democracy cannot co-exist with capitalism. Private accumulation of capital distorts the system to such an extent that the principle of equal voices is completely lost.
you could come up with the best theoretically possible electoral system and it won't change a thing since ultimately, the state in the West serves the capitalist class.
I hear people say this, but how do we get it?
The people in power will lose their power if we did, so we won’t.
It's up to the states. It already implemented in Maine and Alaska, with a majority of people in those state approving of it.
I'm still pissed off it was voted down in Oregon