to a certain position. For example, a socialist could more easily get
voted into office since their constituents would no longer be afraid of
voting third-party, since their vote would transfer should their
candidate of choice perform poorly.
The popularization of nuanced third parties would create
candidates that are not fearful of losing the support of their
constituency, since their constituency would be far more particular
than that of the current Republican and Democrat parties in the US.
They would not have to placate vast swathes of people who really
have rather different political views, yet all fall under the same party
affiliations, creating possibilities for real progress. However, the
segmentation of the two large political parties could have adverse
effects on action potential, as the more political views represented",
the more views will clash. At the same time, if majority of the
population is not ready for change, as represented by the multitude
of political parties, then the will of the people is to not make changes
to government or law structure, democracy in its simplest form. Still",
the threshold for passing bills would likely have to be lowered, since a
majority would be difficult to accomplish, since more diverse
population is being represented.
The IRV method of voting is not the most complex voting
system, PL for example has many more intricacies, but countries
with very low literacy [3] might find issue with the ability of the
population to fill out the ballot and understand how their votes
would be cast; this is not so great a problem in the United States.
The math behind the quota system3
is somewhat complicated, and
thus a population with little education could potentially not understand the inner workings of the IRV system. As opposed to low
literacy, this actually is a problem for the United States, as the
United States is ranked 27th in mathematics worldwide by UNESCO
[26]. There is an argument to be made on behalf of simply ignoring
this issue altogether, however, since the general population does not
need to understand the intricacies of the system, just how to vote.
Minority control is the most respected criticism of IRV, despite
these arguments. The introduction of IRV would certain allow
minority parties to hold seats in the Senate and House of
Representatives, and while apparently good, this might have some
harsh repercussions. Allowing small groups to have some control over
the political landscape would potentially allow extremists to blockade
bills to their desire. Many critics point to the rise of dictatorial states
throughout Eurasia in the 20th century, particularly the Nazi party’s
ability to rise through to power through a democratic system, seizing
control with a minority of seats, less that 30% [5]. This is an unjust
copmarison, however, because Hitler’s rise to power involved false
flags, domestic terrorism, and fear mongering tactics which would not
be adaptable to the present day United States [12].
