The Vermont senator, who has long had a tense relationship with the Democratic Party, suggested in an interview that more progressives should join him in running as independents.
How would elections even work if there were three parties? Doesn’t there need to be a majority for the president to be declared? Or is that because of the current two party system? Does it just need to be the party with the most electoral votes, not over 50%?
If there were three parties and it ended up being 33/33/34, would the party with 34% of the electoral votes be the one to win the presidency?
The candidate that gets 270 electoral votes wins. In most states, the candidate who gets the most votes and not a majority wins all the electoral votes for that state.
Short version: If we’re talking national level (that is, electoral votes), then Congress elects the president (House for President, Senate for VP).
If we’re talking state level however, for most states the 34% will win and take all of the state’s electoral votes.
This is the cornerstone of the two-party system, which emerges naturally as a consequence of plurality voting systems. If you have two left-wing parties, one of which gets 10% and the other 42%, they both loose to the 48% of the single right-wing party. Hence, it’s strategic for the left wing to unite, which would theoretically earn them 52% of votes (practically, voter disillusionment makes it more complicated).
This is called the Spoiler Effect: A left-wing party would end up splitting votes off the Democrats, leading to a plurality victory for the Republicans. And in winner-takes-all systems, that plurality is enough to get the respective state’s electoral votes.
There are as many ways to do it as there are countries. In France for example it’s a two round system, so in the first round you vote for whoever you want, then the two top candidates make it to round two and everyone votes again between these two.
You can read the current top comment to see how it works in the Netherlands (one of my favourites). Otherwise you can also look at the Australian system which has ranked voting which is also pretty cool.
How would elections even work if there were three parties? Doesn’t there need to be a majority for the president to be declared? Or is that because of the current two party system? Does it just need to be the party with the most electoral votes, not over 50%?
If there were three parties and it ended up being 33/33/34, would the party with 34% of the electoral votes be the one to win the presidency?
The candidate that gets 270 electoral votes wins. In most states, the candidate who gets the most votes and not a majority wins all the electoral votes for that state.
Short version: If we’re talking national level (that is, electoral votes), then Congress elects the president (House for President, Senate for VP).
If we’re talking state level however, for most states the 34% will win and take all of the state’s electoral votes.
This is the cornerstone of the two-party system, which emerges naturally as a consequence of plurality voting systems. If you have two left-wing parties, one of which gets 10% and the other 42%, they both loose to the 48% of the single right-wing party. Hence, it’s strategic for the left wing to unite, which would theoretically earn them 52% of votes (practically, voter disillusionment makes it more complicated).
This is called the Spoiler Effect: A left-wing party would end up splitting votes off the Democrats, leading to a plurality victory for the Republicans. And in winner-takes-all systems, that plurality is enough to get the respective state’s electoral votes.
There are as many ways to do it as there are countries. In France for example it’s a two round system, so in the first round you vote for whoever you want, then the two top candidates make it to round two and everyone votes again between these two.
You can read the current top comment to see how it works in the Netherlands (one of my favourites). Otherwise you can also look at the Australian system which has ranked voting which is also pretty cool.