Tuesday, May 18, 2010

England Lets 3rd Party Debate; Why Don't We?

I wrote an op-ed about sunshine and open debate for the Durham Herald today.

What do you think?

6 comments:

James Oswald said...

Until we have proportional voting, it's a bad idea. Combine the median voter hypothesis with winner take all elections, and you get the party that is least like the third party winning.

Mungowitz said...

Nope, back to school for you, James. No one ends up VOTING for the third party.

1. Duverger's law protects us.
2. I said in the article that the LD's didn't get many votes.
3. ENGLAND HAS A FPTP voting system, JUST LIKE WE DO.

John Thacker said...

Bad example, I think.

England let the LDs, who have won seats and a consistent sizable percentage of the vote and many local council, (and have constantly going back to one of their precursors the Liberals), debate. They didn't let the Green Party or UKIP in the debate.

The Libertarian Party vote and representation in NC is much more similar to that of the UKIP or Greens.

Mungowitz said...

That's a much better argument, yes. I suspect that John T is right.

John Thacker said...

Granted, there are some things that the UK does that would help. Importantly:

No byzantine ballot access rules. Candidate need only 10 signatures and must pay a reasonable 500 pound deposit to run for a seat. Get less than 5% of the vote? Lose your deposit. Get more than 5%? Get the deposit back. Very simple.

It's an elegant and just solution that libertarians could approve of-- impose pricing on the right to run for a seat, but then refund it to candidates who get 5%.

Anonymous said...

Yes, that is reasonable.

North Carolina has a $250,000 deposit, and it is NOT refundable.