Comment by wolco
5 years ago
First past the post doesn't explain Canada's four main parties. There is something preventing additional parties in America
5 years ago
First past the post doesn't explain Canada's four main parties. There is something preventing additional parties in America
Yes - it’s the fact that the race for the presidency is a winner-takes-all game. When Clinton lost, she didn’t get a diminished, minority, but still proportional say in the running of the government - she was completely out and Trump got everything.
The US system wasn’t engineered with the possibility of coalitions and compromise governments in mind (at least not in the Executive).
There are other countries, like France, where presidential elections have (obviously) a single winner which have nevertheless multiple parties.
If the US president was elected by the Congress would that end bipartidism? I don’t know.
French Presidential elections use run-off voting; they don't use first-past-the-post.
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I thought the original setup where the vice president was whoever got the second most votes was going for that.
Every Canadian government but for one has been from one of the two main parties.
The other parties popular support determines which of those two parties wins.
When you have more than two you could end up in a minority government where a smaller parties decide issues by supporting a big party.
Provinces have had other parties become the government.