By the sound of things it’s more like nobody wanted anything to do with the major-party incumbent. Duverger’s law is about how there tend to be two parties. Three and one are equally unstable. When a race becomes a total rout, like a 30-point spread, that dominance can be seen as a power vacuum.
… also, Sri Lanka has ranked ballots. It’s not a Plurality voting system. They have an automatic runoff. That’s one of the more obvious fixes that allows people to even consider supporting a third party, without playing Russian roulette against their own foot.
Duverger’s law is about how there tend to be two parties.
Emphasis on the ‘tends’. It’s a probabilistic observation, not a law of nature. Treating it as the latter leads to people acting against their best interests.
Sri Lanka has ranked ballots. It’s not a Plurality voting system.
You are right, in theory, but please check how many additional votes the winner (or the runner-up) got as second-prefrence votes. It was around 2% of their totals. This is because in practice, most voyers didn’t bother putting second and third preferences.
People acting in their best interests is how it happens. It’s an electorate avoiding splits. Given the system you’re voting under - you should vote for someone who has a chance of winning. Otherwise you might write-in some special favorite candidate that no other human being cares about, and accomplish literally nothing. Voting for a third party with single-digit support is not much better.
People voting against their own interests would be… not bothering to write in a second preference. It is the same fuckup: someone who cannot imagine their very favorite guy losing.
Dude had 3% support despite everyone being able to toss him a vote just-in-case. Anyone who voted for only him, “last election,” was a fool. That negligible support is not what made him a viable candidate in the separate election they “just did.”
No kidding your choices depend on how other people vote, that’s what democracy is. If you can’t rally a shitload of people behind your guy… you lose. That part is not the failure of Plurality. Plurality blows because two similar groups can be wildly popular and still get destroyed by a minority of schmucks.
The winner of this election was not decided by everyone seeing through The Matrix or whatever and deciding to defeat a broken electoral system. It sounds like 95% of them are functionally unaware of which electoral system they have.
By the sound of things it’s more like nobody wanted anything to do with the major-party incumbent. Duverger’s law is about how there tend to be two parties. Three and one are equally unstable. When a race becomes a total rout, like a 30-point spread, that dominance can be seen as a power vacuum.
… also, Sri Lanka has ranked ballots. It’s not a Plurality voting system. They have an automatic runoff. That’s one of the more obvious fixes that allows people to even consider supporting a third party, without playing Russian roulette against their own foot.
Emphasis on the ‘tends’. It’s a probabilistic observation, not a law of nature. Treating it as the latter leads to people acting against their best interests.
You are right, in theory, but please check how many additional votes the winner (or the runner-up) got as second-prefrence votes. It was around 2% of their totals. This is because in practice, most voyers didn’t bother putting second and third preferences.
People acting in their best interests is how it happens. It’s an electorate avoiding splits. Given the system you’re voting under - you should vote for someone who has a chance of winning. Otherwise you might write-in some special favorite candidate that no other human being cares about, and accomplish literally nothing. Voting for a third party with single-digit support is not much better.
People voting against their own interests would be… not bothering to write in a second preference. It is the same fuckup: someone who cannot imagine their very favorite guy losing.
The problem is that who ‘has a chance of winning’ is decided by who people vote for.
Uh, that’s what the Sri Lankan voters just did? The winner this time had 3% of the vote-share in the last election.
Dude had 3% support despite everyone being able to toss him a vote just-in-case. Anyone who voted for only him, “last election,” was a fool. That negligible support is not what made him a viable candidate in the separate election they “just did.”
No kidding your choices depend on how other people vote, that’s what democracy is. If you can’t rally a shitload of people behind your guy… you lose. That part is not the failure of Plurality. Plurality blows because two similar groups can be wildly popular and still get destroyed by a minority of schmucks.
The winner of this election was not decided by everyone seeing through The Matrix or whatever and deciding to defeat a broken electoral system. It sounds like 95% of them are functionally unaware of which electoral system they have.