LogFAQs > #976897358

adjl posted...

On paper, sure, but it's no secret that the actual competition is between the Conservatives and the Liberals. Everyone else mostly just gets votes when the Liberals are in a comfortable enough position that losing the riding in question won't let the Conservatives win, and even that often doesn't amount to much because the NDP or Greens having a few seats doesn't translate into having enough power to actually enact any of their platforms (the PCC offered an option for the Conservatives to split their vote, but they failed to gain any meaningful traction and will probably do even worse in the next election because Polievre isn't as moderate as O'Toole was). Trust me, I'd love an NDP government (and, in fact, I've voted NDP in every federal election since I turned 18, though I've voted in historically-Liberal ridings that have stayed red), but it's not something that's going to happen under FPTP, and the platform of electoral reform that the Liberals ran in 2015 died within weeks of them getting into office and realizing that nobody was ever going to agree on how to change the system.

The problem isn't the mindset of "one or the other," it's that one party is popular enough to stand a real chance of winning and also has some horrible ideas for running the country that need to be stopped. That results in people gravitating toward whichever party stands the greatest chance of beating them (and in some cases, formally forming coalitions to prevent vote splitting). From the politicians' end, you stand a much higher chance of having your voice heard and being able to act on your ideals if you align with an existing party instead of splitting the vote. That's something inherent in the electoral system and how votes get counted: So long as whether or not a party wins is a binary matter, securing a partial victory for a different party will have no value.

How about we just get rid of parties altogether and let individuals run based on their own politics? You know, like Washington did. He spoke out against parties in his farewell address but no one listened.