06-19-2011, 04:47 PM
(06-19-2011, 04:32 PM)eppie Wrote: Even when a considerable part of the voters actually wants something else, people will vote for the least bad party....just so that the worst party will hopefully not win.
Arrow's impossibility theorem tells us that voting is a nontrivial game. There is no system that both accurately represents voter preferences, and is immune to tactical voting. Different systems generate different problems - I like some kind of mixed constituency/proportional top up model myself. It's no magic bullet, but maybe it's least-bad.
The real core of the problem is that people have neither well-ordered preference sets nor complete information. You can get people to agree that apples are better than oranges today, and that oranges are better than apples tomorrow, simply by changing the framing of the question, or asking them in different moods, or telling them a few well-selected facts (true or otherwise), or any of a hundred other tricks.
No country has gotten around this intrinsic problem. Every country I have ever been in seems to think that their own politics is a uniquely terrible disaster*, and most also seem to think that the solutions are simple - until they have to agree on them with someone else, at which point it all falls apart.
-Jester
*They are all wrong, unless they are Italians. My condolences, Italy.