@James Clark India & Pakistan are young democracies and haven't had that many election cycles yet. In FPTP the number of parties tend to decrease over time until only 2 major parties are left. Give it another 50 years. One of the few ways how small parties can survive for a longer time in FPTP is by being extremely region specific like the SNP in the UK.
@James Clark There are two reasons why the US is a two party system: The first is that it has presidential system. Meaning that the president is the most important figure in the government, compared to prime ministers in other countries (UK, Germany etc.). This means that a coalition between parties is not possible, because the office can only be held by one person. Even if more parties would make it into Congress, they wouldn't have as much influence, because the bigger parties wouldn't need them to govern. In countries with a parliamentary system coalitions are almost always necessary, because otherwise it is very hard to govern. And the second reason is the districting. In countries like the UK you have 650 seats. That means that you need a lot less of support to gain at least some seats. And remember from the last point that these seats have more potential influence than the seats in US Congress. In the US there are only 50 states you can win to make a difference. And with the spoiler effect mentioned in the video it is not helpful to run as a third party (lookup Ross Perot). So with a mix of first past the post voting and a parliamentary system, the US has become and will almost certainly stay a two party system.
@James Clark first-past-the-post is actually almost certainly one of the major contributing factors as to why we have such an entrenched two-party system here in the United States. For example as to why all you have to do is look at other nations with a first-past-the-post system such as Canada or the United Kingdom, which while not having literally only two parties, do both have only two parties which could ever realistically form a majority in the legislature. Both of these two parties will normally have such a large percentage of the population driven towards them that it's not even that uncommon for them to be able to form majority completely on their own (see the Canadian liberals after this most recent election, and the British conservatives after 2015). So even if there are other parties participating, only two of them are ever really competitive at any given time, and that is because of first-past-the-post. the only difference in the u.s. is that we have the effects of first-past-the-post stacked on top of the effects of gerrymandering and the Electoral College, which form something of an Unholy Trinity which combined make fair and representative elections impossible in the country.
Technically, the United States does not have a First-Past-the-Post system. If no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the election goes to the House of Representatives to decide. This isn’t necessarily better than a First-Past-the-Post system however. In 1824, no candidate had a majority, so the House of Representatives actually ended up picking the candidate with the second most electoral votes.
I watched this many years ago now, but this might be one of the most important videos of my lifetime honestly. Every political discussion in my life ultimately has ended with showing and sharing this video with friends and family.
+BruceWillakers Just saw this for the first time from your twitter feed. Gonna show this to my parents so they finally understand my frustration with the political system. Thanks Rob!
+BruceWillakers It is so frustrating that so many people don't realize how terrible this voting system is or even that any other voting system can exist.
Certainly gave me some insight on why we're so screwed here in England right now. First the Lib Dems, then UKIP, and SNP came along and put the final nail in the coffin for ever escaping the conservatives.
but in India, there are lots of regional parties......difficult for them to come in center but still spider, owl, tiger and the rest are not out of business. Still not perfect, need to improve......but damn can't have Congress running our country at the moment.
This is quite possibly the most important and underrated political video on the entire Internet. You explain why FPTP must be abolished more clearly than, I think, anyone else ever has. This deserves to be shared far and wide. Frankly, it's criminal that this video series is not taught in every high school civics class in America.
Adam Smith If you want to eliminate FPTP, fine, but do it with run-off elections, not STV or AV because people simply do not have transitive voting preferences.
I just realized the animals used in video were chosen intentionally Owl voters are neutral Gorilla, monkey, and turtle votes are all less aggressive, with Gorilla being reserved but tough and turtle being extremely non-confrontaltional Leopard, tiger, and snake voters are more agressive, with Leopard being a predator yet sluggish and snake being extremely confrontational
What if I told you it was already relevant but more people are seemingly noticing. There is some good news. Ranked choice voting has expanded and is being talked about somewhat now.
Please start lobbying for change. Electoral reform would go a long way to healing both the UK and the US. The major parties will never bring this up. The system actively supports them. The change has to come from the outside.
@@beatthegreat7020 he wanted a no party state, AKA "Were all adults here let's discuss this like adults and get things done even if we don't agree on everything"
You explained perfectly why I hate America's system. Most people vote against a party they hate instead of for one they like . And because your party knows you have no other choice they have no incentive to actually listen to the needs of their voters
I also discovered this video years ago, but I have used it countless times to explain our voting system to other people, and I just wanted to thank you for creating something so detailed and informative yet simple and easy to follow. Every time I show it to someone I end up rewatching it myself and am always amazed at how effectively it conveys it message. Beautiful work.
FPTP is your typical British political idea: sounds great on paper, generates dire consequences. The aim of it was to generate governments with strong majorities to implement their plants, which in theory appears wise enough. The actual result is parliaments that are totally unrepresentative of how people vote, consolidated around 2-3 main political parties while the rest are relegated to the fringes regardless of their share of votes. It generates disenfranchisement as people begin to realize their vote amounts to nothing unless they vote for one of the major parties.
I couldn't put my finger on why I disliked politics and voting until I watched this video. You can't understand how this important this video is to me gcp. Thank you I could feel my brain growing just watching it!
@@JohnDoe-fs6tk I'd say that one person one vote lowers representation. people don't really vote FOR who they want, but against who they don't. You're voting with a negative feeling, which I think leads to dissatisfied voters a lot. At least for me. Really the whole concept of making voting a right is ultimately not the best, but that's another conversation
Simple. Yes. That highlights another issue: An EDUCATED, INFORMED POPULATION is needed for democracy to work. Voters need to KNOW THEIR OWN BEST INTERESTS, and vote accordingly. They need to know the issues. Otherwise the vote becomes swayed by other stuff: tribal antagonism, or shallow esthetic preference, or temporary outrage, or conspiracy-minded thinking. The list goes on.
I immediately thought of this video with an election that happened yesterday in the town of Fall River, Mass. There, the citizens had a special election asking if they wanted to recall the current mayor and who they wanted as their new mayor. Despite 60% of all votes saying they wanted the mayor to be recalled, he still won the election as he was on the ballot of "who do you want to be the new mayor" with a vote of 35% because no one else got as much
@@jerryz2541 And? That means the system has an inherent flaw to what most people want, more democratic elections. Who cares if a bunch of dudes 200 years ago didn't intend the system to be democratic? that's almost completely irrelevant to the discussion and you admit our point that the us election system is corrupt and undemocratic
@@angrypepe7615 @Filip Wolffs @ThatPCGamer - FYI - each State is a democracy, but the way the President is elected is configured so that smaller States have a say in who becomes President. Without this electoral safeguard, 3 or 4 States would always elect the President and the rest would be ignored. You guys need more education about what is considered equality for ALL... @ThatPCGamer - Clearly, your government has failed to educate you past the 4th grade.
Dear Grey, A friend of mine from Russia wanted to know why we only have two candidates in America. This was a question I actually didn't fully know, but this video helped me explain why their is only the Democratic and Republican party and why we don't have third parties. Thanks you for making this video.
This is teaching me better than school ever could. I'm just randomly tapping on this guy's videos and it helps with visual learning, repeats the demonstration (sometimes in a slightly different way as it could play out differently), and explains fully.
Furballs Bizzae Even the Electoral College system is still a subset of the FPTP. Remember, the electoral college is all or nothing (except for Maine and Nebraska), so the electors almost act as a single unit. One party with 51% of the votes wins 100% of the electors, not 51%.
Kevalry Replacing it with Instant-Runoff Voting with compulsory voting would do wonders for the US. It works in Australia. The disinterested voters act as a moderating counterweight to keep the extremists out.
I have to say that I like the design and style of these videos. 5 years later (on the internet no less) and it does not look dated. A tiny bit like a powerpoint presentation, but there is a certain timelessness of powerpoint presentations, which I'm going to attribute to nostalgia and my middle school and high school computer classes but still believe to be valid (making terrible school project powerpoint presentations is almost an American rite of passage).
...oof, learning about the First Past the Post system can really take the hope out of you, for finding a candidate that closely aligns to your values. Seems like a better voting system would possibly be better for the United States and other countries.
+Matt Bingham you only have to have over 50 percent of the *electoral* votes, which is a different beast. Each individual election for each state is still FPTP
I would say we have both the electoral college AND FPTP as within every state it is one person one vote. Both are both barriers to breaking the 2 party system.
If enough people vote Third Party then the establishment would notice and might even introduce the Alternative Vote to win back those votes, in an ideal world.
I think you're missing the point. The point isn't that 3rd party candidates are bad. The point is that the system is broken and undemocratic. Our votes really are meaningless because we're powerless to elect the people that are best to lead us. It's impossible to actually achieve change. The status quo will continue forever until we FORCE our governments to fix our voting systems and restructure the balance of power. And we can't rely on them to do so fairly because they want nothing of the sort. The ones in power understand that the system works in their favor. They wouldn't want to actually make it fair because they know that will take them out of power and cost them buttloads of money. The 3rd party candidates likely are better for your nation, but they'll never be able to get elected. In Canada, we're supposed to be electing local representatives from our districts to represent our interests. Instead, these representatives have formed political parties and are forced to back each other in order to remain in power. This enforces that instead of representing the people in their district they represent their political parties. This cripples the system and makes it undemocratic. The USA has an even worse system from the sounds of it. We all need to get involved, recognize that our systems aren't working, and keep fighting for the changes needed to make our votes actually count. And expect that every step of the way the people currently in power will be trying to sabotage that process, no matter how convincingly they sound like they support it and support you.
After this election I have actually realised something. Voting third paty is the only way to not waste your vote. HRC got the popular vote but didn't even win the Presidency, it was the elctoral college. So no matter what you chose, especially if your in a Red or Blue state, your vote didn't mean anything... Unless you voted Third Party. Main political parties don't need popular votes, they need electoral college votes, but the third parties do. At 5% they can get Federal Funding for the next election. At 15% they earn a place in the National Presdiential Debates. This doesn't matter for Democrats or Republicans but is very important for third parties. Vote third party, actually matter.
This system is honestly ridiculous. In my country there's a system where when you get 23% of the vote, you get.... 23% of the seats in parliament! Wild concept, I know.
Revisiting this after the 2019 Canadian election - still surprising how Canada seems to be able to support smaller parties despite the supposed inevitability of a two party system in FPTP... (though I would personally much rather STV).
@@Bionicleforever It's the only reason the LPC or CPC get a majority ever. Center voters decide when to fire the leader they get disappointed with and vote the other big party. It's complete garbage. Neither of those parties wants to change the system.
Thank you. This explains it better than anything else I've seen or heard. OK, I'm off to watch your videos on gerrymandering and election alternatives.
This is why we (U.S.) have Hillary and Trump! The question for CGP Grey and fellow viewers is, how can we change are voting system? Might be a good video topic CGP. "Can the U.S. change voting systems?"
Grassroots action is the only way. The two parties benefiting from it sure aren't going to take the initiative to stop it. We can use this abysmal election to get these conversations started, but we need to get the whole nation talking about it.
Absolutely. It would take a lot of work and probably a constitutional amendment, but our government is set up to allow these kinds of changes. Eventually. See "hard work." I'm honestly okay with choosing the lesser of two evils in this election (especially because the gulf between her and the greater evil is so damn wide) but we can't just forget this as soon as our new President is sworn in.
The more I think about this the more I believe that the start of the grassroots movement is simply to stop voting out of fear. This election (if not in all elections) we seem to be faced with a choice of evils, with so many voting for the lesser of the two and people disagreeing about who the lesser is. If all of that group of people who vote for the "lesser of the two" would choose to do a third party or a write in campaign. It would send a powerful message that there is a majority who are not satisfied with the status quo of either of the big parties.
The answer is easy and harder than you think. Vote third parties into Congress. The more third parties you have in the Senate and the House, the more they are known. Get them elected and grow in Congress. This may take a few terms. But if you get enough in there two things will happen: 1) Enough people will join and support the third party so that they will actually be backed for a presidential candidate. or 2) they get so powerful the take over one of the parties already established. Does number two sound familiar? It should......
This video, and the rest if this series, deserve to be the most viewed videos on RU-vid. Most useful and entertaining video in exsistanse. Years later I still find myself coming back to it on a regular basis, even more than the other great videos on this channel.
I live in Canada and yeah this is pretty true, smaller parties like the NDP, Greens and PPC can’t fill the same niche as the big two and so vote on either one in hopes the party they don’t like doesn’t win
That's why I love Switzerland's system! Every citizenmhas essentially the right to overturn parliment decisions they don't agree with AND we have 7 (not 1) president that represent the parliment that represents directly the votes in % of the people (and the states, similar to the US).
The quality of these videos is great! I think it'd be great if more people got to see this video in particular. The recent ''3 rules for rulers'' video was also very good, I've just found your channel and watched like 6 videos and all really liked them. Glad to have found this channel :)
These voting-systems and gerrymandering videos are probably among the most important content on youtube. It's a shame, that this still only has 5 M views. Every student in every country should be required to watch them (or something similar) at least twice
Im surprised there isnt a flood of comments on here. ... Everyone's calling for the downfall of the electoral college, but offers nothing up as a replacement.
@0:14: Excepts lions don't even live in the jungle, much less rule them. That honour goes to the tiger, who reigns over both the jungle and the Siberian arctic.
Strongly disagree about the tiger having reigns in the jungle, because that honor actually belongs to the Gorilla, who is the true supreme animal in that realm. I do agree with you that the domain of tigers is the Siberian Arctic.....definitely tiger turf.
Particularly Trump. If the Republican rank-and-file had all had equal power over the nomination, Kasich would have beaten Trump. It's not as clear for HRC, because only Bernie ran against her, and in a two-candidate election, FPTP is as good as any other system.
@@williamwaugh8670 Only problem is that FPTP is NOT "as good as any other system" in a two-candidate election IF FPTP is the reason WHY you have only two candidates....
@@ShrunkedDude For the first 5 years, their hands were tied by the limp dumbs. For the next 5, they still had a very small majority (and ultimately lost it), meaning they couldn't do much. It's only now that they have a comfortably majority, can they really implement what they want. Although most of this year has been taken with the COVID distraction.
So....my problem with this analysis: What about Canada? In Canada we have a growing number of parties. We started with 2 main ones - currently called the Conservatives and the Liberals. At some point the largely conservative leaning Bloc Quebecois, a separatist party that runs exclusively in Quebec and thus can never actually win the election and the largely Liberal-but-more-so New Democrat Party joined the fray. Over the course of the last 20 years, a fifth party, the environmentally focused Green party has gone from being a couple of people who run in elections and lose to having the required number of seats for official party status. While it's true that the two original parties are the only ones that have ever been in power, it's worth noting that the NDP and Bloc have both had significant power in various minority governments over the years. Canada's universal healthcare system is a concession that was demanded by the NDP for their support, for instance. And the NDP has even been the official opposition party at one point, as the Liberal party was quietly self destructing in a corner after Paul Martin's term. And yet, every time voting reforms come up, enough people either just buy into the "it's complicated, you won't understand it" mantra, or they offer up so many different systems that none gets the required majority for significant voting reform to occur, thus defaulting to the status quo. We're still FPTP.
Very true. I like the idea of using proportional representation for both the legislative and executive branches, the way Switzerland does. There's no reason to handle all the power to a single representative or chief executive when power can just as easily be shared.
Maine implemented this for the first time in a national senate and house race in the Mid Terms yesterday, and its use is impacting the outcome. So exciting.
Ranked Choice voting is a question on the ballot in Massachusetts in November. There's no explanation to show why it might be a good idea. If you know anyone voting in Massachusetts it might be a good idea to share this video. Thanks
