Given the political culture of the US I doubt you could run the German system in the US without issues. For the German system to work as it’s supposed to, the politician’s who get elected via first-past-the-post actually have to be on the list of their respective parties. There’s an advantage to be gained by a political faction getting their voters to cast their first vote for party A and there second vote for party B but that’s not done in practice because it would be a norm violation.
I haven’t read up on the exact German discussion but given what was going on in the 19th century in Germany I would expect that MMP was a way to elect politicians in a way that gives less power to aristocrats. It’s easier for a local aristocrat to get a candidate in their territory elected in FPTP.
That is certainly an issue, one that I had thought about before. For one, even if everybody votes in a strategic / dishonest way, the end result will still be better than the current system, and will give voice to a wider variety of perspectives; for another, it seems to me that the culture we have in the US of voting strategically is an effect of the voting system we use, where one must vote strategically to prevent the worst outcome from happening.
If the voting system that is used does not so heavily punish strategic voting, then the culture of strategic voting will slowly fade away; of course, the nature of the presidential election will always loom large as long as it stays the same, and push in the direction of strategic voting.
As far as MMP in Germany, it looks like the system wasn’t put in place until the 20th century, with the Weimar Republic adopting 100% direct proportional elections after WWI, then with West Germany adopting MMP after the Second World War, to minimize some of the problems that led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
Given the political culture of the US I doubt you could run the German system in the US without issues. For the German system to work as it’s supposed to, the politician’s who get elected via first-past-the-post actually have to be on the list of their respective parties. There’s an advantage to be gained by a political faction getting their voters to cast their first vote for party A and there second vote for party B but that’s not done in practice because it would be a norm violation.
I haven’t read up on the exact German discussion but given what was going on in the 19th century in Germany I would expect that MMP was a way to elect politicians in a way that gives less power to aristocrats. It’s easier for a local aristocrat to get a candidate in their territory elected in FPTP.
That is certainly an issue, one that I had thought about before. For one, even if everybody votes in a strategic / dishonest way, the end result will still be better than the current system, and will give voice to a wider variety of perspectives; for another, it seems to me that the culture we have in the US of voting strategically is an effect of the voting system we use, where one must vote strategically to prevent the worst outcome from happening.
If the voting system that is used does not so heavily punish strategic voting, then the culture of strategic voting will slowly fade away; of course, the nature of the presidential election will always loom large as long as it stays the same, and push in the direction of strategic voting.
As far as MMP in Germany, it looks like the system wasn’t put in place until the 20th century, with the Weimar Republic adopting 100% direct proportional elections after WWI, then with West Germany adopting MMP after the Second World War, to minimize some of the problems that led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic.