> the two main parties are too selfish to want this to happen
This is the thing that so many on HN don't get (as evidenced in the replies so far): neither party is your friend. Neither party actually wants solutions because both parties thrive when government is perpetually bad.
The Republicans can't actually accomplish their stated goal of completely dismantling government at the federal level because if they did then there would be no federal bogeyman to rally their base against. They can't actually close the border because then there would be no more immigrants to hate.
Likewise, the Democrats don't actually want Trump's popularity on the right to fade because then they'd lose the most effective rallying cry they've had in years. The policies they've chosen to focus on are unpopular outside of the far left and have cost them a lot of support from the moderate voters, so their only chance of success is to persuade the moderates that this will be the last fair election if Biden doesn't win.
Everyone in Washington knows that the supposed threat to democracy is nonsense. If they believed otherwise they'd have booted Biden out of the race for an electable candidate a year ago. But it's part of the game that they play to get your vote and stay in power.
So, to your point: I agree wholeheartedly. The two existing parties are corrupt to the core and there's nothing left to salvage. We need to dismantle the two-party system, and for that we need to fix the voting system. First past the post has to go.
I will never understand this take. Go look at a map of states implementing/banning ranked-choice voting[1], now go look at a map of states political affiliation[2]. Every state that bans RCV is Republican; every time it's passed it was done so by Democrats or a direct vote. If you want any chance at all of breaking the two party system, it's clear you must vote for Democrats.
You're correct on the banning front, but Alaska is one of only three states that use RCV in any state-wide elections and Utah is one of only four states that offer it state-wide as an offical option for local elections. The blue-coded states use it in some local jurisdictions but don't encode it at all at the state level.
There's definitely a Democratic slant to the 7 states that have some sort of statewide policy approving RCV's use. But then again, Utah has more municipalities listed on that article as actually using it at the local level than all 5 Democratic states (Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, Maine, Hawaii) combined.
In other words, the issue isn't as cut-and-dry in your sources as you make it sound.
Alaska only has it because of a ballot measure[1], so I don't consider Alaska a win for Republicans. It looks as though Republicans are also trying to end the trial of RCV early in Utah[2]. So, of your examples of Republican states with RCV, it either happened in spite of them, or they're actively trying to get rid of it. Add in examples like Maine where the Republican loser tries to sue, claiming RCV is unconstitutional because it didn't work in his favor[3]; you start to see a pattern of Republicans resisting RCV, and Democrats championing alternative voting styles that don't force a two party system.
You can't count Utah out until they actually do something to walk it back, representatives just talking about doing something is usually them just posturing for their base. And if we're excluding ballot measures then you also have to drop Maine [0].
If you drop Maine and Alaska as not representing entrenched party politics then you're left with 4/50 states that implemented a measure allowing RCV at the local (city) level and 1/50 states (Hawaii) that implemented a measure allowing it at the federal level (for special federal elections only). Of the four states that officially allowed RCV at the local level by an act of the legislature, Utah has more municipalities taking advantage of that than the rest of the states combined.
I'm not arguing that Republicans are champions of RCV, just that it's pretty obvious that Democrats aren't much better if at all. By your rules, 1/50 states voluntarily allowed RCV for any state or federal election (where party politics usually matter, unlike most local elections), and even that one state's law is only for rare special cases.
Except Maine shouldn't be ruled out because its congress passed RCV for presidential races (what I thought the conversation was always about, national level politics) along party lines in 2019[1].
You're also undervaluing that all of the ten states that have preeemptively banned RCV are Republican controlled. Sure there aren't a dozen Democratic states with RCV yet, that should change! We should push for that. But that's a far cry from preemptively banning it; there's no chance for change there.
That's my point, yeah Democrats aren't the best, or even great; but at least there's the chance for improvement. Republicans have overwhelmingly banned that chance.
> presidential races (what I thought the conversation was always about, national level politics) along party lines in 2019
In primaries, which poses no threat to the party structure if the general election is still first past the post. I'm not at all interested in election systems for primaries when the issue at hand is how many parties can exist.
> You're also undervaluing that all of the ten states that have preeemptively banned RCV are Republican controlled
I'm ignoring that because I think it's more part of the general Republican hysteria about voting integrity than it is a calculated move by Republican politicians specifically to ban RCV for preserving-the-two-party-system reasons.
The question at hand is whether both parties would really rather not see RCV, and I see no evidence that there's going to be any significant movement from the Democrats towards it for general statewide elections any time soon. The Democrats just don't feel the need to make a big deal about it like the Republicans do at the moment.
Maine has it for the general presidential election too. They were the first to use RCV in a general presidential election.
I don't care why Republicans did it, the effect is the same: It forces a two party system which benefits them in the states they've banned it. You can claim that there's no movement towards RCV in the Democratic party (there is in the progressive members), but you can't pretend like there's no movement to ban it in the Republican party, as is evidenced by their actions.
The future of the Republican party is clearly only more of the same, only the Democratic party is interested in trying something new; which we clearly desperately need.
> Maine has it for the general presidential election too. They were the first to use RCV in a general presidential election.
That was as a result of the referendum, though, which you don't want to count because that's the citizens doing it and not the established politicians. That's a reasonable position that I'm happy to make a ground rule for this discussion, but it needs to be applied evenly, not just used to exclude Alaska.
> but you can't pretend like there's no movement to ban it in the Republican party, as is evidenced by their actions.
No, but it doesn't matter if there was never any risk of it happening, which there isn't in the vast majority of the US. You don't need to ban something if your voters have never heard of it and wouldn't think to ask for it.
> only the Democratic party is interested in trying something new; which we clearly desperately need.
There's no evidence here in the sources you've cited that shows that the Democratic politicians are interested in trying something new in state and federal general elections (the ones that could actually challenge the two-party system). If you can count Maine then I can count Alaska, which again balances out to not be obviously one-sided.
You've now gotten the facts about Maine's RCV wrong multiple times, it's to the point I won't continue discussing this with somebody who can't even critically read and understand the sources I've provided.
The Maine legislature passed RCV for both the primary and general presidential election[1]. I don't really care if you don't think national primaries don't matter they obviously do; otherwise the Republican party in Maine wouldn't have fought tooth and nail to not have to do RCV for their primaries.
> somebody who can't even critically read and understand the sources I've provided
I read the article you cited and just reread it. It was about the primaries. The only mention of the general election is referring to Congressional candidates, which was implemented by referendum.
I'm now doing my own research into additional sources and seeing that what you're saying is correct, but you sent me a source that said nothing of the sort. I suspect I read that source more carefully than you did, so it's a bit rich for you to berate me for not reading it critically enough.
Regardless, I'm not sold on the idea that this is something the Democratic party picked up on their own. Maine's ballot initiative came first and they had to overcome opposition from the legislature to get it through. Now that the people of Maine have spoken quite forcefully the Democrats are going along with it, but they didn't start this process on their own.
If it were a Democratic party thing, why are we not seeing this anywhere else?
This is the thing that so many on HN don't get (as evidenced in the replies so far): neither party is your friend. Neither party actually wants solutions because both parties thrive when government is perpetually bad.
The Republicans can't actually accomplish their stated goal of completely dismantling government at the federal level because if they did then there would be no federal bogeyman to rally their base against. They can't actually close the border because then there would be no more immigrants to hate.
Likewise, the Democrats don't actually want Trump's popularity on the right to fade because then they'd lose the most effective rallying cry they've had in years. The policies they've chosen to focus on are unpopular outside of the far left and have cost them a lot of support from the moderate voters, so their only chance of success is to persuade the moderates that this will be the last fair election if Biden doesn't win.
Everyone in Washington knows that the supposed threat to democracy is nonsense. If they believed otherwise they'd have booted Biden out of the race for an electable candidate a year ago. But it's part of the game that they play to get your vote and stay in power.
So, to your point: I agree wholeheartedly. The two existing parties are corrupt to the core and there's nothing left to salvage. We need to dismantle the two-party system, and for that we need to fix the voting system. First past the post has to go.