Mixed-Member Proportional Representation Explained

[@AholeAtheist]

I love how you've made it an island named "Kiwiland" and all the parties are named after native birds of New Zealand because New Zealand has MMP. So cool.

[@EccentricEnthusiadam]

AholeAtheist Plus lions

[@ARCHCASThazardous]

+AholeAtheist Tuataras are not birds

[@B3Band]

+ARCHCAST Hazardous "Did you make a point? I ignored it because you said 'birds.'"

[@AholeAtheist]

Bloodbath and Beyond The fuck are you on about?

[@AholeAtheist]

Bloodbath and Beyond Sorry. Wasn't trying to be too aggressive. I was just unsure of who you were translating. Was probably in an irritable mood from replying to other comments.

[@rubedofox3971]

It's a good thing Queen Lion has all these random helpful citizens like Kiwi with an in-depth understanding of election mechanics.

[@jsbarretto]

I mean... ignoring the fact that Queen Lion seems to be an absolute monarch that has total autocratic control over everything including democracy, this is a brilliant idea.

[@SturmZebra13]

It's not an idea. It's being used by New Zealand. I also think Germay uses it and there might be a few other countries.

[@tasmanmillen]

But, Queen Lion is very smart and is consulting other countries for which system to use.

[@stevevernon1978]

Queen Lion has total autocratic control over everything "ELECTION RELATED"... and nothing else

[@serbanandreimarin]

@@stevevernon1978 I highly doubt it If she wanted, she could probably rule by herself

[@marcomaroco1030]

Better Queen Lion making the rules than the politicians themselves

[@Phazon8058MS]

Kiwi Island, eh? Hmm, I wonder... *googles New Zealand Parliament* Aaaaaand it's elected via MMP. Heh...

[@DerDrako]

Alternative idea: Schnitzel Island! :D Yeah, Germany uses MMP too. Bad thing: there are no Schnitzels in a jungle. :c

[@peterkotara]

@DerDrako There aren't?..............My life is a lie.

[@christopheroleary1452]

It also has a queen, whose crest as queen of England is 3 lions(albeit for New Zealand she has another)

[@SyntaxTsundere]

And yet it still kinda is 2-party. We can vote for third parties, sure, but they won’t win.

[@AliothAncalagon]

@@SyntaxTsundere Well, its not the job of a voting system to boost a party that doesn't have the support of the people.

[@hammerth1421]

One of the major issues of MMP in reality is that the number of representatives tends to explode as extra seats are added above the usual doubling to ensure representativeness.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

And that is how we ended up with 736 instead of 598 in our last federal election. It isn't perfect, and rather complicated, but hey, could be worse.

[@firelordeliteast6750]

@@HappyBeezerStudios United States: *Sneezes

[@pheumann86]

Btw there are other options for including local representation into MMP without getting the results we get from our mixed system. I'm not generally for a pure MMP system with nationwide lists. Just saying that the FPTP elements in the German election system are what explodes our MP numbers.

[@antonywerner1893]

@@pheumann86 that the Lists are not nationwide is a Part of the Problem every federal state in germany has its own list and the overhenging seats are not exanged between states.

[@Disthron]

Queen Lion seems like a very conscientious ruler. ^_^

[@zvz1393]

I'd vote for her ... if Queens were voted for.

[@FirstLast-ki9xx]

The example in the beginning (of 50% getting no representation at all) is pretty much exactly what happened in the scottish seats in this general election.

[@emilcarr7190]

Sexy Socialist Aye, I'm a proud supporter of who did get most seats in Scotland (SNP) but I agree that is a downfall with our system.

[@ajuk1]

Emil Carr And under STV the SNP would still out performed their vote share, just not to the same extent they would have got about 60% of the seats for 50% of the vote.

[@emilcarr7190]

ajuk1 Well the issue isn't that SNP is getting in, it's that our system is unfair.

[@andrewjack3935]

Emil Carr the other downfall is the house of lords and the restrictions on who can be part of it

[@emilcarr7190]

Andrew Jack I absolutely disagree with the house of lords. shouldn't exist

[@sarahsharpiemarker]

This was really helpful! Canada might change over to this system, so I wanted to better understand it before I voted for the party supporting it. Thanks!

[@miguelfowke-quintas3942]

+Sarah Sharp The NDP has expressed far more support for proportional representation. PP is a ridiculous idea, as Canada simply requires local representation due to its size.

[@sarahsharpiemarker]

+Miguel Fowke-Quintas I agree! The liberals have proposed mmp I believe.

[@iiiiitsmagreta1240]

+Sarah Sharp My understanding of the matter is that the Liberals want to ditch first-past-the-post and are exploring alternative options, this being one of them, AV being another. I assume there'll be a referendum of some sort.

[@laurelrusswurm2876]

The Liberals wanted AV (Alternative Vote), another winner-take-all system like First Past The Post (which is arguably even worse than FPTP because it makes it harder for women and minorities to get elected. My "Electoral System Roundup" article I wrote (in my PR4Canada series) may help: whoacanada.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/electoral-system-roundup/

[@LTEJ]

How does it make it harder for minorities to get elected?...

[@TheJammie98]

Scotland actually uses this system (we call it the Additional Members System, AMS) to elect its parliament. It has worked much better than FPTP (especially by closing the gap between vote share and seat share)!

[@Madayar]

You can fix the party influence if you give the voters the option to vote for a list candidate with their second vote. It still counts for the party, but you make your cross next to the list representative you like the most. When the votes are tallied, the votes per list candidate are tallied, as well, and the one with the most votes becomes the new number 1, the one with the second most the new number 2 and so on. This change was implemented in Germany to the extend that in some elections voters have five or more votes and can vote for a candidate up to three times, to increase the chance that the actual will of the voters is reflected in the result. Every vote still counts as a party vote, but the positioning on the list is no guarantee anymore to become a member of parliament if your place has a low enough number.

[@peterkotara]

This is the system I voted for in the New Zealand Referendum back in 1996. You have to be more strategic with your votes and it is more complicated. Still MMP is far superior to the FPP system we used to have. It took about 3 election cycles for people to get used to it and it doesn't work so well if you have many low information/lazy voters but once the parties start to see voters exercising 3rd options they start to behave better.

[@e7venjedi]

that's the beauty of videos like this. they are so well put together that it's not information overload. and i don't know about other people, but having visuals and voice explaining concepts is a great way to learn. reading obviously has it's time and place though ;-)

[@az929292]

Actually, you can get rid of that one problem about MMP if you allow the voters to choose between the political party candidates on the second ballot instead of having each party rank its candidates. The party candidate(s) with the most votes will then get the extra seat(s) of their political party :)

[@benl2140]

The problem with that is that there would probably be a very large number of potential political party candidates, making choosing between them pretty difficult for most people. There is another solution, where the political parties themselves allow voters in a specific geographic area to vote on who will be at the top of their list in that area, before the election. This would be a bit like primaries in FPTP systems.

[@ocadioan]

The way we have it in Denmark is that the parties have both a national prioritized list, and a local one. So you can vote for a specific candidate or party in your local district, and if the candidates lose, then they have to hope that their party overall gets enough votes to allow them in. It severely limits the amount of candidates per district, but also allows you to just vote for the party if you don't care who in the party gets elected.

[@az929292]

ocadioan Exactly. And even if the candidate you voted for isn't elected, your vote still counts as a party vote too - so your vote is never completely wasted. However, you're slightly wrong in one thing: There is no national list per se in the Danish electoral system. All candidates run on a particular "grand district" list (storkreds) and a number of subdistrict lists (opstillingskredse). But there are adjustment seats on top of the district seats and those are allocated based on the national vote share of the parties. So as you said, if a party candidate isn't elected via the district vote they might still get one of the adjustment seats that are allocated to make the parties' overall result proportional :)

[@ocadioan]

az929292 Hmm, I always thought they just did it on a national level. It would seem much easier to me if they did it like that, as they are still trying to balance it out with the national vote.

[@az929292]

ocadioan It would be more simple, yes, but the different local areas of Denmark would not be adequately represented then if candidates were only elected on a national basis. Only candidates from the big population centers (Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense, Aalborg) would get elected then, and other local areas with smaller population densities (especially in Jutland outside of Aarhus and Aalborg) would not have any candidates from their local areas elected ;)

[@Keymaster2022]

But... why should I care about animal polit... OH! These represent real life politics. Well that's helpful :)

[@pickles3128]

Jarrellm10 Even an animal election is more civil than the presidential election was!

[@regirayquaza]

Marcus Jarrell How does this represent people? We're not all furries! (Just a bit late)

[@novafawks]

regirayquaza everyone is a furry, no exceptions

[@StilvurBee]

@@novafawks damn

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

@@regirayquaza "Weasel Spandex", however, clearly very much is a furry.

[@dragonkingofthestars]

did you use 'Kiwi" as your island name because new Zealand does this?

[@tomaszmagierowski2166]

thought the same

[@RolandMcGruner]

(also the animals are kiwi-ese too; Kakapo, Kea, Tuatara)

[@pmitt4equality555]

Yes, NZ uses MMP.

[@InXLsisDeo]

Germany too, and Scotland, Sweden, and a number of other countries.

[@jackburridge8790]

Y'know, the good countries!

[@GameMaster10K]

0:07 there is a minecraft dog at the bottom

[@skywarslord4680]

On the right there is a Minecraft pig

[@robmckennie4203]

Hang on, does the hypothetical election in this video take place on Kiwi Island because New Zealand uses MMP? Cool.

[@Dr_Whoo7]

Lots of countries uses MMP..

[@artistwithouttalent]

I have a random thought: couldn't citizens decide the order of preference for candidates in a primary-style single-party vote held before the general election?

[@hellothere_1257]

The problem is that voter turnout on such elections is usually quite low. However some parties actually do organize votes like that to determine the order of their candidates.

[@artistwithouttalent]

Hellothere _1 Good Point. It's also good to hear that some parties do take the people's preference into account.

[@CoWinkKeyDinkInc]

artistwithouttalent Yes they can, usually it's done by party members. In the US these would be used to determine the nominees for congressman or senator, and are called a primary.

[@jascvideorambles3369]

I made a video about that

[@lukasniemi2663]

In my opinion that is a party matter. Some parties hold primaries, some have an election committee and other have a military structure where the leader just decides. In conclusion; leave it up to the parties to figure out themselves.

[@TheAARSAN]

When will you make a video of the Schulze method?

[@justineberlein5916]

Or SPAV, the actual best. It's a proportional version of approval that isn't NP-hard.

[@justineberlein5916]

@Sc0ut op Sequential Proportional Approval Voting. The first seat is filled like normal for approval. But for all subsequent seats, you do a recount with your choice of multipliers, like d'Hondt 1/(1+N). So in any of the runoffs, if you've already gotten one of your picks, you count for 1/2, if you've gotten 2 picks, you count for 1/3, etc

[@justineberlein5916]

@Sc0ut op Well for one, STV isn't monotonic, which in my opinion, is about the most basic requirement beyond not being FPTP. In more contrived cases, I can set up elections where a candidate *can* win, but not if they exactly match the center of public opinion. But even in things that don't look like I'm specifically making the election weird to shame STV, I can set up elections like "4 candidates in a square on the political compass" which are so intuitive that even FPTP gets it right, but where STV fails

[@justineberlein5916]

@Sc0ut op If you have four candidates in a square and assume everyone does a total ranking based on distince, there's actually a square where the FPTP winner drops to last place in the first runoff, because the first loser was so diametrically opposed to them that none of first loser's voters had the FPTP winner as a second choice

[@anonym3]

@@justineberlein5916 *distance

[@EliwSain]

Dante, Watch at 3:20. 3rd Party Voters make a strategic vote for the range candidate to try and get a semi-closely aligned candidate on council from their range. The 2nd vote allows for 3rd Party voters to vote for their 3rd party so that they (if they can make a large enough population) get one candidate on. Combining MMP with AV helps empower a multi-partisan government.

[@theMosen]

This is the system we have in Germany. Thank god!

[@bobbobson5595]

moismyname a variant of this

[@alexkim878]

Isn’t this the same system that elected Hitler?

[@mrmofopink]

Alex Kim he would have been elected with any system. The problem in the first place was that the Weimar republic didn’t prohibit parties that wanted to abolish democracy. Today we have got that.

[@alexkim878]

Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold no he wouldn’t have for one reason. Voter suppression. Proportional representation pushes that your votes matter for everyone which means the extreme identity’s will no matter what get a seat even parties who want to kill democracy like the Nazi party. The political climate changes to these small extremists parties since no one will ever make a majority. And than you know it, an extremist party has power. It’s why I like FPTP better than proportional representation even with its flaws.

[@artemis_fowl44hd92]

@@alexkim878 It is much more complicated than this. For example, Hitler was never voted into power, but just got chanchellor, because Hindenburg said so. Also, this system only got implemented after WW2 Also, there is a system, that doesn't let any party into the parliament, that have under 5% of the popular votes, to make it easier to form goverments and not rely on a chancellor and an emergency system.

[@Ling74750]

That's exactly what we have in Germany :D best voting system there is

[@volundrfrey896]

+Roman74750 Absolutely the shiniest of turds.

[@SuperHipsterGamer]

+Völundr Frey Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. - Churchill at the commons

[@volundrfrey896]

Snobby Gamer The point of my comment was that the concept of a government is the turd. But if a former prime minister thinks governments are necessary then that has to be true.

[@SuperHipsterGamer]

Völundr Frey Sure. Give me a call, when an alternative exist.

[@volundrfrey896]

Snobby Gamer anarchism.

[@friederkumpf]

Thats the German System isnt it?

[@SimonS44]

It is with the exception that in Germany there is the Fünf-Prozent-Hürde

[@friederkumpf]

yep... love the german election system*-*

[@Inyokus]

No, it isn't. In Germany, all seats in the parliament are distributed via proportional election (the second vote or "Zweitstimme"), not just half of them.

[@Inyokus]

SimonHellinger Nice chart, but is that an addendum or a correction? If it is the latter, I don't see were it proves me wrong, frankly.

[@SimonS44]

Inyokus It's a correction, if you think that there are no seats in parliament which are distributed by the Erststimme, even though there are some.

[@hardleecure]

We should do this in Canada. Scrap the senate and switch to MMP.

[@RileyDaBozz]

Canada eh?

[@hardleecure]

Riley Da Bozz Yep. Seems better than what we have. Dunno why we have a senate to begin with since we have a parliament. At least this way we'll have better representation and the unelected senators could potentially be elected indirectly through the MMP system.

[@RileyDaBozz]

I'm not to sure what voting system New Zealand because I'm too young XD

[@christianisbister9839]

hardleecure damn straight!

[@CANADAWOOOOOOOOO]

hardleecure yesss. abolish the senate and reform the voting system. Although, I'm more in favour of a STV voting system. FPTP has made mr. harper get elected since 2006....vast majority of Canadians do not support his backwards ass...On the other hand, 60% of Canadians eligible to vote...did not. Canada's biggest problem is lack of voting, not vote splitting. We need to encourage more people to vote, especially young people that generally support parties like the NDP that could potentially remove the harper government. Right now, Canada is being represented by around 7 million people out of 35 million...This needs to be fixed.

[@RealLimerickman]

Ire have a different system. It is called STV Single Transferable vote. At the polling booth you are given a list of names (candidates and party). A consitinity may be a 3 seater, or 4 seater or 5 seater representive. You get larger electoral areas as a result. You the voter write in numerical 1 to 7 for example you preferable order. The complication of talling up the vote comes during the count. It can takes days depending on the number of candidates and the spread of votes. There are rules at count. The number of 1 votes is counted first and the electoral area have a quota of votes to be elected. If a candidate reached the required quota of votes, then they are deemed elected to the seat, their surplus vote is statistically counted for the number 2 to transfer to the next candidates to reach the quota and the process is repeated. If no candidate reaches the required quota in the next round, then they are their vote is redistributed depending on the voter next preferences. There are spoilt votes and no transferable votes, which adds to the fun and intrigue. I was at a count many years ago, and seen for myself the tensions of candidates voters who over see the counting of the votes, the arguments over what is a spoilt votes. I have even witness two candidates fighting for the last seat and only hours before were supporting each other as they were in the same party and the votes were so close that lawyers were called in and instead of statistical counting, all votes were recounted from all candidates and spoilt votes reexamined and it when on for days. There were two electoral areas been counted in the same venue one was a 5 seat area and the count and election was completed in 24 hours and that count went smoothly, as their was a clear choice, but the other area was a 3 seater and the first two were easily filled but the last seat took over 5 days to fill out over a few votes that every vote had to be reexamined. The election count is like any sport with full range of emotions. The tribal menality comes to the fore at elections as their is currently right now in Ireland. There is joy, surprise and dismay. If you can get into an irish election count centre, it is worth it to see the range of mayhem of candidates and their supporters, especially when the returning officer announcing the round of votes counts and deams who is elected and who is disqualified due to lack of votes to stay for the next round of counting or who fails to reach the quota. There is one occasion where the candidate is deem elected without reaching the quota. It happens when two canidatates are left to fill the last seat of the electoral area, but recieve no transferable vote from other elected or disqualified candidates from previous rounds of counting. The candidate with the highest number of votes is deem elected, as the quota to be deemed elected is set on the number of number 1 votes divided the number of seats in that electoral area.

[@TheWolfHowling]

You have no idea how important those extra seats that aren't held by the two big parties are. Right now, the party in power actually doesn't hold a stand alone majority and is reliant on a coalition with 2 'party of one' member, who won their electoral seats but their party did not have a large enough share of the vote to get in additional members, to maintain their majority. However, One main problem with MMP, at least here in NZ, is the act of coat tail riding, which happens when a party does not achieve the minimum threshold of the party vote to be assigned seats but has a member that wins an electoral seat, which will give them additional seats in relation to their share of the party vote. An example of this was in the 2008 election where one party only had about 3.6% of the party vote but their leader won an electorate, giving the party a total of 5 seats.

[@Scoinsoffaterocks]

Rather than ranking them, I prefer having a score system. You give each candidate a score according to how much you like/dislike them. Then when it is done, a computer will select the configuration with the highest score. This is slightly different from Mixed-Member Proportional because because now different votes get different weights. It is also different because the people, not the party, chooses the candidates; a more direct democracy. Lets say that there are 300 M people in a nation. There are 60 districts from which 5 representatives get elected in each district. In the end there will be a total of 300 representatives. The configuration with the highest score wins. The reason 5 candidates get chosen from a district rather than only one is so that there will not be majority rule, gerrymandering is severely less effective, and most importantly, so small parties may have representatives. Say Party C is supported by 20% of the total population but does not compromise the majority in any district. By choosing 5 candidates per (much larger) districts, Party C is now able to have at least 1 representative per district resulting in ~20% of the total representatives in the House to be of that party; proportional to the % of the total population that supports them.

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

Love how you referenced New Zealand so much.

[@brg9327]

The UK needs this system ASAP.

[@brunomolinaro1286]

I thought this sounded familiar… Turns out, Germany has been using MMP for quite a while! Feeling pretty great right now

[@Piwde]

The flaw with MMP that I can see it that you would risk losing your favourite representative's seat because your safety vote put your 2nd choice above them, so you would need a mix of MMP and Alt vote for it to be really fair.

[@antifa8907]

Wow never think of that, using Alternative Vote for constituency voting and MMP for the proportional representation would be a near perfect electoral system

[@slavathecar]

I love the office space reference at 2:45, so smooth and subtle :)

[@f4tornado450]

2:55 You should make a video on Schulze, the wikipedia article is extremely confusing.

[@qxtr5853]

Here in Germany MMP is used.

[@JaredHardy]

I've been thinking about this in regard to the US legislatures. I think we could cut the district count in half by doubling the populations per district, and then allocate the other half using the proportional representation described here. This would work for both our House and Senate, as most States have at least two representatives per legislature, except for a few States in the House which would not be too much to add there.

[@leggycleggyweggy4600]

I just realised why you called it kiwi island, you crafty KZbinr you

[@firexgodx980]

Why wouldn't you just eliminate voting for people directly and just vote for the party itself? It's the same outcome.

[@Tsuyara]

It's to retain "local representatives". Yeah in current day, most probably don't care, but it's a minor benefit for those who do.

[@odigital-4815]

Out of all the voting systems you've showcased I have to say this is my favourite

[@thepoliticalloser]

To make it the most fair, you need to make it a mix between preferential voting and MMP.

[@singmealovesong4]

I like how the final results actually reflect what people want and it eliminates many problems with FPTP such as gerrymandering. Hi ms stolte

[@callumhill6382]

It's funny that I've been watching this channel for the last 3 three years or so and I would have watched the video on fptp, stv, etc and I never knew about this video until now which just so happens to be quite useful for me since I'm now of age to vote and my country just so happens to use MMP. Thank you CGP Grey

[@MrWowyourcooll]

In the Netherlands the voting system is even less complicated. There are no separate regions to vote from. In the council there are 150 seats. When all votes are counted, the percentage of the votes a party has is being shared among the 150 seats. For example, the horse party has 19% of the votes, the cow party has 45% of the votes, the sheep party has 26% of the votes and the rabbit party has 10% of the votes. Each party is then represented in the number of seats they have, which means the party with more votes and thus more seats has a greater influence than the lesser parties, while they still count as well. Horse has 29 seats, cow has 67 seats, sheep has 39 seats and rabbit has 15 seats. Cows are in the majority but the rabbits still have something to say.

[@aukemeijer1762]

Granny Knit we are so incredibly lucky with our voting system.

[@lhaviland8602]

The Netherlands is a small and fairly homogeneous country though. In the US, Idaho and Massachusetts (for example) are so different that having some form of local representation is important.

[@WakeAndBakeBeats]

2:45 Office Space reference

[@Jacob-W-5570]

why not abolish the 'local representitive' at all? we don't have that in the Netherlands. just the vote for your political party part. and more votes means more seats in parlement. % of seats is equal to % of votes, or as best as possible because number of seats isn't equal to number of votes.

[@ArgoIo]

Splinter5570 This might not be a Problem for a small country, but in case of one of the size of Germany, one may run into a couple of problems. One of them is the problem of representation. What if a party, which has not a single representative in a large rural area of the country but is caried by a respectable amount of voters in a couple of cities? These people living in rural Areas would probably feel neglacted.

[@michaeltsui3435]

Lorenz Zahn Abolish the 5% limit and you will see parties pandering to Pomeranian farmers.

[@ajuk1]

Splinter5570 Netherlands system extremely proportional to parties but there is no local representation and seems to result in the kind of mish mashed mess opponents of PR often allude to, being strictly proportional might be good if election were all about parties, but it's not exactly representative. It can take months to form a government after the election and often they don't last for example in the Dutch general election of 1977 Labour got 33.8% plurality of the vote which was considered a "landslide" by Dutch standards, but ended up not being in government at all. I very much doubt that would have happened under STV.

[@ArgoIo]

kiysiy That is correct. Half of seats in the parliaments are filled up according to the second vote. Nonetheless, one is guaranteed to have at least one local representative.

[@michaeltsui3435]

kiysiy German MMP is basically giving two votes to everyone. One is "a local representative I would like to see in", and the other vote essentially when aggregated "what we want the Parliament to look like". Of course, the clip shows an extreme case. Due to the multiple winner system the depicted two party regime will collapse into a multiparty system, so in the next election you will expect more colour.

[@rabidL3M0NS]

yay! new Zealand!

[@atztex]

kakapo woooo!

[@BirbBoiYT]

I'm sad that the Kakapo is the smallest party because ever since I did a research project on them, they've become one of my favorite birds ever.

[@WhaiJay]

2:55 Alright, i now command you to explain the Schulze system.

[@sloopfan3706]

I think in America we should elect our House of Representatives through proportional representation, and elect our Senate the way we do now, except with instant runoff voting.

[@professorcube5104]

no no no, senate should be stv, and house using this system

[@sonjakassanci3063]

@CGP Grey -- Your "politics in the animal kingdom" series has made writing my university papers so much easier.

[@CDawesy]

Canada needs this

[@ginch8300]

So badly.

[@theshyguitarist4536]

Yep, my home country of Scotland uses a related variation of this method for its devolved parliament, and it's substantially better than the Westminster first past the post system. I think, if given the choice, I would prefer the single transferable vote system, but I'm still content that we have a system which is at least designed to allow for greater proportional representation.

[@Jasondfilms]

As a New Zealander i'm very impressed with your knowledge cgp grey

[@matthewkiely2516]

Is Schulze an actual thing? I now desperately want a video on Schulze

[@LeGrimReaper]

You rank candidates, the candidate with the most "1" ranks wins.

[@rudy_4ier]

+LeGrim Reaper but that's plurarity vote, no?

[@nathanschubert3048]

yeah I was wondering about schulze too.

[@LeGrimReaper]

chuhrros Oh sorry, I confused Schulze with something else. It's hard to explain Schulze method without writing paragraphs so I'm just going to give an example. So using animals let's say they have an election. The candidates are dog, cat, mouse,and lion. The results are this: *3 ballots ranked: Dog first, Cat second, Mouse third, Lion 4th *2 ballots ranked Lion first, Dog first, Cat third, Mouse fourth. *2 ballots ranked Lion first, Cat second, Mouse third, Dog 4th. *2 ballots ranked Mouse first, Cat second, Lion first, Dog last. Dog ranks higher than cat in 5 ballots, Dog ranks higher than Mouse in 5 ballots, ranks higher than Lion in 3 ballots. Cat ranks higher than dog on 3 ballots, Cat ranks higher than mouse 7 ballots, Cat ranks higher than lion in 5 ballots. Mouse ranks higher than dog in 4 ballots, Mouse ranks higher than cat on 2, Mouse ranks higher than lion on 5 ballots. Lion ranks higher than dog on 6 ballots, Lion ranks higher than Cat on 4 ballots, lion ranks higher than mouse on 4 ballots. Points are counted based on how many times that candidate ranked higher than another candidate. Dog has 13 points, cat has 16 points, Mouse has 11 points, Lion has 14 points. Therefore Cat is the winner since he received more high ranking votes.

[@LeGrimReaper]

chuhrros Actually I can explain briefly. Candidates are ranked and every time a candidate is ranked higher than another candidate they are given a point. The candidate with the most points wins the election. This system focuses on having candidates that we can live with rather than focusing on which candidate can gain the majority.

[@tdawgmaster1729]

This is what we need in the USA

[@pitri_hub]

It looks like this system is already used in Germany. Either it's exactly that or extremely similar.

[@paxpacis2]

As german I can confirm that this is exactly the system we use. Though parties have to get past a 5% boundary, otherwise they won't get a seat. A party with only 1% of the seats won't get a seat. Because the obvious disadvantage is that if there's too many parties in the parliament there is no real rule and the government can't decide things.

[@Renuclous]

*5% OR the party wins at least 3 federal states with the direct mandates of the first vote. The other difference as far as i know is that the secondary "party list" votes are added up nationwide before assigning the seats.

[@10tmoore]

It is kinda similar to us. The reason you only see Democrat's vs Republicans at debates is because a party has to have at least 5% of the previous term's vote, which is an impossible to gain because they cannot be at a debate.

[@Daddy_Skeletor]

+Pitri - Hub in germany the parliament git a 5% hurdle and "Überhangmandate" (over hang mandates or domething like that^^) but in fact it is the same

[@theUtubemaestro1]

thanks. i studied politics at school in the uk (20 years ago) i remembered that PR is better but I couldn't work out how it would work with local constituencies. this explains it perfectly.

[@geekcast1250]

I just realized that Queen Lion isn't even elected and essentially has absolute power over her entire kingdom. I mean how else is she able to make all these changes without any problems. Has no one else realized this.

[@courtneyhorny261]

WHO ELSE LOVES THIS CHANNEL !!!

[@StudioWiklund]

Why would it promote extremist parties more than others? We can vote directly for representatives in Sweden if we want to, after voting for a party of course, and the country isn't run by extremists.

[@DaDunge]

3:05 There's a fix for that, personal voting, you can circle a name on you ballot and your ballot will count that name as being on the top of the list.

[@WanukeX]

Fredrik Dunge more Commonly called Open List but yes this

[@BidnessGoose]

I dont really like this system as much as STV because of the fact that it is more about the party rather than the individual

[@owlblocksdavid4955]

I like that idea, although allowing for favoring certain candidates (like the Netherlands) would make party list better. I voted for the first time, and they were all "non-partisan" candidates for local elections. I had no idea what any of them stood for.

[@korytoombs886]

Note, you could still run as a independent candidate under the first way to get into the government. But is does force people to choose a party for the other seats.

[@HotCoals]

2:56 It should be noted that this particular aspect is only found in the Closed-List form of MMP. Under an Open-List MMP, voters also vote on their favourite candidate on the party list, giving less control to party leaders.

[@lhaviland8602]

That's a lot of work/ research for voters to do if there's 10+ list candidates though...

[@lhaviland8602]

US political parties would never allow open list though...

[@vidgami46]

Can't say I'm sold because with this system you're more voting for a party, not a person, and parties tend to screw things up when you give them too much power.

[@gnaskar]

Interestingly, I'm not sold for the exact opposite reason: Half the council is made up of people elected because people wanted them personally, rather than as representatives of a party program. In the system I'm used to, you vote for a party rather than individuals. The party's prefered list of candidates is written on the ballot however, and voters are free to strike candidates they don't like, reorder the candidates or write in others as they please. In practice, so few people do this that it has no effect, and the parties get representatives in the order they've decided. The results is that representatives who have (what I as a voter consider) stupid personal views have incentive to stick with the party line rather than their own stupidity. Combine that with a system where I have 8 main parties to choose from, and around 4-6 minor parties with a chance of getting a post on the council. I can vote responsibly by simply picking up 8 to 14 documents and read through the policies of each party, rather than having to read up on (say 5 candidates per party) 40-70 people. Every party uses the same format for their policy document too, which means I can directly compare them on the issues I most care about

[@vidgami46]

gnaskar I admit you make a good argument. I guess I'm used to the US system, where two republicans can be entirely different. With much more parties, it's much more likely that there's a party that more closely resembles my politic, and if candidates stick to party lines, then his personality only matters in trying to persuade other politicians... Still not perfect, but easily and by far better than the US system.

[@TulipQ]

Parties already have stupid amounts of power. In the two party system that first past the post tries to push people towards two enormous parties become the forces that control the entire government from the local to the national level.

[@Quintinohthree]

@@gnaskar Damn, 8-14 parties? I usually take a test to see how my preferences align this time around, pick a top 3-5 I may want to vote for, maybe read 1-3 platforms, and go to the polls not knowing which candidate to vote for and judging that by their position on the list and place of residence noted on the ballot (I usually vote for a candidate just beyond the number of seats I think my party will get from a place near me, because my region is underrepresented).

[@Mallory-Malkovich]

I especially liked the _Office Space_ reference.

[@sensibleb]

+Osiris Malkovich Hello, Osiris. Whaaat's happening. _yyyyyyeaaahh_... I'm going to need you to go ahead and provide proportional parliamentary representation for everyone, mmkay? Yeah, that would be _great_. And I'll make sure you get another copy of that memo.

[@cariboowho]

You're not alone, my friend.

[@mrshy532]

Yea

[@pmitt4equality555]

There are several types of MMP. Jenkins-inspired Additional Member System (Scotland), Open-List and Baden-Württemburg (from the state of Baden-Württemburg in Germany) as well. In MMP, you don't have to change the number of total seats. You could just make 1/2 of the seats constituency seats (FPTP), and the other 1/2 Proportional seats (List/Top-Up)

[@mihailazar2487]

01:16 Blender font spotted

[@q1w2e3621]

Shout out to New Zealand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@wouterlahousse9637]

Isn't it a maior flaw in this system that the small percentage of Kakapo voters can change half of the representation from Tuatara to Kea in the first election round?

[@robertjarman3703]

That might deprive Tuatara of their constituency seats but that would still net them four or five list seats, they will just be the group that is most underrepresented and thus gets the first several list seats.

[@gobarbiego1]

i had an essay due on this and this is probably the most helpful thing i have seen on MMP

[@yat282]

I like this system. Better than ours anyway

[@ThisIsMego]

***** Put in a cutoff. If the party gets less than - let's say - 3% those votes don't get counted. You'll be left with a small hand full of parties that can still properly govern and most of the nut jobs don't have the numbers. Works relatively well in Germany. (Then again, we DID have to learn that the hard way)

[@Quintinohthree]

@@ThisIsMego A threshold is inherently unrepresentative though. If you really want a 5% threshold, you can have it with an election for only 20 seats. 33 seats creates a 3% threshold, 50 seats a 2% threshold.

[@liamsmith331]

A parliamentary system is also somewhat similar in that your party is represented and has a proportional amount of power even if it is a minor party, rather than just the party with a majority vote, this means that parties have to collaborate and compromise with other parties in order to get things done.

[@anthonydavis5826]

This would require a constitutional amendment to implement in the U.S. (which given what would be required for that to occur, means it will probably never happen) but I have to admit, it would be a much fairer way of electing our leaders than that which we presently have. However, it would only improve things in Congress…the current problems with how we elect our president would still remain. Really it works better in parliamentary systems than presidential ones. And while it may be the case that we basically have a king in practice now with how grossly exaggerated presidential power has become, I’d rather not actually make it official.

[@Sennahoj_DE_RLP]

Than you should make an new constitution

[@luckasfrigo]

Hello, would you mind if I dub this series of videos to portuguese? Brazilian people current need this kind of information right now. And we need an easy metaphor such as this one to really understand things.

[@chatokun5655]

+Luckas Frigo Grey doesn't view comments on youtube much, if at all, but he does view his reddit, www.reddit.com/r/CGPGrey. However, keep in mind that while Grey is happily giving out knowledge, this is his main source of income as well. If the views are not coming into his channel for content he made, he isn't receiving anything for the time he put into it, and may not be able to continue to put out free content like he can under this system. While he has some other income methods setup (Patreon allows people to donate to him per video) there are still costs and simple cost of living, as he doesn't do secular work in order to do more videos, and the Patreon isn't enough on its own.

[@pitri_hub]

I guess, offering help for portugese subtitles would help both. It adds the possibility to understand the video and the views will still go to the person who put the most work into the video.

[@iustinianconstantinescu5498]

The Canadian Liberals are not centrist. They're leftist. The NDP is just extra leftist.

[@aravindkm2012]

I like how simple it is so the politicians can understand it better

[@BlakeHardeman]

Could this work with America's congress?

[@heretolevitateme]

+Blake H.By amendment, sure. Just double the number of seats in the House.

[@smooooth_]

+heretolevitateme but would it be still worth it considering we only have two parties and not enough politicians in generals in the other third parties

[@kevinbartlett33]

alternative vote would be a great first step for the US.

[@Zwooxy]

+Smooooth I believe it's quite fair to say that a lot of the politicians in the two main parties are part of those parties because of an utter lack of other viable options. They are simply way more likely to be heard in the main ones. With a third and fourth party being viable, you would most likely also see some politicians change their allegiance over time, and new politicians avoiding the two main ones altogether.

[@smooooth_]

Zwooxy This years election is an interesting one because both parties are hosting candidates that could possibly split the parties. The democratic party is currently split between the more center-left Clinton, and Sanders who is a lot more liberal/left, and the republican party is split between the ultra-conservative Trump supporters and the rest of the conservatives who hate trump, as well as the even less-conservative republicans. It would be really interesting to see if the parties break apart.

[@ShivanshPlays1]

US should adopt this system, like germany has it, new zealand has it, so US should have it

[@koenvanwijk2121]

The more video's about election you made I watch, the more I am convinced that my country, The Netherlands, has its shit together.

[@jesusthroughmary]

2:35 Office Space ftw

[@illogicalGhost]

So, do any real world countries work this way? If so, how many?

[@owenmcardle6414]

Wales and Scotland use it for their assembly elections, Germany and NZ use this, and I'm sure others do that I don't know about.

[@jacklovejoy5290]

Owen McArdle and Northern Ireland

[@jacklovejoy5290]

There are quite a few who use one form of PR or another, look at wikipedia page for Proportional Representation: Australia India New Zealand Malta Uruguay Russia Netherlands Finland Latvia Sweden Lesotho Mexico Bolivia Ireland Israel Democratic Republic of the Congo (which is a Democracy, some times) Brazil

[@pstubington]

New Zealand, Germany (slightly modified since you have to pass a threshold to get MPs) and in the UK its used for the Welsh, Scottish and London Parliaments/assemblies.

[@ahcoll]

Perú too

[@malwaremachine4768]

surely in reality the two smaller parties would co-operate to oppose the government, meaning now no decisions can be made efficiently, because no-one in parliament has a majority? its just a hung parliament between a tuatara government and a kea and kakapo opposition?

[@danteyumyentong]

um... excuse me, but why do we need a 2nd vote for MMP? Couldn't we set the proportion of members according to the 1st vote to save time and $$?

[@Quintinohthree]

I know I'm 5 years late, but no. They are very different votes. One is made under FPTP, the other under Party List Proportional. They need to be handled separately.

[@Bortasz]

Cp grey. But what with independent people who are not in parties?

[@K-o-R]

***** Maybe they are essentially their own party?

[@emilcarr7190]

***** He said that this kind of system requires parties, but I think non-parties would still be able to win the local seat.

[@SantomPh]

Independents should form a party with themselves at the top of the list. This system requires groups and lists.

[@jamescarter5340]

SantomPh we have mmp in new zealand. independents can run for local seats but do not appear on the party vote list

[@betongitarre]

***** Same in Germany. You can give your first vote to an independent representative. The second vote is for a partie. Even when your not in a party, you could form a group in the parliament. That almost never happens, because most voters don't know any of the (independent) local politicians and go for their parties in the first vote too.

[@louisayers3477]

I think that the MMP system is the best out of the 3 that you showed in "The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained video" but instead of having 2 votes, I think you should put the parties in order from best to worst liked when you toll (like your "The Alternative Vote Explained" video).

[@TheLonleyBiped]

Why not have it where if you got half the votes, you get half the seats, and base it off of percents?

[@sldfnslkxxlk]

"The citizens like having local representatives" is why: you vote for a candidate in your local area who will (hopefully) represent your interests. The parties are so dominant in most democracies though that maybe dumping the idea of "local representatives" at the national level would be viable, but I'd expect a lot of opposition from traditionalists who don't want some random person or people they've never heard of being "their voice".

[@Magic_beans_]

sldfnslkxxlk That's the one big drawback to MMP; half of the members are accountable not to the fine people of District 5, but to the Kea Party. That's already somewhat the case, but the citizens of District 5 have direct recourse if they don't like the representative's behavior.

[@ShadowFalcon]

Well that's how the Proportional Representation method works in most European countries (that I'm aware of). It is the way it's done here in Denmark (both for local County councils, and for the Parliament). I usually vote for Liberal Alliance which is a quite small Right-Wing party. It doesn't have the chance of being the governing party (yet), but with my vote it has 5% of the votes in Denmark and therefore gets 9 seats in the 179 seat large parliament to represent my opinion. To get a seat you need a minimum of 2% of the votes.

[@ТомасАндерсон-в1е]

And tuatara still has full control of the parliament LUL

[@peterjumper881]

With 5-4-1 split and the 3rd party liking their opponents more, a tuatara action could be blocked if the 2nd and 3rd party did not agree with it, in a 5 vs. 5 vote. Basically, any measure would require the consent of at least one member from the opposing parties to break the tie into a 6 vs. 4 split instead.

[@SignumInterriti]

We do this in Germany, old election ads even said "vote list 1!" Instead of "vote Party A!"

[@M2dIKE]

YAY NEW ZEALAND!!!!

[@samabizzle]

Great series. It seems that CGP Grey is very biased towards having an MMP system, not that I blame him, I mean he explained it very well its just that I'm sure this system will have some kind of flaw that I'm just not seeing...thoughts anyone?

[@Iithuanianboy]

Yes it does have flaws. One thing it can do is encourage small splinter or single-issue parties to form. In countries like Canada or the UK with regional divides, it will strongly encourage regional parties to form. It can, but does not always, result in a divided and unstable legislature/government. Regionalism/divisiveness can be encouraged my first-past-the-post, but it is an intrinsic feature of MMP.

[@mariodelahozschilling3596]

UK would not be an example of MMP, but a majoritarian system, where the winner of each district goes to parliament, as is shown in the example of the island, where 51% of the island goes unrepresented. Germany would be a precise example of MMP, where half the seats of the national parliament are taken by representatives of the districts and the other half by proportional votes to the individual parties (unless you get less than 5% of the votes). The flaw is that the government, most of the times, needs to form coalitions to govern, which are not always stable and might lead the cabinet to collapse, so that re-elections have to take place. In the Netherlands, for instance, 100% of the seats in the parliament are filled by proportional representation (with no 5% rule!!!!), so that there have been several cases already of early re-elections. However, I believe that these multi-party systems, despite weaker effectiveness, are truer democracies and can often be admired when you see cooperation amongst parties you wouldn't expect to see, such as labor and conservative, to form a cabinet and find common goals.

[@Tanju132]

The flaw is probably that the system makes political parties mandatory, so it might undermine independent candidates, I'm not sure so please correct me.

[@mariodelahozschilling3596]

What exactly do you mean with independent candidates? New parties are free to be set up and join elections, the lists here can be up to 60-70 parties to chose from sometimes. Most don't make it, of course. Regarding alternatives to political parties, I recently had a politics lecture where that question was raised and one possible alternative were 'think tanks'. They showed the example of Chile, where the president Bachelet gathered top-scholars and created the think tank called 'Expansiva' to help take decisions based on expert knowledge in all kind of fields.

[@WaterMelonFan1]

Mario de la Hoz Schilling Germany is in fact a little bit different from the system described in the cid. Our "Bundestag" (and the parliaments of the federal states) does mostly consist of "Listenabgeordneten", that means second vote elected represantatives. Every party gets as much seats as it got second votes in germany (this is only blurred through the election threshold). The first vote only determines who is going to sit in parliament, it has no influence at all on the overall seat distribution.

[@thepip3599]

WHOO! Kakapo!! I'd vote for you! You are so awesome! Kakapos are probably the most innocent animals ever. They are incapable of really understanding the concept of something wanting to hurt them, so when faced with a predictor, they just stand there looking confused. Needless to say, they are very endangered. They need saving. Also the kiwi, but a kiwi can kick a cat to death if necessary, so they don't need as much help.

[@TJackson736]

How does this keep regional representation? With the parties choosing the elected officials, how is regional representation preserved?

[@EnricoDandolo1204]

Hans Solo Zimmler Half the representatives in the chamber are locally elected (in this example, all the Tuatara MPs). For instance, Party A's representatives win 5 seats directly (first vote) and those of Party B and C don't. The chamber's size is doubled and the seats adjusted according to the second vote results to make it proportional.

[@TJackson736]

So, it doesn't keep complete local representation, then.

[@EnricoDandolo1204]

Hans Solo Zimmler Not sure how you mean that -- everyone still has a constituency and a local MP. If you mean that not every MP is locally-elected, then yes, that's true. Look at Germany's Bundestag elections for an example of how it works in practise, on a large scale. E.g. Angela Merkel is locally elected in a constituency (but also heads her party's list -- if she'd failed to carry her home constituency, she'd have been virtually guaranteed a seat that way), whereas certain other party leaders weren't and sit in Parliament via the proportional lists.

[@TJackson736]

Enrico Dandolo When the extra politicians are to be elected, they use the party list and not local elections. This means that it isn't local representation, as someone like Merkel will always get elected.

[@EnricoDandolo1204]

Hans Solo Zimmler It is still local representation because every citizen still has a local representative, elected in their constituency. It's just that not all MPs enter parliament that way. I don't really see the problem, tbh.

[@BegbertBiggs]

Yay Germany!

[@adamokolicsanyi4774]

1. Lumbergh 2. Milton 3. Peter 4. Samir 5. Michael .... I love you, man

[@Sc2mapper117]

The only concern I can see would be that if too many different parties got seats, nobody would ever get anything done because there's too many voices/options. That, and it opens the door to really minor extremist parties/groups (say, if the KKK wanted to grab a seat or two in the US Congress)

[@usernamespyre]

The way NZ gets around really minor parties is that they must win either an electorate, OR at least 5% of the total vote to get a seat. This for the most part solves the two issues you presented.

[@Lijmstift]

If there are people who want to be represented by the KKK party, then the KKK party should have a seat or two in congress. Minority parties like that wouldn't be able to get anti-black laws or anything else the majority of US citizens don't agree with. Parties like that usually don't have enough support to get a seat, though (or at least that hasn't happened in The Netherlands, which has a prty list proportional representation system).

[@Solumno]

this is one ofthe reasons why the nazi party did suceed in 1933 and led to the well known third reich. to prevent this to happen ever again (atleast here in Germany) all partys need to have atleast 5% of all votes which causes for example the fascist to stay out.

[@DoubleBob]

Solumno you seem ignorant of history. The NSDAP had 44% of votes in the 1933 elections.

[@Solumno]

FernestHall they had 44% because the people were dissapointed by the "normal" parties. Those were splitted in many different parties which led to not a big opposition. To get rid of that mess, the politicians decided in 1949 to make that law and help cleaning up the Bundestag.

[@sleepysteev2735]

Queen Lion is the leader we need. Always seeking to improve her democracy.

[@AriaLunaCampbell]

This just seems incredibly sensible along with the concept of the alternate vote. It might cement the existence of parties as a part of the system, which I can understand bothering many people and making them wary, but by actively destabilizing the powers that be by making more options clearly available and weakening just how much power a single party has makes it so that those parties will have to more actively represent what the people want or their power won't last for long. Combine this with reform to the problem of money in politics and it becomes much more of a battle of ideals and the wants of the people rather than a battle of the donors. It may not be perfect but it is far more sensible and meaningful than the status quo. Excellent video.

[@displacerkatsidhe]

I literally just realized that all the Kea party members are the cast of Office Space. Well played CPG, well played.

[@shadowwalker23901]

This is the video that got me to subscribe to CGP, and until you mentioned it, I never noticed.. at 2:38 the party list is all Office Space www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/

[@ari54x]

+Aviel Menter: You're right that the party vote is far more relevant, and is normally how representatives are determined. However, the electoral vote is there for a few reasons: so that you can choose who represents you locally- to do things like advocating for industries or government projects that are situated in that area of the country, having an MP to write to about local issues, and just as a way of changing up the lists so that polical parties aren't entirely in control of who ends up in Parliament from their number. If you ditched the electorate vote, you'd have an Open List or Closed List proportional system. Also, there are situations that are a bit more complicated than this video suggests initially, for instance, sometimes you have an independent MP win an electorate with no party- in that case, one list seat is subtracted from the algorithm that determines how seats are allocated. Or if you have a party that wins more electorate seats than it's entitled to with its share of the vote- in which case the difference is added to the number of seats in Parliament and you have an "overhang." With a significant amount of overhang seats you suddenly have a parliament where the balance of power can hang on electorate results once again. Finally, most MMP systems have some sort of threshold on how much of the party vote a party has to win to start getting seats- however, you can always win electorates, and currently, I believe all MMP countries abandon their thresholds once you win an electorate seat. So for parties smaller than the threshold, (5% in Germany and New Zealand) securing an electorate seat is their lifeline to Parliament.

[@SpaceGuru5]

My poli sci professor showed this to our class today.

[@pickletoast3599]

3:04 the names on the list are all characters from the movie "office space"

[@eopujvrswg]

I remember the referendum that gave us mixed member proportional voting back in '86. I voted for FPP because sicne World War 2 the rural and the country parts of New Zealand have been abandoned by Globalism shifting our jobs to the big cities like ChCh, Wlg and Akl. I want the regions (that had and still does have more people in it than those 3 cities by the way) to have more say in our affairs. They claimed they would keep the electorates (hint, they didn't. They merged a lot of them into much larger ones.) so that was what won some people over but ti didn't win over me. I am proud to say I was spot on.

[@robertjarman3703]

New Zealand had 99 electorates before and now has 73. Any electorate is at most 136% of the size it was before. Any electorate has the same number of people in it as any other electorate, and so if a region has X% of the people, it will still have that percentage of the electorates.

[@specialspencer69]

Great explanation! Thanks! Also, thank you for using the office space characters as the Kea party names. That was awesome!

[@cjayem013]

loved the series!