Editing 661: Two-Party System

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 4: Line 4:
 
| title    = Two-Party System
 
| title    = Two-Party System
 
| image    = two_party_system.png
 
| image    = two_party_system.png
 +
| imagesize =
 
| titletext = I favor approval voting or IRV chiefly because they mean we might get to bring back The Bull Moose party.
 
| titletext = I favor approval voting or IRV chiefly because they mean we might get to bring back The Bull Moose party.
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
[[Ponytail]] is running for {{w|class president}}, but gets shouted down by Billy the Political Activist (or at least, he thinks he might become one some day). Someone on the Internet must have told Billy that all he has to know about politics is that America's two-party system is broken. Because we all know the problem with [http://cheezburger.com/4419432960 believing what you read on the Internet].
+
This girl is running for {{w|class president}}, but gets shouted down by Billy the Political Activist, or at least, he thinks he might become one one day. Someone on the Internet must have told Billy that all he has to know about politics is that America's two-party system is broken. But, you know the problem with [http://cheezburger.com/4419432960 believing what you read on the Internet].
  
The United States uses {{w|Plurality voting}}, where each voter may make one vote per office. In most democratic countries, this system tends to reinforce the top two political parties and marginalize smaller ones (such as the {{w|Bull Moose Party}}, which only lasted from 1912 to 1916) though this is greatly pronounced in the United States, where the Democratic and Republican parties have passed {{w|Third_party_(United_States)#Barriers_to_third_party_success|many barriers to entry}}, making things much more difficult for parties other than themselves to gain any traction.
+
==Transcript==
 +
[A girl stands at a podium, giving a speech.]
  
{{w|Approval voting}} (AV) and {{w|Instant-runoff voting}} (IRV) are alternative voting schemes that allow support for multiple candidates. Such systems might make it easier for 3rd parties to field viable candidates. AV is a simple extension of plurality voting where each voter "approves" as many of the candidates as they wish. The winner is the candidate with the most votes. Approval voting tends to favor moderate candidates with broad appeal. IRV is a form of {{w|Ranked voting systems|Ranked choice voting}} where a voter is allowed to select multiple choices, but must assign a rank or weight to each choice. If a candidate receives more than 50% of all 1st choice votes, they win as in a traditional election. If no candidate has a majority of 1st choice votes, the candidate with the fewest 1st choice votes is eliminated, and those 1st choice votes are replaced by their respective 2nd choice option and the resulting totals are compared for a 50%+ winner. This process is repeated until a winner is determined.
+
Girl: And if I'm elected, I'll try to fix some of these problems.
  
==Transcript==
+
Boy, off-panel: Yeah, right!
:[Ponytail stands at a podium behind a lectern, giving a speech.]
+
 
:Ponytail: And if I'm elected, I'll try to fix some of these problems.
+
[A boy in the audience is standing on his chair.]
:Billy, off-panel: Yeah, right!
+
 
 +
Boy: The REAL problem is the corporate-run two party system. Until we fix THAT, we'll have no real change!
 +
 
 +
Girl: Billy, I'm running for class president. We don't even have political parties.
  
:[A boy in the audience is standing on his chair.]
+
Boy: That's because the two-praty, uh ... estab ... uh.
:Billy: The ''real'' problem is the corporate-run two-party system. Until we fix ''that'', we'll have no real change!
 
  
:Ponytail: Billy, I'm running for class president. We don't even have political parties.
+
Girl: Billy, did you learn about politics from the internet?
:Billy: That's because the two-party, uh... estab... uh.
 
  
:Ponytail: Billy, did you learn about politics from the internet?
+
Boy: I thought that one reply was all I ever needed!
:Billy: I thought that one reply was all I ever needed!
 
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
 
[[Category:Politics]]
 

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)