A Term Which Has Always Bugged Me

Many political junkies like to refer (usually derogatorily) to a kind of voting scheme as a "first past the post" system, thereby implying something shady and underhanded. As I understand it, this is contrasted with a proportional representational system, where voters don't get to choose a particular representative from their area to represent them, but do get to make more sure that at least the leaders of their favored party (even if it's small and kooky) get into the legislative body to make trouble.

(Close readers may have noted that my sympathies lie mostly on the other side.)

Now, to my ear, "first past the post," when applied to voting, would mean a system where the first candidate to get, for example, fifty thousand votes in a district would win that district, no matter what happens later. This is what first means -- that it happens before something else.

As far as I know, this is not actually the system in use anywhere in the known universe. "First past the post," in practice, means "winning a majority of the votes actually cast legally in that district." To my mind, that's winning.

The other alternatives -- which also include instant-runoff ballots, to encourage the indecisive and obsessive reshufflers of their "Top Six" -- all seem to be deliberately designed to encourage and succor small, radical parties that will never become broad enough to actually govern, and so will be focusing all of their energies on being spoilers or minor coalition partners.

And, to be blunt, I don't see why the designers of any political system would want to encourage parties that will never govern. The point of democratic politics is not to let people "have their voices heard," or to make them feel better about themselves -- it's to give those people a say (second-hand and limited as it is) in how their country is governed. And forcing single-issue folks to form coalitions and make compromises will give them more of the tools to be able to govern than letting them stay off in their own little dreamlands.