Progressive activist Analilia Mejia has a razor-thin advantage over former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a special Democratic House primary, with votes still left to count.
This is a sign of a healthy race, no? More options are a good thing no matter what and lower the threshold for plurality victory. I’ll take 31% winning in a race of 11 different candidates than a 50.07% winning in a race of two.
Lots of people entering is good as a measure of democratic engagement, but lots of people in a race distorts the result of a FPTP race away from something that could reliably be declared to represent the majority. We won’t know that the person with a plurality won because they best represent of the desires of the voters or simply because an opposing ideology had more candidates and split their vote. A person with less than a third of the vote being the winner is not good democracy.
This is a sign of a healthy race, no? More options are a good thing no matter what and lower the threshold for plurality victory. I’ll take 31% winning in a race of 11 different candidates than a 50.07% winning in a race of two.
Yes and no. It’s conceptually good, but really highlights the dysfunction of FPTP.
Lots of people entering is good as a measure of democratic engagement, but lots of people in a race distorts the result of a FPTP race away from something that could reliably be declared to represent the majority. We won’t know that the person with a plurality won because they best represent of the desires of the voters or simply because an opposing ideology had more candidates and split their vote. A person with less than a third of the vote being the winner is not good democracy.