As I pointed out below, single-member districts with plurality winners tend to produce two party systems. There are some exceptions, as Chris noted on his blog yesterday. The UK has essentially the same electoral system as the US, but they have a number of smaller parties that do win seats to the House of Commons. This is owing, primarily, to regional parties that can win limited seats in their local constituencies. However, on balance, the system still has two dominant parties (indeed, it is often referred to as a “two and a half” party system).
It is not inconceivable that in the US regional parties could emerge, and indeed, third parties have been moderately (to overstate a bit) successful in Alaska (as Jeff notes in his comments to this post), where there is a very distinct political sub-culture.
Posted by Steven at August 2, 2024 09:09 AM | TrackBackThe British system ain't exactly like ours, which is why you can get small differences. The primary differences are in the geographic arrangement of representation and greater party discipline.
Posted by: John Lemon at August 2, 2024 10:04 PMIn terms of the basic electoral mechanics in the general, they are essentially the same.
Plenty of other important differences, however.
Posted by: Steven at August 2, 2024 10:10 PM