This house believes that proportional representation should replace Plurality systems

"I think my opponent's response comes down to a simple statement: "Well what would be the alternative? ""Damn, I must have messed something up I was aiming for "Plurality systems equate to one man=one vote""In Plurality systems, the conservatives would get 1 seat, and therefore have only 40% of the population represented by the party they voted for. In contrast, in STV the conservatives would get 2 seats, labour would get 1 seat, and Lib Dems would get 1 seat. "So now we have 4 people running 1 position? You cant have 4 mayors or 4 congressmen to a single district who all disagree ideologically because the whole point of the election is to pick one person to represent a place and picking 4 people who all disagree on how to handle a situation would cause chaos over minor issues. Nothing would get done"STV doesn't take away the right to not vote, it grants you the right to keep voting. "Yea, it allows some people to vote more than others. .. "If there were 3 seats up for grabs, then Mark would get a seat, Paul would get a seat, and Luke would get a seat, which would mean that no-one's vote is wasted"You cant just add seats to a position where an election was designed to fill just ONE spot though. "look at the American voting seats: all republican or democrats. It's nearly impossible for a minority party to get into a position of power. "Well theres a good reason for that, and its because people identify more with Republicans, Democrats, or a moderate combination of the two ideologies more than independent parties do. .. . Plurality systems allow independent parties to run but if those independent parties are fringe groups who are poor at campaigning then the fault of why they didnt win lies in their strategy, not in the system of voting that still gave them the chance. .. ." someone always wins. Is this fair though? Is it fair that, in a democracy, the minority rule, not the majority? "When it comes down to a SINGLE seat in an election where nobody has more than 50% of the vote, then yeah you just have to make due. You can pick the person who represents 40% of the vote, 30% of the vote, 20% of the vote, or 10% of the vote. .. . The democratic thing to do when there is only ONE seat to fill is to pick the person who represents the population the best compared to everyone else, that would be the person who gets the most votes, who would be the one with 40%, because anyone else would be representing even LESS of the population, and THAT is rule by the minority. "independents are unfairly discriminated against, as major parties can easily dominate them, and force them out of the running. Examples of this is simply by looking at how many seats independents get. "Have you seen the independent parties in the US alone? You have the Democratic Socialist party, the Communist party, the Nazi Party, etc who from the get-go dont appeal to a lot of people to begin with. Then you have Libertarians and their kind who do appeal to people but cannot get the funding or strategy to actually win. Its not a matter of they CANT win, its that they simply dont know HOW to win. "Lib Dems aren't popular for their ideology: they're popular purely because people don't like the two major parties. "1) Well that sort of explains why they dont have much support 2) Being popular is one thing but if you cant organize and campaign effectively to win the election then blame the party not the system. "Minority parties are disriminated against in the plurality system, and not given fair representation. "Minority parties arent kept off the ballot because the other major parties bribed or fixed the election. Minority parties dont lose elections because allegedly the system is designed against them. Minority parties lose debates becauseA) They dont appeal well to people as well as the main partiesB) They fail to campaign or fund raise properlyC) They do not have a clear cut Ideology that is unique and not comparable to any of the other two parties"Candidates are elected in America, if I remember correctly and forgive me if I am wrong, through the delegates, not the general populace"People do vote for the candidates, the delegate system is simply a tool to measure who is winning and by how much. .. There are only two scenarios where Proportional Representation can be implemented, and each has a bad downside. - 1 - Make it so that the composition of the Elected representatives are identical to the support each party has vote wise. Downside = Due to geography certain places would be forced to be represented by representatives a majority of the population does not want - 2 - Make it so that all candidates running who get enough votes ALL GET ELECTED and all of them now represent a number of people in an election designed to pick ONE person. Downside = By adding seats to have votes not get wasted you are packing the elected government with so many people that 3 or 4 people now represent a single group of people, all of those elected differ ideologically and clash over how to handle any issue. Plurality systems determines a winner to an election where more than 2 major candidates are running based on who gets the most votes. Downside = If the voting is close enough then it is possible that a candidate could win the election even though he has possibly barely under 50% of the vote. So for the final time:Proportional Representation in a fixed number of seats: A candidate could be chosen to represent a district that supported a different candidate who recieved more votes than that personProportional Representation in a non-fixed number of seats: Elections name multiple candidates winners to hold what was originally ONE position and now there are multiple people who differ ideologically on many issues holding the same position and would struggle to get anything donePlurality systems: One man gets one vote and in elections where multiple people are running a single winner is elected each time who represents the population the best, not by the majority, but by the best compared to the other candidatesPlurality systems are better because the thing about Plurality systems is that they are democratic most of the time. If someone gets 51% of the vote, another gets 25% and the third gets 24%, then thats considered Democratic, fair, and just. .. .. . However if someone gets 49% of the vote, another gets 26%, and the last one gets 25%, then suddenly according to the Pro Plurality systems becomes a system that discriminates against independent third parties and isnt democracy at all because the majority of the population isnt represented. .. .Plurality systems are the best, they fairly determine who wins an election based on how many votes they get from a popualion of people who each only get to vote one time and one time only.