Yes, however much of that happened in the last 70 years. with the biggest increase happening after the assassination of JFK, and contueing into the Obama era

unless you go for proportional representation

(in the centralization of power)

which is WAYYY more centralized than first past the post

id say the biggest increase was either wilson or fdr

both of them were big government proponents that got extra leeway due to a war/depression+war

I was a fan of STV system.. where if your first choice wasn't chosen, you'd get a second vote for a backup choice.

fdr of course made most of the social programs that eat up half our budget (the rest are from lbj), and the cia

wilson made the income tax an amendment and pressured the court to allow male drafting without voting

jfk/lbj are a good third place though ill admit

Preferential voting would be really bad imo @kennith. It would basically just mean a permanent Liberal Party dictatorship, because all CPC voters would put them Libs over NDP and all NDP voters would be Libs over Cons.

And that system can actually make it harder for small parties

I do agree wit that assessment.

Like in France the National Front gets almost no seats even with 20-30% of the public supporting them

because most people dislike them

fptp is less powerful and less damaging when only house members are directly elected

FPTP appears unfair, but I think it may be.. the most fair.

its the least unfair

that's the way to word it 😎

none of them are remotely fair

something though, the us is designed for gridlock

I suppose the issue is that people get upset that the party that forms majority is not always the popular party.. (eg. trump)

ironicaly right now the system is closer to how its intended to work than it has been for deccades

but people forget that they only get a vote for their local MP.

not anything else 😛

well, thats actualy due to the citizens voting on president

i think perhaps a seperation between local representation and who takes federal power might be needed.

IIRC you get to vote on president, but the elctoral college makes the real vote?

the way it used to work is that the state govenor appointed electors confirmed by the state senate to vote for the president

but then the states changed it so that the electors are all of the party that recieved the most votes

because my local conservative or liberal might be the best option, but i sure as hell don't want either of them in power federally.

in effect, it forced you to pay attention to your state government

we really never pay attention to state governments anymore, which is bad because something like 95% of legislation in the us is state level

in any given state.

@Shai'tan complicated... isn't it.

@ShardS that change sounds like it was pretty damaging.

Sounds... unconstitutional

but it was for democracy so it's good

nah, the constitution says that electors can be assigned as the state wishes

ahh, damn, nothing to fallback on then.

the reason its not popular vote, is that the president unlike senators or representatives is supposed to represent every state