There is this thing, where you vote for party, but give ratings for the representatives on party list. So basically if a guy is on the list down bellow but a lot of voters pick to prioritize him, then he moves to top. This happenes during ellections couple of months ago i LT, where guy was on 141 position, but still got a seat in parlament.
I don't know if they're that contrived. The scenario is that you have a closely matched two party system (as most FPTP places do) and a third party which is close in popularity to one of the mainstream ones on first votes, but is not universally supported by the remaining mainstream voters over the other mainstream party.
That doesn't just sound plausible, it sounds like exactly the pattern of growth for a third party that you'd expect.
Hungary does this too, and the party list seats are filled in a way that increases the influence of smaller parties. The first seat goes to the party with the most votes, but once that seat's assigned, the winning party's vote total is cut to 1/2. Then the next seat is assigned to whoever has the most votes afterwards, and the winner's total is cut to 1/2 if it's their first time winning, or 1/3 if it's their second time winning. And so on.
The point of the system is to encourage moderation, and it does well at this. Sometimes you get two Democrats, as in recent Senate elections, and sometimes one Democrat and one Republican, as in the 2018 governor's race.
While that is often the case, it is not necessarily the case. Look at France for a counter-example.
The downside is that the French "solution" was/is for the parties to enter into extensive election alliances to prevent splitting their potential voters, so it's an ugly workaround for a broken system, and you still get horrible distortions but it still better represents the actual views of the electorate.
It just a better democracy because it's more representative.
It's solves the "wasted vote" problem people have with democracy and why many democracies result in a two party system. This way it ensures your vote is counted and multiple parties exist.
You've got 650 marginal elections where people can only pick one party - and not a coalition through prioritized votes. Compare this to the US where each congressional election is usually between two or three candidates/parties.
This makes forecasts primed for surprises due to margins of error alone, not including other factors.
Yes, Swiss federal parliamentary elections have a similar system. The name of the other parties your vote goes to if the one you voted for didn’t pass is printed on the voting bulletin.
The system is a bit more complex, since it’s for the parliament and you aren’t really voting for parties, but for lists, and the votes get transferred depending on how many seats the list filled, but the basic idea is here.
This actually influenced my voting choice. I went for a more niche party who had little chance to get a seat. I knew that if it didn’t get enough votes to get a seat, my vote wouldn’t go to waste. It would go to the larger party which already has many seats but doesn’t align with my political views as well as the niche one.
It turned out well since the niche party got a seat despite the polling predictions.
The only system that aligns more with voters that I'm aware of is the Westminster system but it has is faults too. It is after all the same system that gave us "Yes, Minister" which illustrated and lampooned the fact that the civil service and elected politicians are distinct factions each with their own agendas rarely in alignment with each other (never mind the factions within each faction).
Before each elections there are even online tools to help you verify which party is best aligned with you.
It has a form of a poll. If responses that party gave match the once you gave then the fit is higher.
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