Duverger’s Law does not apply to cardinal voting systems like approval or score. Third parties can participate in races and get support without causing people to waste their votes. The classic example is that of a centrist candidate who reaches across the existing political divide to obtain support from the whole population better than the candidates put forth by the two dominant parties. Or, this could be done by a party that offers a better, perhaps less mainstream, vision for the nation's future than the standard bearers. The political "spectrum" is only an artifact of duopoly. I think it's a mistake to assume that proportional representation is always the end game for an electoral system. IRV, which is just plurality voting repeated in rounds, is perhaps the weakest reform there is. https://rcvchangedalaska.com/
Duverger's law isn't the result of how we vote, but how winners are chosen. Single member districts, even where elected by cardinal voting systems, are still subject to it. (That doesn't mean that there aren't other benefits, just that breaking the duopoly isn't one of them.)
This is because the most efficient allocation of resources (and elections aren't cheap) is to have as few losing campaigns as possible. Sometimes, the major parties don't even field a candidate for noncompetitive seats. It is not sustainable for multiple parties to invest major resources in campaigns where they get zero return (lose). That's why things coalesce into a two party system - one winner, one loser. That's Duverger's law.
👉 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/706046/tyranny-of-the-minority-by-steven-levitsky-and-daniel-ziblatt/
Duverger’s Law does not apply to cardinal voting systems like approval or score. Third parties can participate in races and get support without causing people to waste their votes. The classic example is that of a centrist candidate who reaches across the existing political divide to obtain support from the whole population better than the candidates put forth by the two dominant parties. Or, this could be done by a party that offers a better, perhaps less mainstream, vision for the nation's future than the standard bearers. The political "spectrum" is only an artifact of duopoly. I think it's a mistake to assume that proportional representation is always the end game for an electoral system. IRV, which is just plurality voting repeated in rounds, is perhaps the weakest reform there is. https://rcvchangedalaska.com/
Duverger's law isn't the result of how we vote, but how winners are chosen. Single member districts, even where elected by cardinal voting systems, are still subject to it. (That doesn't mean that there aren't other benefits, just that breaking the duopoly isn't one of them.)
This is because the most efficient allocation of resources (and elections aren't cheap) is to have as few losing campaigns as possible. Sometimes, the major parties don't even field a candidate for noncompetitive seats. It is not sustainable for multiple parties to invest major resources in campaigns where they get zero return (lose). That's why things coalesce into a two party system - one winner, one loser. That's Duverger's law.