Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post
Not necessarily - I mean a simple majority is all it takes to win in the current FPTP system. I would say that the win percentage should be 50% of the total votes. It's not necessarily an easy thing to achieve, and I think an absolutely stupid amounts of recounts and voting again would probably have to be done, but a majority based on less than 20% of the actual population is no majority and it's foolish to say that it is.

There really isn't any such thing as perfect representation of all interests, as much as we would like there to be, but so long as the inefficiencies can be held to a minimum, the system should be able to function over the long term without have those who voted being enraged at their leaders.

I do agree that a high population density doesn't mean that area should hold more clout, although it tends to translate that way. Unfortunately, I can't offer any real alternative to that system. High density is really just more and more demand for resources to be brought in from outlying areas, but without offering any real cost to those who actuall produce/refine the resources brought in. Is there a balance between the two that would make the system work better? Probably. Part of dealing with an issue like this is having those who are benefiting from the imbalance relinquish their perks, and there are surprisingly few people who would be willing to do so. As a wise man once said, it is surprisingly easy to live in hypocrisy.
In the United States Presidential Election, there are only 2 viable candidates, therefore we avoid the problem of 3 candidates with 2 of them being similar splitting the vote. The last time the United States had a 3rd party take any notable amount of votes was in 1968 with Republican Nixon, Democratic Humphrey and 3rd party "American Independent" taking almost 10 million votes and 46 Electoral. In a 2 party system I think straight majority is the best way as the winner is almost guaranteed to be at 50% or slightly over counting the maybe 1% that all of the other 3rd party candidates get, if they are even on the ballot.

Sources: http://www.270towin.com/