German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory
For the political hackers: note that these victories are made possible by Germany's proportional representation system, which guarantees seats in parliaments to any party which gets more than 5% of the popular vote across the state/city/whatever.  Thus parties with broad but shallow support do get represented in government.<p>The electoral systems in the UK-derived nations (geographic districts only, first past the post) expressly prohibit such broad-but-shallow movements from ever being represented in government.  If the Pirate Party in a U.S. state got the same percent of the vote, they would end up with precisely zero seats in the legislature.  Even if they got double that percent of the vote, they would end up with precisely zero seats in the legislature.  Triple?  Still zero.  The U.S. electoral system is an extremely conservative one, which prevents new political movements from ever being heard in government.  There are better ones, such as Germany's.