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Smaller congressional districts could also help decrease the effect of gerrymandering. This is interesting. On the other hand, will we make ourselves even mor

Smaller congressional districts could also help decrease the effect of gerrymandering. This is interesting. On the other hand, will we make ourselves even more vulnerable to "grassroots campaigns" like the tea party and lobbies like Alec? I'm not an expert but there are mathematically and sociologically sound alternatives that are better than what you and I can prescribe. I'd prefer one of those.

danieltillett 11y ago
There are defiantly better voting systems than first past the post (I have a soft spot for instant run offs), but having smaller congressional districts should make the system more resistant to lobby groups. The campaign process would move to a more personal reputation based system where the representatives know most of the voters in their district. You might get extreme candidates in some districts, but they would be a small minority without much power at the congress level.
- newjersey 11y ago
  I like the idea. My fear is that a lot of the legislation may not directly affect people in my district but I'm supposed to vote on them as well. Also I'm not very familiar with the work of committees. Would they grow larger? Would they become even more powerful and stay the same size?
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    If you were the representative of a small district you would face exactly the same problem as with big districts. You would still face the interest trading that all politicians face. I would imagine that committees would get bigger. Hopefully with more politicians you would get more people who actually knew about the area that they were on a committee for. The main thing is once you got rid of the need for money the desire to be on a powerful committee would decrease.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  I still find the nonmonotonicity of instant runoffs problematic. Something seems wrong about a system where you can lose by gaining votes. I'd expect instability to be higher than a similar system that is monotonic.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    You never lose by getting more votes - the nice thing about instant run offs is it simple (just rank) and it is close to the ideal outcome. It is not perfect, but it is not too bad. In regards stability it is better than proportional voting which tends to splinter the electorate. With instant run offs the candidate that is close to the consensus tends to win.
    - aninhumer 11y ago
      >You never lose by getting more votes Yes you can. Basically the scenario is that by gaining votes from other parties, you can change who is eliminated in the first round, which changes distribution of second round votes. You can argue about how likely this is to happen, but on some level it doesn't matter. If people can't feel absolutely confident that voting for who they actually want won't reduce their vote's impact, many will continue to vote tactically.
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        That is not how the system works for in example Australia. What happens is the votes for the lowest ranked candidate are given to all the second choice candidates and the process repeated until you get a candidate with 50% of the vote. There is no way that placing your preferred candidate first can ever result in your vote not being given in the order you choose. If you prefer candidate X above candidate y then candidate y will never get your vote unless X is eliminated.
        aninhumer 11y ago
        Yes, I understand how IRV works, and indeed I used to believe it was flawless. >There is no way that placing your preferred candidate first can ever result in your vote not being given in the order you choose. No, but it can end up harming your second choice, by eliminating them early, so your vote for them doesn't matter. This is called Favourite Betrayal, and it's a serious problem with IRV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ And as a quick worked example, if you have 4 people voting A>B>C, 4 people voting C>B>A and 3 people voting B>A>C, then A wins. If one person voting C>B>A changes their vote to B>C>A, then B wins. So by putting C first, they were harming their second choice B.
Grooted 11y ago
so representative, just not of opinions you differ with ?
jameshart 11y ago
Not sure why smaller districts prevent gerrymandering. Small districts can be more easily targeted to homogenous communities - you could create a few almost 100% democrat districts in the center of a city, then surround that with 60% republican 40% democrat mixes of city suburb and exurb to turn a popular democrat majority into an entrenched republican majority (inverse gerrymanders are of course also possible). And you could do that without having to create long thin districts that wrap round cities if the districts were smaller making it harder to object to the gerrymander on the grounds that a district is not compact. In fact any proposal which claims that making districts more homogenous in their voting behavior - "80% of people in this town vote republican so why don't we just make a district that reflects that commonality," for example - is effectively gerrymandering and disenfranchisement harming both sides. 20% of the population of that town will always be ignored. 30% of that town are casting republican votes that don't matter at a larger level, and which don't contribute to countering a democrat vote. Seems to me smaller districts would be more likely to exhibit those alignments and disenfranchise more people?

danieltillett 11y ago

There are defiantly better voting systems than first past the post (I have a soft spot for instant run offs), but having smaller congressional districts should make the system more resistant to lobby groups. The campaign process would move to a more personal reputation based system where the representatives know most of the voters in their district. You might get extreme candidates in some districts, but they would be a small minority without much power at the congress level.

newjersey 11y ago
I like the idea. My fear is that a lot of the legislation may not directly affect people in my district but I'm supposed to vote on them as well. Also I'm not very familiar with the work of committees. Would they grow larger? Would they become even more powerful and stay the same size?
- danieltillett 11y ago
  If you were the representative of a small district you would face exactly the same problem as with big districts. You would still face the interest trading that all politicians face. I would imagine that committees would get bigger. Hopefully with more politicians you would get more people who actually knew about the area that they were on a committee for. The main thing is once you got rid of the need for money the desire to be on a powerful committee would decrease.
nitrogen 11y ago
I still find the nonmonotonicity of instant runoffs problematic. Something seems wrong about a system where you can lose by gaining votes. I'd expect instability to be higher than a similar system that is monotonic.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  You never lose by getting more votes - the nice thing about instant run offs is it simple (just rank) and it is close to the ideal outcome. It is not perfect, but it is not too bad. In regards stability it is better than proportional voting which tends to splinter the electorate. With instant run offs the candidate that is close to the consensus tends to win.
  - aninhumer 11y ago
    >You never lose by getting more votes Yes you can. Basically the scenario is that by gaining votes from other parties, you can change who is eliminated in the first round, which changes distribution of second round votes. You can argue about how likely this is to happen, but on some level it doesn't matter. If people can't feel absolutely confident that voting for who they actually want won't reduce their vote's impact, many will continue to vote tactically.
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      That is not how the system works for in example Australia. What happens is the votes for the lowest ranked candidate are given to all the second choice candidates and the process repeated until you get a candidate with 50% of the vote. There is no way that placing your preferred candidate first can ever result in your vote not being given in the order you choose. If you prefer candidate X above candidate y then candidate y will never get your vote unless X is eliminated.
      - aninhumer 11y ago
        Yes, I understand how IRV works, and indeed I used to believe it was flawless. >There is no way that placing your preferred candidate first can ever result in your vote not being given in the order you choose. No, but it can end up harming your second choice, by eliminating them early, so your vote for them doesn't matter. This is called Favourite Betrayal, and it's a serious problem with IRV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ And as a quick worked example, if you have 4 people voting A>B>C, 4 people voting C>B>A and 3 people voting B>A>C, then A wins. If one person voting C>B>A changes their vote to B>C>A, then B wins. So by putting C first, they were harming their second choice B.

Grooted 11y ago

so representative, just not of opinions you differ with ?

jameshart 11y ago

Not sure why smaller districts prevent gerrymandering. Small districts can be more easily targeted to homogenous communities - you could create a few almost 100% democrat districts in the center of a city, then surround that with 60% republican 40% democrat mixes of city suburb and exurb to turn a popular democrat majority into an entrenched republican majority (inverse gerrymanders are of course also possible). And you could do that without having to create long thin districts that wrap round cities if the districts were smaller making it harder to object to the gerrymander on the grounds that a district is not compact. In fact any proposal which claims that making districts more homogenous in their voting behavior - "80% of people in this town vote republican so why don't we just make a district that reflects that commonality," for example - is effectively gerrymandering and disenfranchisement harming both sides. 20% of the population of that town will always be ignored. 30% of that town are casting republican votes that don't matter at a larger level, and which don't contribute to countering a democrat vote. Seems to me smaller districts would be more likely to exhibit those alignments and disenfranchise more people?