6 ms·

If people are even thinking about gerrymandering, then it's apparent that the system of having one representative elected by each district no longer serves its

by waqf 10y ago

If people are even thinking about gerrymandering, then it's apparent that the system of having one representative elected by each district no longer serves its supposed purpose of making sure each "community" is represented. In that case, there's no reason not to switch to some more fairly representative system, for which there are various possibilities but PR systems are the best known (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation).

davidw 10y ago
Those can have some serious problems in practice too. I spent a number of years in Italy, and several come to mind that I saw there: * Representatives are beholden to the party, not to some local area. * Smaller parties can play 'kingmaker'.
- Lazare 10y ago
  Yes, and yes. It has some real advantages (it's nice being able to vote for someone that actually agrees with you AND not have your vote be wasted), but my experience in New Zealand is that: 1. It enhances the power of parties and thus increases partisanship 2. It allows small parties to play kingmaker. In the NZ case, the perennial kingmaker party is corrupt and virulently nativist. If, hypothetically, you were concerned about the partisanship, corruption, and nativist policies of current American politics, PR may not be the panacea you hope. I think it was quite unlikely for the American system to yield Trump as president (we just got very unlucky) but it would be quite likely for a PR system to yield Trump as a kingmaker with a vastly outsize influence on the policy of the resultant government. That's not obviously better, on balance.
  - waqf 10y ago
    Thanks, I was expecting a rebuttal based on experience with PR but this is a particularly interesting one. Actually I'd be interested in seeing some kind of delegative democracy system like Liquid Feedback. It has some features in common with PR (mostly the emphasis on having to negotiate a coalition given the voting results), but I'm hoping it wouldn't share the problems you outlined?
  - waqf 10y ago
    > Trump as a kingmaker with a vastly outsize influence Hmm, now you mention it, didn't something like that happen to the Weimar Republic?
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Arguably, it's what failed to happen; Hitler ended up leading a minority government with the largest party (well, tied with the Communists), no one acted as kingmaker with a small party putting some other coalition over the top extracting concessions for that boost. There was kingmaking of a more personal kind going on behind the scenes, but not of the minor-party-exercises outsized influence kind.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    The kingmaker effect happens in the US system with factions within major parties, it's just less visible to people who don't deeply study politics, because the factions are less visible than actual parties in a multiparty system. Enhancing the power of parties is a function of systems that establish proportionality by party list (either wholly or by MMP) more than it is directly of proportionality (proportionality vs. a duopoly-reinforcing system encourages party cohesion, because it reduces the cost of people splitting off to form their own party because they dissent from existing parties, but that decreases rather than increasing the power of parties, in that the party majority or leadership -- outside of party list systems -- has less that they can threaten wayward members with to keep them in line.)
  - stuaxo 10y ago
    I don't know, sure it is obviously better than him being the actual president ?
- upofadown 10y ago
  Pure proportional is probably not a great idea. That is why there are systems where you can tune the amount of proportionality. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...
- fictioncircle 10y ago
  In the US, the party list would likely be chosen by party primaries (i.e. voters) rather than the party. That would largely negate the first problem. Similarly, for the second, the US has two very strong political parties and this would really only change House of Representatives (one portion of one branch of the federal government) so the kingmaking power would be extremely limited as the vast majority of the Senate & Presidency would still end up with the stronger parties.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The first is a problem with party list proportional representation, but there are constituency-and-candidate-centered means of achieving proportionality (pragmatically, less perfect partisan proportionality than party list, but arguably better direct representation and possibly equal practical proportionality of substantive views) such as STV in multimember districts. The second is just making visible a problem that exists even in the US system with intraparty factions.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- UhUhUhUh 10y ago
  I would think that one could find a function giving efficiency of gerrymandering as a function of the number of parties involved. Obviously, f(1) = 0.
tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
Don't you trust yourself and your fellow citizens to vote properly? If you do trust yourself and your fellow citizens then why cant each and every person in a country be paid like politicians do, to have a say in the way their country works based on the facts and have a Direct Democracy, or is voting TV voting the best you aspire too? You can never trust a Govt that operates in secret! Divide and Conquer its been around since Roman times.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> If people are even thinking about gerrymandering, then it's apparent that the system of having one representative elected by each district no longer serves its supposed purpose of making sure each "community" is represented. The gerrymandering problem isn't created by individual districts, it's created by first past the post voting. Suppose you replace this with range voting or approval voting. Now it doesn't matter where you draw the district lines, because there can be twelve viable candidates and no matter where you draw the lines, each district will choose the candidate who best represents the district. A candidate can run, and win, on a platform which is specific to that individual district without having to align with an existing party's platform because winning is no longer contingent on the backing of a major party. Which means you can't draw the lines to favor your own party because all it will do is cause some new party/candidate to appear that better represents whatever arbitrary district you created than you do. And then you get to keep all the advantages of individual districts and avoid all the disadvantages of PR.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > The gerrymandering problem isn't created by individual districts Yes it is. > it's created by first past the post voting. FPTP creates other problems, but not the gerrymandering problem. OTOH, systems that support parties may mitigate some effects of gerrymandering. > Now it doesn't matter where you draw the district lines, because there can be twelve viable candidates and no matter where you draw the lines, each district will choose the candidate who best represents the district. The problem with gerrymandering is that single member districts let you choose what kind of candidates will be elected by how you draw draw district lines, and by doing so you can assure that some interests are over or underrepresented in the legislature compared to their prevalence on the population. You've not stated a way in which range or approval voting change that (and you won't find one, because they don't.)
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > You've not stated a way in which range or approval voting change that (and you won't find one, because they don't.) Sure they do. If you concentrate all the people who care about a particular issue into one district, and you make candidates not affiliated with a major party viable, then that district can elect a representative who cares about that issue a lot and will be willing to trade issues the district cares less about in order to get it, without having to worry what the party leadership wants. And how is PR supposed to solve this problem? It only replaces districts with parties, and then you're stuck choosing from a small handful of parties whose members all stick to the party line and you're forced to choose one that doesn't represent you on some subset of issues. The only better way to solve that problem is direct democracy, which would bring in a whole different set of problems.

by waqf 10y ago

davidw 10y ago

Those can have some serious problems in practice too. I spent a number of years in Italy, and several come to mind that I saw there: * Representatives are beholden to the party, not to some local area. * Smaller parties can play 'kingmaker'.

Lazare 10y ago
Yes, and yes. It has some real advantages (it's nice being able to vote for someone that actually agrees with you AND not have your vote be wasted), but my experience in New Zealand is that: 1. It enhances the power of parties and thus increases partisanship 2. It allows small parties to play kingmaker. In the NZ case, the perennial kingmaker party is corrupt and virulently nativist. If, hypothetically, you were concerned about the partisanship, corruption, and nativist policies of current American politics, PR may not be the panacea you hope. I think it was quite unlikely for the American system to yield Trump as president (we just got very unlucky) but it would be quite likely for a PR system to yield Trump as a kingmaker with a vastly outsize influence on the policy of the resultant government. That's not obviously better, on balance.
- waqf 10y ago
  Thanks, I was expecting a rebuttal based on experience with PR but this is a particularly interesting one. Actually I'd be interested in seeing some kind of delegative democracy system like Liquid Feedback. It has some features in common with PR (mostly the emphasis on having to negotiate a coalition given the voting results), but I'm hoping it wouldn't share the problems you outlined?
- waqf 10y ago
  > Trump as a kingmaker with a vastly outsize influence Hmm, now you mention it, didn't something like that happen to the Weimar Republic?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Arguably, it's what failed to happen; Hitler ended up leading a minority government with the largest party (well, tied with the Communists), no one acted as kingmaker with a small party putting some other coalition over the top extracting concessions for that boost. There was kingmaking of a more personal kind going on behind the scenes, but not of the minor-party-exercises outsized influence kind.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The kingmaker effect happens in the US system with factions within major parties, it's just less visible to people who don't deeply study politics, because the factions are less visible than actual parties in a multiparty system. Enhancing the power of parties is a function of systems that establish proportionality by party list (either wholly or by MMP) more than it is directly of proportionality (proportionality vs. a duopoly-reinforcing system encourages party cohesion, because it reduces the cost of people splitting off to form their own party because they dissent from existing parties, but that decreases rather than increasing the power of parties, in that the party majority or leadership -- outside of party list systems -- has less that they can threaten wayward members with to keep them in line.)
- stuaxo 10y ago
  I don't know, sure it is obviously better than him being the actual president ?
upofadown 10y ago
Pure proportional is probably not a great idea. That is why there are systems where you can tune the amount of proportionality. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...
fictioncircle 10y ago
In the US, the party list would likely be chosen by party primaries (i.e. voters) rather than the party. That would largely negate the first problem. Similarly, for the second, the US has two very strong political parties and this would really only change House of Representatives (one portion of one branch of the federal government) so the kingmaking power would be extremely limited as the vast majority of the Senate & Presidency would still end up with the stronger parties.
dragonwriter 10y ago
The first is a problem with party list proportional representation, but there are constituency-and-candidate-centered means of achieving proportionality (pragmatically, less perfect partisan proportionality than party list, but arguably better direct representation and possibly equal practical proportionality of substantive views) such as STV in multimember districts. The second is just making visible a problem that exists even in the US system with intraparty factions.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
UhUhUhUh 10y ago
I would think that one could find a function giving efficiency of gerrymandering as a function of the number of parties involved. Obviously, f(1) = 0.

tr1ck5t3r 10y ago

Don't you trust yourself and your fellow citizens to vote properly? If you do trust yourself and your fellow citizens then why cant each and every person in a country be paid like politicians do, to have a say in the way their country works based on the facts and have a Direct Democracy, or is voting TV voting the best you aspire too? You can never trust a Govt that operates in secret! Divide and Conquer its been around since Roman times.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> If people are even thinking about gerrymandering, then it's apparent that the system of having one representative elected by each district no longer serves its supposed purpose of making sure each "community" is represented. The gerrymandering problem isn't created by individual districts, it's created by first past the post voting. Suppose you replace this with range voting or approval voting. Now it doesn't matter where you draw the district lines, because there can be twelve viable candidates and no matter where you draw the lines, each district will choose the candidate who best represents the district. A candidate can run, and win, on a platform which is specific to that individual district without having to align with an existing party's platform because winning is no longer contingent on the backing of a major party. Which means you can't draw the lines to favor your own party because all it will do is cause some new party/candidate to appear that better represents whatever arbitrary district you created than you do. And then you get to keep all the advantages of individual districts and avoid all the disadvantages of PR.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> The gerrymandering problem isn't created by individual districts Yes it is. > it's created by first past the post voting. FPTP creates other problems, but not the gerrymandering problem. OTOH, systems that support parties may mitigate some effects of gerrymandering. > Now it doesn't matter where you draw the district lines, because there can be twelve viable candidates and no matter where you draw the lines, each district will choose the candidate who best represents the district. The problem with gerrymandering is that single member districts let you choose what kind of candidates will be elected by how you draw draw district lines, and by doing so you can assure that some interests are over or underrepresented in the legislature compared to their prevalence on the population. You've not stated a way in which range or approval voting change that (and you won't find one, because they don't.)
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > You've not stated a way in which range or approval voting change that (and you won't find one, because they don't.) Sure they do. If you concentrate all the people who care about a particular issue into one district, and you make candidates not affiliated with a major party viable, then that district can elect a representative who cares about that issue a lot and will be willing to trade issues the district cares less about in order to get it, without having to worry what the party leadership wants. And how is PR supposed to solve this problem? It only replaces districts with parties, and then you're stuck choosing from a small handful of parties whose members all stick to the party line and you're forced to choose one that doesn't represent you on some subset of issues. The only better way to solve that problem is direct democracy, which would bring in a whole different set of problems.