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Our problem is that Net Neutrality just isn't a big enough issue. Even if almost 100% of the people support it, not enough of them will change their vote on its

Our problem is that Net Neutrality just isn't a big enough issue. Even if almost 100% of the people support it, not enough of them will change their vote on its account. American democracy is broken because we're always only given two choices. You're never allowed to vote for someone who is going to represent everything you believe in. Things could be different. If we had a system in which you could vote for whomever you want (regardless of where they're from) and that person had voting power in the legislature that was proportional to the share of votes they got, then the laws we would get would actually reflect the will of the people.

mikeash 9y ago
That seems problematic. The person whose views most closely match my own is me. If I can vote for literally anyone and it works out the same, then I'd vote for me, presumably everyone else would vote for themselves, and you'd have a weird version of direct democracy.
- metaphorm 9y ago
  I don't think it's problematic. The duopoly system forces a large number of voters into "lesser evil" stances, or at least forces them to narrowly focus on their one pet issue and vote for candidates based only on that issue. a system with more choices has more opportunities to find candidates that you agree with on multiple dimensions of policy, as well as hopefully finding more candidates that you can respect as human beings. the post you're responding to is proposing a kind of non-geographically constrained proportionally allocated representational democracy. so, instead of voting for just one of the 2 candidates in your congressional district (which is likely gerrymandered anyway) you can vote for anyone in the country and that person's voting power in congress is proportional to their popular vote count. that's not dissimilar to a lot of corporate governance systems (voting shares of common stock widely distributed).
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I'm not sure how this addresses my objection. Sure, more choices means more opportunities to find candidates who match me perfectly. And if you allow literally anyone then that candidate is me. So you might as well not elect candidates at all, just give every citizen a vote in the legislature instead.
    - metaphorm 9y ago
      the way it addresses your objection is that the congressional voting power is proportional to popular vote received. unstated in the OP, but my supposition (reasonable, I hope), is that there will still be a limited number of congressional seats so that candidates below a certain popular vote threshold will have 0 representational power. in that case it is still in the best interests of voters to vote for someone who is likely to clear the threshold and not throw their vote away by voting for a perfect ideological match (i.e. themselves). this seems fairly elegant to me except that it might lead to a neglect of the provincial concerns of low population density areas (which was a major concern of the founders), but on the plus side, those rural voters can at least find an ideological match even if they don't find someone to represent their geographic interests.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        If there was some minimum threshold, then yes, my objection goes away. But that wasn't stated.
        baron816 9y ago
        I think there are plenty of possible variations. I've been thinking that representatives above a certain threshold actually get seats in the legislature and committee positions, etc. But any one person would have the freedom to vote on every piece of legislation (if technically possible) if they wanted. In all likelihood, a few people would get most of the votes, because they're competing for attention from a national audience. Therefore, it is possible that local issues get marginalized, so I think it would be necessary to give people multiple votes. That way they can split their vote and choose both national candidates and local candidates. We can debate all these details when we get to the constitutional convention.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> If we had a system in which you could vote for whomever you want (regardless of where they're from) and that person had voting power in the legislature that was proportional to the share of votes they got, then the laws we would get would actually reflect the will of the people. More simply (and easier to manage) we could just have multimember districts with a proportional, candidate-centered, ranked-preference voting system like STV. (Your version has all kinds of challenges, like how you manage a legislature of reasonable size while maintaining the general structure, and is more radical than is necessary for major improvements in representation.)

mikeash 9y ago

That seems problematic. The person whose views most closely match my own is me. If I can vote for literally anyone and it works out the same, then I'd vote for me, presumably everyone else would vote for themselves, and you'd have a weird version of direct democracy.

metaphorm 9y ago
I don't think it's problematic. The duopoly system forces a large number of voters into "lesser evil" stances, or at least forces them to narrowly focus on their one pet issue and vote for candidates based only on that issue. a system with more choices has more opportunities to find candidates that you agree with on multiple dimensions of policy, as well as hopefully finding more candidates that you can respect as human beings. the post you're responding to is proposing a kind of non-geographically constrained proportionally allocated representational democracy. so, instead of voting for just one of the 2 candidates in your congressional district (which is likely gerrymandered anyway) you can vote for anyone in the country and that person's voting power in congress is proportional to their popular vote count. that's not dissimilar to a lot of corporate governance systems (voting shares of common stock widely distributed).
- mikeash 9y ago
  I'm not sure how this addresses my objection. Sure, more choices means more opportunities to find candidates who match me perfectly. And if you allow literally anyone then that candidate is me. So you might as well not elect candidates at all, just give every citizen a vote in the legislature instead.
  - metaphorm 9y ago
    the way it addresses your objection is that the congressional voting power is proportional to popular vote received. unstated in the OP, but my supposition (reasonable, I hope), is that there will still be a limited number of congressional seats so that candidates below a certain popular vote threshold will have 0 representational power. in that case it is still in the best interests of voters to vote for someone who is likely to clear the threshold and not throw their vote away by voting for a perfect ideological match (i.e. themselves). this seems fairly elegant to me except that it might lead to a neglect of the provincial concerns of low population density areas (which was a major concern of the founders), but on the plus side, those rural voters can at least find an ideological match even if they don't find someone to represent their geographic interests.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      If there was some minimum threshold, then yes, my objection goes away. But that wasn't stated.
      - baron816 9y ago
        I think there are plenty of possible variations. I've been thinking that representatives above a certain threshold actually get seats in the legislature and committee positions, etc. But any one person would have the freedom to vote on every piece of legislation (if technically possible) if they wanted. In all likelihood, a few people would get most of the votes, because they're competing for attention from a national audience. Therefore, it is possible that local issues get marginalized, so I think it would be necessary to give people multiple votes. That way they can split their vote and choose both national candidates and local candidates. We can debate all these details when we get to the constitutional convention.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> If we had a system in which you could vote for whomever you want (regardless of where they're from) and that person had voting power in the legislature that was proportional to the share of votes they got, then the laws we would get would actually reflect the will of the people. More simply (and easier to manage) we could just have multimember districts with a proportional, candidate-centered, ranked-preference voting system like STV. (Your version has all kinds of challenges, like how you manage a legislature of reasonable size while maintaining the general structure, and is more radical than is necessary for major improvements in representation.)