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Sounds like an interesting idea. In the end the US needs a system where if a party gets a certain percentage of votes it gets some level of representation in Co

Sounds like an interesting idea. In the end the US needs a system where if a party gets a certain percentage of votes it gets some level of representation in Congress. For example in the 90s Ross Perot got 18% of votes but these voters got 0 percent representation anywhere. This is just extremely unhealthy. The extreme partisanship would get reduced quickly if there were some people in Congress who would vote with one of the big parties one and then with the other another time.

zdragnar 8y ago
We have a federal, not national, government. National percentages of votes earned are meaningless. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but that's what it is.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Agreed. But I hope my point makes sense. If 18 percent of people vote for someone and get no representation out of it they quickly will get disillusioned about voting and the country's politics will not be representative of the people.
  - stevenwoo 8y ago
    Is it worse that Clinton got 48 percent of the popular vote or McCain got 46 percent and lost - that is a much bigger disenfranchised proportion.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      Yes. Because by definition in a presidential election there can be only one winner. In the House or Senate there is no reason to not have proportional element.
      - nybble41 8y ago
        Presidential elections can't be proportional, true, but they could be made less polarizing. The goal should be consensus, the election of a candidate acceptable to the vast majority of the population, not someone loved by 51% but loathed by the other 49%.
        maxxxxx 8y ago
        In the good old days the winner became president and the loser vice president. Maybe we should back to that. I would love a Trump/Clinton presidency.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - sampo 8y ago
      Those Clinton voters still have their representatives in the House (and probably in Senate, too), so they are represented in the political system, just not in the White House.
- mortehu 8y ago
  The lack of proportional representation is a feature of single winner districts, as opposed to multi-winner districts, not national vs federal.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I am not even saying we need full proportional representation but just some element so a party that gets voted for by a certain percentage of people can get some foothold. Right now you can't maintain a third party because the threshold to have an impact is way too high.
    - mortehu 8y ago
      The Scandinavian countries have something like this, called leveling seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_seat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_seat
      - sampo 8y ago
        The Scandinavian countries have voting systems that are approximately proportional in the core. Then they use those leveling seats to fix the sub-5% differences in the vote proportions and the seats. But that's just a small correction if we are comparing voting systems that are not proportional in their design at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_meth... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method
- alistairSH 8y ago
  The argument might better applied to state-level elections for legislative bodies. They are usually FPTP by district, so in a 51/49 split district, a significant portion of the electorate is left out in the cold. We could adopt some flavor of split system... FPTP for district reps, with some number of positions set aside state-wide for proportional representation. I believe Germany does something like this, though I'll have to dig up the details.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Yes. That's what Germany does. If your party gets 5 percent you are in parliament even without winning a single district.
  - Xylakant 8y ago
    The german Bundestag (federal level) election rules can be roughly summarized like this: Each voter gets two votes, one for a candidate and a second for a party list. Half of the members of the Bundestag are elected by direct vote. The candidate in the election district that gets the most votes is elected. The other half are distributed so that the total distribution matches the distribution for the party list. A party that fails to accumulate at least 5% doesn't get any seats from the second vote, but gets to keep any direct seats they gained, unless they win a minimum number of direct candidates. If a party wins more direct candidates in a state than their share of votes per party list would allow for, the Bundestag grows and more seats are distributed to balance the proportion. The system is designed to allow for direct candidates, but still keeps smaller parties relevant since any party that gets beyond 5% or manages to win direct candidates is part of the Bundestag. (grossly simplified, but probably good enough for here)
    - alistairSH 8y ago
      Thanks for the summary!
sanxiyn 8y ago
I disagree. I think it is a feature that Congress does not reflect electorates. Even under first-past-the-post Congress is much saner than electorates. For years Unification Church tried to get representation in South Korean congress. They failed, but votes show that they would have succeeded under proportional representation. Proportional representation enables extremist parties.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  If an extreme party gets maybe 5 percent they deserve representation if you like them or not.
  - sanxiyn 8y ago
    I disagree. The idea of approval voting is that if majority is against for you to be a representative, you shouldn't be a representative. This is "the will of the people", per representative basis.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      You know the term "tyranny of the majority"?
- nunya213 8y ago
  It seems to work in much of Europe, inb4 "But this is Murrrrica!"
  - repolfx 8y ago
    For some definition of "work". It's really just a different set of tradeoffs. Continental Europe (the UK uses FPTP) is characterised by countries that have governments that are frequently deadlocked or missing in action, because proportional representation results in lots of parties getting into power with none having a majority. Therefore they spend lots of time building coalitions that can agree on very little except preserving the status quo. These coalitions often result in absurd political configurations, like alliances between parties that are supposedly of the left and right, resulting in an inability to create policy. You also see bizarre compromises that can cause extreme or weird policies to appear that hardly anyone would have voted for, due to the need to bring on board smaller parties to make the coalitions work. A few examples: in the Netherlands, the ruling coalition has a working majority of 1. It contains many tiny parties and took months to create, because they were determined to ensure that the politician who runs the second largest party in Parliament (Geert Wilders, who is anti-EU) would be entirely frozen out of power. Germany is ruled by a coalition of two parties that both lost votes in the last election, and whose leaders hate each other. They both believe repeating the same coalition again will severely damage both parties, as it's a coalition of both the left and right meaning ... again ... essentially the coalition has no coherent policies that anyone campaigned on. However they did it anyway to freeze out the second largest party, AfD, again because AfD is anti-EU and that is seen as so bad almost anything is worth it to avoid having to compromise with them. Before the current coalition formed, Merkel tried to create the "Jamaica coalition" ... a truly laughable attempt to break the basic laws of politics by uniting the far left Green party with a libertarian party. Not surprisingly the quasi-communists and Ayn Randians couldn't agree on anything and that attempt failed, but it goes to show how strange proportional representation can get. Italy has just voted in a coalition of two parties, again, a left and right wing party who have, as a result, economically incoherent policies. The "right wing" party wants devolution of power within Italy and more regional self rule, the 5-Star movement wants the opposite, with more subsidies for southern Italy. Basically PR gives you messy governments that frequently collapse or deadlock. This may or may not be a better arrangement than FPTP which tends to yield strong governments with clear policies, which frequently see-saw between polar opposites as left and right parties take turns in power.

zdragnar 8y ago

We have a federal, not national, government. National percentages of votes earned are meaningless. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but that's what it is.

maxxxxx 8y ago
Agreed. But I hope my point makes sense. If 18 percent of people vote for someone and get no representation out of it they quickly will get disillusioned about voting and the country's politics will not be representative of the people.
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  Is it worse that Clinton got 48 percent of the popular vote or McCain got 46 percent and lost - that is a much bigger disenfranchised proportion.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Yes. Because by definition in a presidential election there can be only one winner. In the House or Senate there is no reason to not have proportional element.
    - nybble41 8y ago
      Presidential elections can't be proportional, true, but they could be made less polarizing. The goal should be consensus, the election of a candidate acceptable to the vast majority of the population, not someone loved by 51% but loathed by the other 49%.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        In the good old days the winner became president and the loser vice president. Maybe we should back to that. I would love a Trump/Clinton presidency.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - sampo 8y ago
    Those Clinton voters still have their representatives in the House (and probably in Senate, too), so they are represented in the political system, just not in the White House.
mortehu 8y ago
The lack of proportional representation is a feature of single winner districts, as opposed to multi-winner districts, not national vs federal.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I am not even saying we need full proportional representation but just some element so a party that gets voted for by a certain percentage of people can get some foothold. Right now you can't maintain a third party because the threshold to have an impact is way too high.
  - mortehu 8y ago
    The Scandinavian countries have something like this, called leveling seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_seat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_seat
    - sampo 8y ago
      The Scandinavian countries have voting systems that are approximately proportional in the core. Then they use those leveling seats to fix the sub-5% differences in the vote proportions and the seats. But that's just a small correction if we are comparing voting systems that are not proportional in their design at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_meth... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method
alistairSH 8y ago
The argument might better applied to state-level elections for legislative bodies. They are usually FPTP by district, so in a 51/49 split district, a significant portion of the electorate is left out in the cold. We could adopt some flavor of split system... FPTP for district reps, with some number of positions set aside state-wide for proportional representation. I believe Germany does something like this, though I'll have to dig up the details.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Yes. That's what Germany does. If your party gets 5 percent you are in parliament even without winning a single district.
- Xylakant 8y ago
  The german Bundestag (federal level) election rules can be roughly summarized like this: Each voter gets two votes, one for a candidate and a second for a party list. Half of the members of the Bundestag are elected by direct vote. The candidate in the election district that gets the most votes is elected. The other half are distributed so that the total distribution matches the distribution for the party list. A party that fails to accumulate at least 5% doesn't get any seats from the second vote, but gets to keep any direct seats they gained, unless they win a minimum number of direct candidates. If a party wins more direct candidates in a state than their share of votes per party list would allow for, the Bundestag grows and more seats are distributed to balance the proportion. The system is designed to allow for direct candidates, but still keeps smaller parties relevant since any party that gets beyond 5% or manages to win direct candidates is part of the Bundestag. (grossly simplified, but probably good enough for here)
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    Thanks for the summary!

sanxiyn 8y ago

I disagree. I think it is a feature that Congress does not reflect electorates. Even under first-past-the-post Congress is much saner than electorates. For years Unification Church tried to get representation in South Korean congress. They failed, but votes show that they would have succeeded under proportional representation. Proportional representation enables extremist parties.

maxxxxx 8y ago
If an extreme party gets maybe 5 percent they deserve representation if you like them or not.
- sanxiyn 8y ago
  I disagree. The idea of approval voting is that if majority is against for you to be a representative, you shouldn't be a representative. This is "the will of the people", per representative basis.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    You know the term "tyranny of the majority"?
nunya213 8y ago
It seems to work in much of Europe, inb4 "But this is Murrrrica!"
- repolfx 8y ago
  For some definition of "work". It's really just a different set of tradeoffs. Continental Europe (the UK uses FPTP) is characterised by countries that have governments that are frequently deadlocked or missing in action, because proportional representation results in lots of parties getting into power with none having a majority. Therefore they spend lots of time building coalitions that can agree on very little except preserving the status quo. These coalitions often result in absurd political configurations, like alliances between parties that are supposedly of the left and right, resulting in an inability to create policy. You also see bizarre compromises that can cause extreme or weird policies to appear that hardly anyone would have voted for, due to the need to bring on board smaller parties to make the coalitions work. A few examples: in the Netherlands, the ruling coalition has a working majority of 1. It contains many tiny parties and took months to create, because they were determined to ensure that the politician who runs the second largest party in Parliament (Geert Wilders, who is anti-EU) would be entirely frozen out of power. Germany is ruled by a coalition of two parties that both lost votes in the last election, and whose leaders hate each other. They both believe repeating the same coalition again will severely damage both parties, as it's a coalition of both the left and right meaning ... again ... essentially the coalition has no coherent policies that anyone campaigned on. However they did it anyway to freeze out the second largest party, AfD, again because AfD is anti-EU and that is seen as so bad almost anything is worth it to avoid having to compromise with them. Before the current coalition formed, Merkel tried to create the "Jamaica coalition" ... a truly laughable attempt to break the basic laws of politics by uniting the far left Green party with a libertarian party. Not surprisingly the quasi-communists and Ayn Randians couldn't agree on anything and that attempt failed, but it goes to show how strange proportional representation can get. Italy has just voted in a coalition of two parties, again, a left and right wing party who have, as a result, economically incoherent policies. The "right wing" party wants devolution of power within Italy and more regional self rule, the 5-Star movement wants the opposite, with more subsidies for southern Italy. Basically PR gives you messy governments that frequently collapse or deadlock. This may or may not be a better arrangement than FPTP which tends to yield strong governments with clear policies, which frequently see-saw between polar opposites as left and right parties take turns in power.