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Every time I discuss voting with Americans, or when I read articles like this, they only focus on how to make a better system for single-winner elections. I thi

by sampo 8y ago

Every time I discuss voting with Americans, or when I read articles like this, they only focus on how to make a better system for single-winner elections. I think that is missing the main point. I think the main problem is the single-winner election system itself, and even the best voting mathematics can do only very little to help that. They all will still lead to a two-party system. Only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. But for all other political bodies, a proportional system where at least 5 to 10 representatives are chosen from each voting district, would be better. Choosing e.g. 10 winners from a single voting district with a proportional voting system would set the election threshold to 10%, so any party with at least 10% support would get at least one representative. This is how almost every European country runs their elections. (Only UK and France still use single-winner systems.) This is the only way to bring diversity and options to the political landscape. And by having more than 2 viable parties, you would have more diverse political discussions, too. And even for the single-winner presidential elections, more than 2 parties would have the existing organization and funding structures to plausible run campaigns and candidates, so as a byproduct you would get diversity and options for the presidential elections, too. I do recognize that it is problematic to organize proportional voting for (a) the Senate and (b) for those states that have less than 5 House representatives. For example, you'd need to pool Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, N Dakota and S Dakota into one voting district. But even if you went with proportional voting only for the House, you'd still have more than 2 viable parties in each state, who each could make serious attempts to run for the 2 senators. So you would still get more than 2 parties represented in the Senate, too.

aaronhamlin 8y ago
If you listen to the podcast, I think—like nearly every other comment here—that you'll find this is addressed.
Glyptodon 8y ago
I think uncapping the size of the house of Reps and going back to original apportionment would effectively do a similar thing.
- nybble41 8y ago
  Not necessarily. If one assumes that political affiliation is more or less uniformly distributed within a district—say, 60% party A, 30% party B, and 10% party C—dividing each district into 10 uniform subdistricts just results in 10 winners from party A and no representation at all for the remaining 40% of the population. This is an issue with winner-take-all districts, regardless of their size. A proportional system would instead select 6 representatives from party A, 3 from party B, and 1 from party C.
airstrike 8y ago
> I think the main problem is the single-winner election system itself, and even the best voting mathematics can do only very little to help that. They all will still lead to a two-party system. Two-round elections in which a candidate that doesn't get 50%+1 in the first round must run against the runner-up (and no one else) in the second round is a significant improvement over the single-round First Past The Post structure in the U.S.
- pfranz 8y ago
  You'd still need to combine that with getting rid of FPTP, you can look at California this election cycle for an example. The multiple Democratic candidates running against 2 Republican candidates might lead to 2 Republicans in the runoff even if way more Democrats turn out to vote. For the Democrats running dropping out is a prisoner's dilemma situation. It's giving people a bad opinion of that system.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    The California “jungle primary”effectively creates a new system—top-two/runoff—distinct from either form of FPTP, especially as usually practiced in the US where those follow a partisan primary.
    - pfranz 8y ago
      I know I've seen some California elections have a 51% primary. I believe the Los Angeles Mayoral race was one. I wasn't sure if that applied to these jungle primaries or not since it's very doubtful anyone will get 51%. Either jungle or runoff system, with FPTP in place, seems to leave a bad taste in people's mouth when they see the top two in the same party. I think it's getting a lot more bad attention because the likely minority party has a good chance of getting the top two spots.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Two-round elections in which a candidate that doesn't get 50%+1 in the first round must run against the runner-up (and no one else) in the second round is a significant improvement over the single-round First Past The Post structure in the U.S. No, it's not. It's one of the two systems in the US that are both referred to a FPTP (the two are more specifically known as plurality and majority/runoff, and both forms are widely used in the US.)
seandougall 8y ago
> Only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. It sounds to me like you're thinking of the US as more monolithic than it is. If we only had the federal government, sure, only the president would really need to be single-winner. But pooling congressional seats logistically cannot happen, because congress is not parliament. The entire point is that senators represent their states, and House members represent their districts. Pooling them would be like pooling the EU Council and having all Europeans vote together on national ministers. Remember that states are semi-autonomous, with their own governments following their own laws according to their own constitutions. Obviously our federal government is more powerful and rather more cohesive than the EU, but only up to a point. (Note: I'm not saying this is a good or sensible system. In many ways, I would love for our resources and our voices to be pooled. The autonomy of individual states is a huge part of why the right wing is disproportionately represented at the federal level. And the fact that only states—not territories—get representation is a travesty.) You're absolutely right, though, that the single-winner aspect is why we have essentially always had a two-party system (though _which_ two parties has changed several times over the years). The way I once heard someone put it is that in parliamentary democracy, people vote for representation and their MPs form coalitions, while in the American system, the people themselves have to be the ones to form coalitions, in the form of the two dominant parties.
- gowld 8y ago
  Pooling increases district representation, not decrease it. The US Congress is far too small for the size of the population it represents, so many constituencies are ignored. Having larger voting districts takes power away from gerrymanders and gives it to the constituents. The population would create their own districts via voting blocs, instead of being trapped in gerrymandered districts.
Jedd 8y ago
> Only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. An interesting thought experiment is having 3 equally powered heads of state (or indeed any small odd numbered group). Most people's instant reaction is that it wouldn't work because we don't have it now. After some reflection most people think it wouldn't work for other reasons that they can't adequately explain. I think if you're going to contemplate nation-state wide administration reform it's worthwhile contemplating all kinds of changes. (I'm in AU, where we have some semblance of 2pp, though in our most recent federal election some 25% of people did not vote for one of the two major parties/coalitions. Our system is clearly broken, but not as badly as the USA's. Small comfort.)
- ak-47 8y ago
  Interesting thought experiment, but how can one argue the point when there is a "people who disagree are ignorant/stupid" premise? > Most people's instant reaction is that it wouldn't work because we don't have it now. Straw man > After some reflection most people think it wouldn't work for other reasons that they can't adequately explain. Condescending generalization
  - Jedd 8y ago
    Did you note the context of my message? Parent had said that only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. In Australia the head of government is the Prime Minister - curiously the specifics of that role are absent from our constitution, as it was evidently assumed to be a given. Head of State remains the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth, but that's a slight aside. Prime Minister is not elected by the gen pop, despite many citizens of AU believing it to be the case. The 150 elected representatives in the parliament actually choose amongst them who the Prime Minister shall be -- a potentially very civilised approach to leadership elections. Anyway, I'm not sure that I can defend myself against your claims about my personal observations. Perhaps you could give it a go, and see if you get the same trends of responses that I described.
elihu 8y ago
One downside of proportional representation is that it gives a lot more power to the parties to choose the winners. I'm not sure if voters would be comfortable with that. In the present U.S. system, a person can run as a Republican or a Democrat without the blessing or support of their party and win. I think that's a good feature to keep the party turning into some sort of "this guy and all his friends" club. Granted, if there are more parties to choose from there's more opportunity for voters to reject dysfunctional parties, but it's not inconceivable that you might end up with, say, five dysfunctional parties instead of two. I suppose a sensible hybrid system might be to have voters vote for their party in the regular election, and then for each party with one or more seats, that party runs a primary (via a multi-winner variant of approval voting or STV or something) to elect the people who actually serve in those seats. Does anyone already use a system like that?

by sampo 8y ago

aaronhamlin 8y ago

If you listen to the podcast, I think—like nearly every other comment here—that you'll find this is addressed.

Glyptodon 8y ago

I think uncapping the size of the house of Reps and going back to original apportionment would effectively do a similar thing.

nybble41 8y ago
Not necessarily. If one assumes that political affiliation is more or less uniformly distributed within a district—say, 60% party A, 30% party B, and 10% party C—dividing each district into 10 uniform subdistricts just results in 10 winners from party A and no representation at all for the remaining 40% of the population. This is an issue with winner-take-all districts, regardless of their size. A proportional system would instead select 6 representatives from party A, 3 from party B, and 1 from party C.

airstrike 8y ago

> I think the main problem is the single-winner election system itself, and even the best voting mathematics can do only very little to help that. They all will still lead to a two-party system. Two-round elections in which a candidate that doesn't get 50%+1 in the first round must run against the runner-up (and no one else) in the second round is a significant improvement over the single-round First Past The Post structure in the U.S.

pfranz 8y ago
You'd still need to combine that with getting rid of FPTP, you can look at California this election cycle for an example. The multiple Democratic candidates running against 2 Republican candidates might lead to 2 Republicans in the runoff even if way more Democrats turn out to vote. For the Democrats running dropping out is a prisoner's dilemma situation. It's giving people a bad opinion of that system.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  The California “jungle primary”effectively creates a new system—top-two/runoff—distinct from either form of FPTP, especially as usually practiced in the US where those follow a partisan primary.
  - pfranz 8y ago
    I know I've seen some California elections have a 51% primary. I believe the Los Angeles Mayoral race was one. I wasn't sure if that applied to these jungle primaries or not since it's very doubtful anyone will get 51%. Either jungle or runoff system, with FPTP in place, seems to leave a bad taste in people's mouth when they see the top two in the same party. I think it's getting a lot more bad attention because the likely minority party has a good chance of getting the top two spots.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Two-round elections in which a candidate that doesn't get 50%+1 in the first round must run against the runner-up (and no one else) in the second round is a significant improvement over the single-round First Past The Post structure in the U.S. No, it's not. It's one of the two systems in the US that are both referred to a FPTP (the two are more specifically known as plurality and majority/runoff, and both forms are widely used in the US.)

seandougall 8y ago

> Only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. It sounds to me like you're thinking of the US as more monolithic than it is. If we only had the federal government, sure, only the president would really need to be single-winner. But pooling congressional seats logistically cannot happen, because congress is not parliament. The entire point is that senators represent their states, and House members represent their districts. Pooling them would be like pooling the EU Council and having all Europeans vote together on national ministers. Remember that states are semi-autonomous, with their own governments following their own laws according to their own constitutions. Obviously our federal government is more powerful and rather more cohesive than the EU, but only up to a point. (Note: I'm not saying this is a good or sensible system. In many ways, I would love for our resources and our voices to be pooled. The autonomy of individual states is a huge part of why the right wing is disproportionately represented at the federal level. And the fact that only states—not territories—get representation is a travesty.) You're absolutely right, though, that the single-winner aspect is why we have essentially always had a two-party system (though _which_ two parties has changed several times over the years). The way I once heard someone put it is that in parliamentary democracy, people vote for representation and their MPs form coalitions, while in the American system, the people themselves have to be the ones to form coalitions, in the form of the two dominant parties.

gowld 8y ago
Pooling increases district representation, not decrease it. The US Congress is far too small for the size of the population it represents, so many constituencies are ignored. Having larger voting districts takes power away from gerrymanders and gives it to the constituents. The population would create their own districts via voting blocs, instead of being trapped in gerrymandered districts.

Jedd 8y ago

> Only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. An interesting thought experiment is having 3 equally powered heads of state (or indeed any small odd numbered group). Most people's instant reaction is that it wouldn't work because we don't have it now. After some reflection most people think it wouldn't work for other reasons that they can't adequately explain. I think if you're going to contemplate nation-state wide administration reform it's worthwhile contemplating all kinds of changes. (I'm in AU, where we have some semblance of 2pp, though in our most recent federal election some 25% of people did not vote for one of the two major parties/coalitions. Our system is clearly broken, but not as badly as the USA's. Small comfort.)

ak-47 8y ago
Interesting thought experiment, but how can one argue the point when there is a "people who disagree are ignorant/stupid" premise? > Most people's instant reaction is that it wouldn't work because we don't have it now. Straw man > After some reflection most people think it wouldn't work for other reasons that they can't adequately explain. Condescending generalization
- Jedd 8y ago
  Did you note the context of my message? Parent had said that only the presidential elections need to be single-winner. In Australia the head of government is the Prime Minister - curiously the specifics of that role are absent from our constitution, as it was evidently assumed to be a given. Head of State remains the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth, but that's a slight aside. Prime Minister is not elected by the gen pop, despite many citizens of AU believing it to be the case. The 150 elected representatives in the parliament actually choose amongst them who the Prime Minister shall be -- a potentially very civilised approach to leadership elections. Anyway, I'm not sure that I can defend myself against your claims about my personal observations. Perhaps you could give it a go, and see if you get the same trends of responses that I described.

elihu 8y ago

One downside of proportional representation is that it gives a lot more power to the parties to choose the winners. I'm not sure if voters would be comfortable with that. In the present U.S. system, a person can run as a Republican or a Democrat without the blessing or support of their party and win. I think that's a good feature to keep the party turning into some sort of "this guy and all his friends" club. Granted, if there are more parties to choose from there's more opportunity for voters to reject dysfunctional parties, but it's not inconceivable that you might end up with, say, five dysfunctional parties instead of two. I suppose a sensible hybrid system might be to have voters vote for their party in the regular election, and then for each party with one or more seats, that party runs a primary (via a multi-winner variant of approval voting or STV or something) to elect the people who actually serve in those seats. Does anyone already use a system like that?