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I wanted to add some additional thoughts on what the problems of PR might be... - Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, be

I wanted to add some additional thoughts on what the problems of PR might be... - Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. - Representatives can't focus on representing a smaller geographic area, including field offices, outreach, constituent services, etc as easily, because they have to represent a much broader geographic area. - A lack of community ties, as representatives are representing a broader geography, the representative is less likely to know the names, places, and small cultural quirks associated with the communities they represent. Please feel free to add comments of your own with additional downsides. I am generally a fan of proportional voting systems, but I think it is important to have an honest discussion of the pros and cons, as there are ways to build representative systems that balance these concerns- but we have to be aware of and acknowledge them.

RandomLensman 3y ago
I think these are all minor quirks that can be addressed in some ways. The biggest "quirk" of PR is that you tend to get coalition governments, which isn't always so easy to strategize on as a voter.
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  Yes, I acknowledge that their are ways to address them, but I wouldn't call them minor.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    I meant compared to getting coalition governments that most voters didn't want.
- cherryteastain 3y ago
  Coalitions aren't a PR quirk. UK uses FPTP and has had several coalition governments, most recently in 2010-2015.
- jameshart 3y ago
  The US House of Representatives currently has an uneasy coalition masquerading as a FPTP majority.
UncleMeat 3y ago
> Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. This would be true if not for gerrymandering. Look at minority populations in states like Texas and Alabama and then look at the distribution of state and federal representatives. These voters are packed and cracked and would have a greater voice in a proportional system. > A lack of community ties, as representatives are representing a broader geography, the representative is less likely to know the names, places, and small cultural quirks associated with the communities they represent. My house rep lives 100 miles away from me in a town with very different demographics than mine. I am very confident that he does not know the cultural quirks associated with my community, except that he thinks that we are all cultural marxists indoctrinating children to be communist heathens.
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  I agree that gerrymandering destroys the community advantage of geographic representation. I generally follow a political philosophy that the larger the geography of the political body, the fewer laws they should make, and the less those laws should impact daily life of most individuals. For example, (in the USA) the Federal government shouldn't make as many laws as the State, and the laws they make should focus on Federal issues, like national defense and interstate commerce. States shouldn't make as many laws that impact daily life as the counties and cities do, etc. Likewise, more taxes should be levied and paid (as a proportion, not necessarily in aggregate) locally than nationally.
  - Taikonerd 3y ago
    Sounds like subsidiarity? "Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution."[0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity
anonymous_sorry 3y ago
I am also in favour of proportional voting systems. But with a party list system, there can be a perception that the party machine has more control over who gets elected. If a party can realistically expect a vote share of 20-30%, and ten candidates are being elected proportionally, then the top two candidates on the list are pretty much guaranteed a seat, whether or not they work or campaign very hard. This puts a lot of power in the hands of the people who decide the party list. But to be honest, FPTP has a very similar problem with safe seats.
greenicon 3y ago
These are all valid issues. Germany addresses them by doing a FPTP pass and then filling the remainder of the parliament such that the overall parliament has PR according to a second, independent vote given at the same time. This creates some other issues again, but works surprisingly well for the most part.
- earthnail 3y ago
  Worth mentioning that the Germans didn’t come up with this system - it was the allied forces: US, UK and France, drawing on their experience on the deficiencies of their own systems. It was successful enough that it also served as a blueprint for the Eastern European countries once the Soviet Union fell. Always puzzles me why these three countries never took the opportunity to learn from their very own experiment.
  - paj 3y ago
    > Always puzzles me why these three countries never took the opportunity to learn from their very own experiment. It's very difficult to change the existing system because the people currently in power are there because of the way the system is built, so any change will almost by definition be disadvantageous for the people who have the power to change it.
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    Because they had a unique opportunity to design a government off a clean slate, whereas to change their own governments would mean working through the requirements of each individual government. Which in the US is actually 51 separate governments consisting of the Federal government which only has enumerated powers, and also the 50 sovereign states.
  - grotorea 3y ago
    I heard it was a bit of a compromise since the Germans were used to PR, but felt it had shown weaknesses in the Weimar period, but the US and UK preferred the familiar to them single winner district system.
- 3y ago
toyg 3y ago
The first point indicates a lack of familiarity with the actual history of PR systems. The resulting problems are actually the opposite: very small clusters of voters typically end up wielding a disproportionate amount of power. That's because PR invites people that are ideologically affine, to run separately, effectively campaigning against their "friends". It's obviously better, for any given politician, to be the head of a 5% party than being a "rank&file" in a 30% one. The resulting fragmentation has to be later recomposed with alliances to form a government, which will go on bickering constantly; and it often results in executives that can count on very thin majorities, increasing overall uncertainty to bad overall effects (instability, higher borrowing costs, etc). Such executives then have to spend inordinate amounts of political (and often monetary) capital, appeasing very narrow interests. One of the most infamous expression of such dynamics is the Italian experience from 1948 to 1994, but also France before Napoleon III, Weimar, etc. This is why modern PR systems end up with forceful thresholds, where a party with less than 2 to 6% is kept out of parliament - but that's literal, direct disenfranchisement, not particularly better than the indirect one resulting from FPTP. IMHO the better approach is FPPT but with ranked voting to reach 50%. This reduces the worst distortions of FPPT (i.e. "winners" literally hated by 60-70% of the electorate), while promoting a balanced approach to minority interests.
- anonymous_sorry 3y ago
  > The resulting fragmentation has to be later recomposed with alliances to form a government, which will go on bickering constantly; I mean what are political parties under FPTP other than alliances to form a government? Bickering is rather common within them. Democratic politics always requires a broad coalition of different interests and groups to assemble a majority. I'm not convinced voting system changes that much, but tensions may erupt in different ways under different systems.
  - toyg 3y ago
    > Bickering is rather common within them. "Within" being the key word. It's a completely different level, believe me. The last 6 years of UK political life have been exceptional, and the overall sentiment is that they were pretty bad. They were also absolutely run of the mill from a PR perspective: a new executive every few months, elections every 3 years or so, a constant fight to reconcile fundamentally un-reconcileable positions, extreme public brinkmanship, etc etc. PR will fix nothing of that, it will only make it worse.
anonymous_sorry 3y ago
> - Representatives can't focus on representing a smaller geographic area, including field offices, outreach, constituent services, etc as easily, because they have to represent a much broader geographic area. There are lots of practical reasons why geographical constituencies make sense. But nobody ever questions them as the natural way to group voters in elections. I've always wondered what politics would look like if constituencies were based on other criteria. For example, age group, profession, gender, marital status & number of children, or income-bracket.
Vvector 3y ago
One way to combat the issues you bring up is to add more members to the House of Representatives. Keep the same districts, but have each district elect five members. A cluster of a minority population might be able to elect 1 of 5 members, instead of being shut out. Representatives would still represent the same geographic area and have the same community ties. The main argument against is the difficulty of running the House with ~3000 members. There isn't a room big enough, and there isn't time for all to get their 5 minutes to speak on each bill. That said, there is no constitution requirements for either. Changes would have to be made to accommodate.
scythe 3y ago
> - Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. This is largely solved by the districtized version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-member_proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-member_proportional_repre... In fact I had been writing up a little paper about another system like this, but I've been busy with other things.
- Taikonerd 3y ago
  Interesting! Sort of like MMP, except that each representative still has a "home district."
PaulHoule 3y ago
I think any system which has complications is going to seed distrust today. For instance because you have the electoral college in the US you have the possibility of the electoral college going in the opposite direction of the popular vote. An event like that reduces the mandate of the winner. If a PR system or single transferable vote or something like created events that were hard to explain on the news that's trouble.
notfromhere 3y ago
U.S. house districts are like 700k persons. The local community knowledge is already not happening

RandomLensman 3y ago

I think these are all minor quirks that can be addressed in some ways. The biggest "quirk" of PR is that you tend to get coalition governments, which isn't always so easy to strategize on as a voter.

ensignavenger 3y ago
Yes, I acknowledge that their are ways to address them, but I wouldn't call them minor.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  I meant compared to getting coalition governments that most voters didn't want.
cherryteastain 3y ago
Coalitions aren't a PR quirk. UK uses FPTP and has had several coalition governments, most recently in 2010-2015.
jameshart 3y ago
The US House of Representatives currently has an uneasy coalition masquerading as a FPTP majority.

UncleMeat 3y ago

> Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. This would be true if not for gerrymandering. Look at minority populations in states like Texas and Alabama and then look at the distribution of state and federal representatives. These voters are packed and cracked and would have a greater voice in a proportional system. > A lack of community ties, as representatives are representing a broader geography, the representative is less likely to know the names, places, and small cultural quirks associated with the communities they represent. My house rep lives 100 miles away from me in a town with very different demographics than mine. I am very confident that he does not know the cultural quirks associated with my community, except that he thinks that we are all cultural marxists indoctrinating children to be communist heathens.

ensignavenger 3y ago
I agree that gerrymandering destroys the community advantage of geographic representation. I generally follow a political philosophy that the larger the geography of the political body, the fewer laws they should make, and the less those laws should impact daily life of most individuals. For example, (in the USA) the Federal government shouldn't make as many laws as the State, and the laws they make should focus on Federal issues, like national defense and interstate commerce. States shouldn't make as many laws that impact daily life as the counties and cities do, etc. Likewise, more taxes should be levied and paid (as a proportion, not necessarily in aggregate) locally than nationally.
- Taikonerd 3y ago
  Sounds like subsidiarity? "Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution."[0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

anonymous_sorry 3y ago

I am also in favour of proportional voting systems. But with a party list system, there can be a perception that the party machine has more control over who gets elected. If a party can realistically expect a vote share of 20-30%, and ten candidates are being elected proportionally, then the top two candidates on the list are pretty much guaranteed a seat, whether or not they work or campaign very hard. This puts a lot of power in the hands of the people who decide the party list. But to be honest, FPTP has a very similar problem with safe seats.

greenicon 3y ago

These are all valid issues. Germany addresses them by doing a FPTP pass and then filling the remainder of the parliament such that the overall parliament has PR according to a second, independent vote given at the same time. This creates some other issues again, but works surprisingly well for the most part.

earthnail 3y ago
Worth mentioning that the Germans didn’t come up with this system - it was the allied forces: US, UK and France, drawing on their experience on the deficiencies of their own systems. It was successful enough that it also served as a blueprint for the Eastern European countries once the Soviet Union fell. Always puzzles me why these three countries never took the opportunity to learn from their very own experiment.
- paj 3y ago
  > Always puzzles me why these three countries never took the opportunity to learn from their very own experiment. It's very difficult to change the existing system because the people currently in power are there because of the way the system is built, so any change will almost by definition be disadvantageous for the people who have the power to change it.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  Because they had a unique opportunity to design a government off a clean slate, whereas to change their own governments would mean working through the requirements of each individual government. Which in the US is actually 51 separate governments consisting of the Federal government which only has enumerated powers, and also the 50 sovereign states.
- grotorea 3y ago
  I heard it was a bit of a compromise since the Germans were used to PR, but felt it had shown weaknesses in the Weimar period, but the US and UK preferred the familiar to them single winner district system.
3y ago

toyg 3y ago

The first point indicates a lack of familiarity with the actual history of PR systems. The resulting problems are actually the opposite: very small clusters of voters typically end up wielding a disproportionate amount of power. That's because PR invites people that are ideologically affine, to run separately, effectively campaigning against their "friends". It's obviously better, for any given politician, to be the head of a 5% party than being a "rank&file" in a 30% one. The resulting fragmentation has to be later recomposed with alliances to form a government, which will go on bickering constantly; and it often results in executives that can count on very thin majorities, increasing overall uncertainty to bad overall effects (instability, higher borrowing costs, etc). Such executives then have to spend inordinate amounts of political (and often monetary) capital, appeasing very narrow interests. One of the most infamous expression of such dynamics is the Italian experience from 1948 to 1994, but also France before Napoleon III, Weimar, etc. This is why modern PR systems end up with forceful thresholds, where a party with less than 2 to 6% is kept out of parliament - but that's literal, direct disenfranchisement, not particularly better than the indirect one resulting from FPTP. IMHO the better approach is FPPT but with ranked voting to reach 50%. This reduces the worst distortions of FPPT (i.e. "winners" literally hated by 60-70% of the electorate), while promoting a balanced approach to minority interests.

anonymous_sorry 3y ago
> The resulting fragmentation has to be later recomposed with alliances to form a government, which will go on bickering constantly; I mean what are political parties under FPTP other than alliances to form a government? Bickering is rather common within them. Democratic politics always requires a broad coalition of different interests and groups to assemble a majority. I'm not convinced voting system changes that much, but tensions may erupt in different ways under different systems.
- toyg 3y ago
  > Bickering is rather common within them. "Within" being the key word. It's a completely different level, believe me. The last 6 years of UK political life have been exceptional, and the overall sentiment is that they were pretty bad. They were also absolutely run of the mill from a PR perspective: a new executive every few months, elections every 3 years or so, a constant fight to reconcile fundamentally un-reconcileable positions, extreme public brinkmanship, etc etc. PR will fix nothing of that, it will only make it worse.

anonymous_sorry 3y ago

> - Representatives can't focus on representing a smaller geographic area, including field offices, outreach, constituent services, etc as easily, because they have to represent a much broader geographic area. There are lots of practical reasons why geographical constituencies make sense. But nobody ever questions them as the natural way to group voters in elections. I've always wondered what politics would look like if constituencies were based on other criteria. For example, age group, profession, gender, marital status & number of children, or income-bracket.

Vvector 3y ago

One way to combat the issues you bring up is to add more members to the House of Representatives. Keep the same districts, but have each district elect five members. A cluster of a minority population might be able to elect 1 of 5 members, instead of being shut out. Representatives would still represent the same geographic area and have the same community ties. The main argument against is the difficulty of running the House with ~3000 members. There isn't a room big enough, and there isn't time for all to get their 5 minutes to speak on each bill. That said, there is no constitution requirements for either. Changes would have to be made to accommodate.

scythe 3y ago

> - Clusters of minority populations tend to not get as much representation, because they are but a small voice in a bigger ocean of voices. This is largely solved by the districtized version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-member_proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-member_proportional_repre... In fact I had been writing up a little paper about another system like this, but I've been busy with other things.

Taikonerd 3y ago
Interesting! Sort of like MMP, except that each representative still has a "home district."

PaulHoule 3y ago

I think any system which has complications is going to seed distrust today. For instance because you have the electoral college in the US you have the possibility of the electoral college going in the opposite direction of the popular vote. An event like that reduces the mandate of the winner. If a PR system or single transferable vote or something like created events that were hard to explain on the news that's trouble.

notfromhere 3y ago

U.S. house districts are like 700k persons. The local community knowledge is already not happening