It is, but that would not keep minorities from getting elected under a PR system. Because under a PR system any minority (ethnic, partisan, ideological, class or other) voting bloc can get representation roughly in proportion to its numbers.
No, because it’s proportional representation. Assuming everyone was voting by race and only by race, a state with 10 seats and 30% blacks should end up with about 3 black reps, for instance. In a simple at-large election, whites would win all the seats. With 10 districts, it depends on how the districts are drawn (in the case of race, the Voting Rights Act requires the district lines not to hinder black voting power though, so race isn’t the best example. Party is probably a better measure of the problem with gerrymandering today).
Proportional representation means the winners are chosen based on proportional vote, usually by party. So if the voters of that state voted 60% D and 40% R, 6 Ds would be winners and 4 Rs. There are several other ways to do it, but the bottom line is that no vote is wasted by being stuck as a minority in a particular district. Every vote counts.
That’s what I think we should do. I would campaign for at least moderate election reform, but trying to come up with any system of districts that makes sense to me (other than mixed-member proportional, maybe?) is too much. I’d pretty much be saying, well, have one chamber over here that’s PR, and another that’s your rotten little system of patronage that I can’t even justify!
Oh, you mean party-level voting. I was stuck on individual-candidate voting for some reason.
My only problem with party-level voting is, there is a very good chance that certain parts of a state would be left without anyone to represent them on matters at a local or regional level. The party decides who are the actual Representatives, and there is a very good chance that all of them would come from more populated areas of the state. Live in, say, northwestern California? Good luck getting any of “your” Representatives from the Los Angeles and San Diego (okay, maybe one or two from San Francisco) areas to listen to your problems - especially when somebody figures out that the votes in “your” area add up to only something like 0.5 of a Representative.
I think some people have really funny ideas about population distribution in their states.
Here’s the thing: Since Reynolds v. Sims, every district (US House, state senate, state assembly, whatever) has to have roughly equal population. This has two noteworthy aspects people may not expect:
- Even if a party isn’t trying to gerrymander, they have to redraw the state’s districts every ten years anyway. This makes those census year elections a real prize. Why run on an anti-corruption platform when you can tell the party faithful they will have control for the foreseeable?
- Every district is roughly equal in size under the principle of equal protection of the laws. If 25% of the state population is in Big City, then 25% of the representatives come from there. That’s as it is now. *Not, *“some smaller number more in line with relative acreage,” not “all.” A reasonably proportionate amount. State assembly districts can’t practically be drawn without having some all within urban areas.
It’s that second aspect I want to talk about. When you start worrying that The Good Ol’ Countryside is “too sparsely populated” to gain representatives under PR, you sound like you think it’s too sparsely populated to gain representatives under present law, which clearly it is not.
Now, could there be a tendency for some parties to pick all their nominees from the same area? Sure! And they would in effect become a local party. But here’s the cool thing: Under PR, you have a choice not to vote for them.
Under the present system, if you live in a 75% THE ONE TRUE GOD’S OWN DEFENDERS OF TEH AMERICAN DREAM PARTY district, you have no effective vote. It’s over before you come to the polls. So the idea that your vote could have any effect, make any difference, no matter how small, is alien to many voters.
But under PR, you can vote for a local favorite son, or someone you like from elsewhere in the applicable state or district. Under the present system, you’re stuck with the TOTGODOTADP candidate even if he was airlifted in from somewhere else entirely.
It’s a fact that, since no federal election in 100 years or so (or maybe never, but I think I have heard of one more than 100 years ago) has been decided by one vote, the idea that your individual vote cannot have any effect on the result of the election is correct.
To follow up: yes, there was only one federal election in US history that was decided by one vote. It was in 1910, in New York, 36th Congressional District, and it was won by 20,685:20,684 count.
So people who go to vote in federal elections because they think their individual vote may affect the outcome are deluding themselves.
Depends on the system. There are many PR schemes, and some would handle geography in different ways. Nevertheless, is it so bad that most reps come from populated areas? Isn’t that how it should work anyway? Isn’t it how it works with a district system?
To be a vote that affects the outcome doesn’t mean you have to be the ONLY vote that affects them outcome.
Also, when was the last time a “one-vote election” remained that way after a recount? Wasn’t there a House seat in the mid-1980s where the Republicans kept winning recounts, and the Democrat-controlled House kept rejecting the result, until suddenly the Democrats won a recount, and the House declared that result official?
Then again, there has to be some point between “I want a recount” and “I concede the result.”
Most? Of course. Pretty much all? No. Also, “most reps come from populated areas” and “most reps come from popular areas in a particular region of the state” are two different things.
“Um, all of our bridges are falling apart.” “What’s stopping you from fixing them?” “Well, for one thing, all of the infrastructrure money targeted for this state is further targeted to fix things in the other half of the state.” “Then form your own independent party and vote someone in that represents you - oh, wait, no, that won’t work, as the big parties will just shut you out of the budget talks.”
To be a vote that affects the outcome means that if you didn’t vote the outcome would be different.
But that line of reasoning implies that no vote matters, and that implies that the election as a whole doesn’t matter, an absurd conclusion.
Still, Terr, if you really feel that way, feel free to no vote.
Never did. I don’t do futile gestures.
No individual vote matters. It’s not a “line of reasoning”, it is a fact. And no, that doesn’t imply that the election as a whole doesn’t matter.
There are two kinds of voters. One thinks that his individual vote may possibly affect the outcome of the election. The other knows that’s incorrect, but derives some kind of pleasure/satisfaction/warm fuzzies from participating in the vote.
I am neither one of those. So there’s no reason for me to vote. At least not in federal elections. I don’t care about local elections enough to participate.
What do you think stops that from happening now?
The way I look at it, is that although I am one of a kind, there thousands of others that use a very similar set of criteria to guide how they vote. So when I happen to remain undecided for a long while, but then at the last minute decide in favor of one candidate over the other, then there are thousands of others that are deciding much like me and right around the same time in the race.
A few times in my life, I’ve actually decided to vote against my traditional patterns (I’m pretty much traditional NE Democrat, but I have voted for Republicans) and watched as my candidate won an unexpected victory and then read in the post-election analysis that my demographic group was the difference.
No man (or woman) is an island, matter how unique we think we are. You may just belong to a specific demographic that is subject to low voter turnout. One day a candidate may win an upset, with your help, and find out that he/she was successful in appealing to a certain group of dis-affected citizens.
All of this does not change the fact that, if you, the person, fell sick and couldn’t make it to the polls on that day, the result of the election would be the same. You can lie to yourself and pretend that your individual vote somehow affects the result. But that doesn’t change the reality.
On any given day, given any demographic group, some of us are going to be sick. Some of us are going to have car trouble. Some of us are going to have to work late, unexpectedly. That’s a given, and given a large enough sample it is going to be fairly consistent from election to election.
My individual vote counts only because if I decide to go one way, then it’s likely that many in my peer group are making the same decision based on a similar set of factors. It’s no different than my deciding that Mad Men was must see TV, and finding, to no great surprise, that the show rates very high amongst my demographic. My “vote” to watch Mad Men didn’t make it successful, but the fact that the show had appeal to me and that I set aside Sunday nights at 10 to watch it meant that others, a lot like me, were doing the same. That’s why the show attracts advertisers who sell products I’m likely to purchase.
Really, I’d like to think I’m not so predictable, but as I go, so goes all the other folks who have similar incomes, education levels etc.
And if your vote influenced others in your group, that would be significant. Since it doesn’t, it isn’t.
And as I pointed out, if you derive some sort of satisfaction or pleasure from voting (as you do from Mad Men) that’s a sufficient reason to vote. But if you don’t, and you drag yourself to vote, knowing that your vote has no chance of affecting the election, that’s nothing but irrational behavior.
You miss one important point, you never know that one vote won’t matter in the next election. Maybe it only affected one federal election up to now, but it might affect the next one. And I did vote in a senatorial election where the margin was 6 votes, although finally stopped with the recounts and had a new election altogether. And, in that race I did (attempt) to influence others at work, neighborhood, whatever, because I did feel strongly about the candidate.
The final point is that I won’t “drag” myself out to vote if I don’t care who wins, although there’s usually at least one race on the ballot that matters. But if I do happen to care very much I will make the effort, and it usually means that the rest of my demographic has been energized.