# Is It Possible, Within the Parameters of the Constitution... \[apportioning votes to parties\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 21, 2012, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521 "2012-02-21T13:25:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/1 "2012-02-21T13:25:51Z")
Disclaimer the First: I’m sorry for the vague thread title; I couldn’t think of a way to truncate my question into a sentence that would fit in the thread title. Disclaimer the Second: I’m actually looking for a factual answer, but considering the weighty nature of the subject at hand, thought this might be more suited to Great Debates. Disclaimer the Third: Please forgive my extreme ignorance of Constitutional law. Rather than hijack [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=642758), I’ll start a new thread here. Would it be possible, without completely re-writing the Constitution, to re-configure the election process (in the US, that is), so that third parties (and even fourth or fifth or sixth) parties can get some representation at the federal level? I know of a couple of drastic measures that have been taken; for example, there was (or is) somewhat of a movement afoot to have Libertarians move _en masse_ to some smallish New England state (New Hampshire) so that we can get at least one Libertarian in the Senate. And of course, every election people try to use the internet to “trade” votes; in other words, a voter in a “safe” state trades his vote with a voter in a “swing” state. Could a state re-write their own Constitution to apportion votes? Or does the U.S. Constitution forbid it? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/2 "2012-02-21T13:40:05Z")
In the presidential election, most states are winner take all. If you win the popular vote in CA, you get all the electoral votes. But not in Nebraska and Maine. They apportion electors by district, given the two state wide electors (ie, the “Senate” ones) to the overall popular vote winner. States are pretty much free to set up whatever system they want to apportion electors. And some states and localities (ISF is one) use instant runoff voting, but not for national elections. I don’t see any reason they couldn’t do so for national elections. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/3 "2012-02-21T14:06:50Z")
There isn’t any constitutional requirement to have congressional districts. If the federal Congress allows it, States can make all their Congressional districts “at large” and then set up a system that distributes seats based on the percentage of votes people get. IIRC, before the Civil War some states had systems where you voted for a slate of candidates and then each slate was given a number of seats proportional to that slates vote share. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/4 "2012-02-21T14:06:59Z")
For the House of Representatives, yes. Right now there is a federal law prescribing that Representatives be elected in single member districts. Another law could change that to multimember districts which would not only allow for a broader range of political representation but also negate most of the effects of gerrymandering. Of course there a dozen lower population states that have only one or two Representatives where this wouldn’t help. If we increased the House to around 600 members however there would be only a couple. Senators however can’t be elected proportionally. There are things we can do to make things more hospitable to smaller parties. Ballot fusion and some kind of instant runoff voting. Already some states require a runoff when no candidate reaches an actual majority. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/5 "2012-02-21T14:09:25Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > Senators however can’t be elected proportionally. Couldn’t they? I mean, you couldn’t have more than 2, but you could apportion the votes between the two who go the most votes in a single election, no? ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/6 "2012-02-21T14:13:13Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > IIRC, before the Civil War some states had systems where you voted for a slate of candidates and then each slate was given a number of seats proportional to that slates vote share. I don’t think this is correct. When people elected Representatives on a statewide basis it wasn’t with each person getting one vote for each slate but rather with each person getting one vote PER Representative. So the same statewide majority could elect the entire state House delegation. I’m unaware of any proportional system though that’s not to say it didn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/7 "2012-02-21T14:19:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Couldn’t they? I mean, you couldn’t have more than 2, but you could apportion the votes between the two who go the most votes in a single election, no? I suppose you could change how the terms are staggered so that states elect both Senators in the same year without changing the Constitution (though not under the current Supreme Court I’d say) but proportional elections don’t work much better with 2 winners than they do with one. Even three winners isn’t all that great for broadening representation compared to six or more. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/8 "2012-02-21T14:25:42Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > I don’t think this is correct. When people elected Representatives on a statewide basis it wasn’t with each person getting one vote for each slate but rather with each person getting one vote PER Representative. So the same statewide majority could elect the entire state House delegation. I’m unaware of any proportional system though that’s not to say it didn’t happen. Looking at wikipedia, I think your right. My scheme actually probably would be unconstitutional, since while you can have “at large” voting, I think you have to have everyone in the State vote on each seat and you have to have them vote on actual candidates, not parties. So you wouldn’t end up with proportional voting scheme, instead you’d probably have one party sweep all the seats. Rather the opposite of the intended goal. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/9 "2012-02-21T14:36:49Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > I suppose you could change how the terms are staggered so that states elect both Senators in the same year without changing the Constitution (though not under the current Supreme Court I’d say) but proportional elections don’t work much better with 2 winners than they do with one. Even three winners isn’t all that great for broadening representation compared to six or more. :smack: I forgot that Senators aren’t all elected at the same time like Representatives are. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/10 "2012-02-21T21:42:11Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Looking at wikipedia, I think your right. My scheme actually probably would be unconstitutional, since while you can have “at large” voting, I think you have to have everyone in the State vote on each seat and you have to have them vote on actual candidates, not parties. I don’t see why it would be unconstitutional. This scheme is called a STV, Single Transferable Vote. People do vote for individual candidates. It’s just that once a candidate receives enough to win they transfer the extra votes to the next candidate on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/11 "2012-02-22T05:02:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Couldn’t they? I mean, you couldn’t have more than 2, but you could apportion the votes between the two who go the most votes in a single election, no? If this were possible (not saying it can/cannot be done), what you do for Senators in one state you must do for the other 49 states, per Article V. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/12 "2012-02-22T07:06:41Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > If this were possible (not saying it can/cannot be done), what you do for Senators in one state you must do for the other 49 states, per Article V. He wasn’t proposing to change the number of Senators per state just how they would be elected. There is no requirement in Article Five that all states must choose Senators in exactly the same manner. States have always used differing methods. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/13 "2012-02-22T08:40:18Z")
Would the size of the House have to be increased? As it is now, there’s no way to have any kind of proportional system there without leaving some states out (a single at-large member can’t be elected proportionally) and putting people in unequally-sized districts. Would unequal districts (putting some people in a district of 700,000 with one representative, and others in a district of 2.1 million with three representatives, etc.) even be constitutional? If not, then the only way to have multi-member districts would be to apportion seats in the House in blocks, and I can’t see _that_ passing muster unless the House was much larger than it is now. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/14 "2012-02-22T16:08:53Z")
Statewide at-large congressional elections might be considered an unconstitutional dilution of minority voting power. Also, under current law, it would almost certainly be a violation of the Voting Rights Act if undertaken by one of the states whose voting procedures are supervised by the federal government under the VRA. If memory serves, one of the southern states back in the '60s attempted to switch to at-large elections, basically for the very purpose of diluting minority voting, and that plan was shot down. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/15 "2012-02-22T17:25:49Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Statewide at-large congressional elections might be considered an unconstitutional dilution of minority voting power. I’m going to disagree in that it seems to be a non-issue in the states that currently elect one representative or one governor or one senator (at a time). Plus if it is truly at large as in in a state with 8 Representatives each voter gets to vote for one person and the top 8 vote-getters get to go, I don’t think it is a dilution of voting power since a minority group can still vote as a block. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/16 "2012-02-22T17:33:18Z")
[Michael Lind considered this back in 1992:](http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/congress/lindf.htm) > [@](#): > > What would it take to install proportional representation for members of the House of Representatives? Nothing more than an act of Congress. No constitutional amendment is necessary. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution states, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” This gives Congress the power to preempt all state electoral laws and to mandate a system of multimember districts with proportional representation for electing members of the House of Representatives. > > Because the idea of PR is to give electoral representation not only to parties or candidates that win by slight pluralities or majorities but also to second-, third-, and fourth-place winners, it requires multimember districts. The best way to adapt PR to American conditions would be to consolidate present contiguous congressional districts into multimember districts with some manageable number of members–seven, say, or nine. The larger the number elected from a multimember district, the smaller the number of voters needed to elect at least one representative to the House. > > By promoting a close correspondence between groups of voters and groups represented in Congress, PR minimizes the waste of votes that occurs under our present system. For example, the same hypothetical voting population that, divided into nine single-member districts, now returns nine Democrats, each with a slight plurality in his district, might, if organized into a nine-member district with PR, send four Democrats, three Republicans, one Libertarian, and one Conservative to Congress–WITH THE SAME VOTES CAST. By the same token, Democrats who today waste their votes in largely Republican areas might be able to elect a minority of a consolidated multimember district’s congressional delegation. Many voters who today are resigned to never electing a congressman of their party or their philosophy, simply because they happen to belong to permanent electoral minorities in their local communities, would suddenly be able to help elect one or more representatives, without changing either their residence or their views. > > Multimember districts are nothing new in the United States. Combined with both plurality elections and PR, they have long been used at the state and municipal levels. For example, from 1870 to 1980 the cumulative vote within three-member districts (similar to PR) was used to elect legislators to the Illinois Assembly. As early as 1867 Senator Charles Buckalew proposed that cumulative voting for House elections be imposed by Congress on reconstructed southern states seeking readmission to the Union; following this experiment, either cumulative voting or proportional representation (which he thought too complex for the Americans of his day to comprehend!) could be adopted nationwide. That his proposed reform got nowhere was a tragedy not only for the black, white Republican, and Populist electoral minorities in the South, who were soon effectively disenfranchised by the dominant Democrats, but for the country as a whole, which might have adopted PR by the turn of the century, as many European democracies had. > > What about the states that are so sparsely populated that they have only one congressman apiece? PR works only when districts elect multiple members–at least two or three, and preferably more than four or five. At present six states have such small populations that they have only one representative apiece (Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming). Perhaps single-member states would elect their representatives under a plurality system. Still, it seems unfair not to allow their citizens the benefits of PR. The fairest approach would be to increase the number of representatives to give these states more representatives. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/17 "2012-02-22T18:50:40Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > And of course, every election people try to use the internet to “trade” votes; in other words, a voter in a “safe” state trades his vote with a voter in a “swing” state. Sorry for the hijack, but what? How does this work? ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/18 "2012-02-22T21:09:57Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > I suppose you could change how the terms are staggered so that states elect both Senators in the same year without changing the Constitution . . . Strictly speaking, the Constitution doesn’t require that the two Senators from each state belong to separate classes. Article II Section 3 says that: > [@](#): > > Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, (the Senators) shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year . . . The Senate of the First Congress, when it assembled, _could_ have assigned the classes randomly so that _some_ states had both Senate elections in the same year, or they could even have designed the procedure such that _every_ state had two elections in the same year, with one third of the states voting every two years. They chose (sensibly IMO) not to do so. They assigned the classes subject to the constraint that no state had two Senators in the same class. Likewise, as new states have been admitted, the two new Senators have invariably been assigned to separate classes. In many cases this is unavoidable. At the moment we have a 34-33-33 split so if we were to admit a 51st state, the new Senators would _have to_ be split between the two 33’s to keep the classes equal. And now that we’re doing it this way, we can’t change without a Constitutional amendment. Senators have six year terms, and Congress has no authority to truncate or extend the term of any given Senator. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/19 "2012-02-23T03:27:38Z")
Why not try it at state level first? ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521/20 "2012-02-23T04:50:39Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Would the size of the House have to be increased? As it is now, there’s no way to have any kind of proportional system there without leaving some states out (a single at-large member can’t be elected proportionally) and putting people in unequally-sized districts. Would unequal districts (putting some people in a district of 700,000 with one representative, and others in a district of 2.1 million with three representatives, etc.) even be constitutional? If not, then the only way to have multi-member districts would be to apportion seats in the House in blocks, and I can’t see _that_ passing muster unless the House was much larger than it is now. ## Each of those districts would have one Representative for 700K citizens so it seems to me that they would be apportioned “according to their respective Numbers”. The expansion of the House to 600 seats I mentioned above would set the ratio of representatives to citizens at roughly the population of the “smallest” state. So we would need a House of around 1800 seats for Wyoming to deserve it’s own three seat block of Representatives. And three member districts don’t offer the representative diversity of districts with more members. So yeah, that’s a nonstarter I think. > [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Statewide at-large congressional elections might be considered an unconstitutional dilution of minority voting power. > > Also, under current law, it would almost certainly be a violation of the Voting Rights Act if undertaken by one of the states whose voting procedures are supervised by the federal government under the VRA. If memory serves, one of the southern states back in the '60s attempted to switch to at-large elections, basically for the very purpose of diluting minority voting, and that plan was shot down. ## “At large” isn’t an electoral plan it only means that an election isn’t divided into districts. A proportional at large election wouldn’t dilute minority voting power. As **Saint Cad** points out, minorities could still vote as blocks and win representation. (Though a Single **Non** transferable Vote is less effective than STV since inevitably at some point some groups would receive less or more than their proportional share of the representatives when votes are not spread efficiently.) > [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > The Senate of the First Congress, when it assembled, _could_ have assigned the classes randomly so that _some_ states had both Senate elections in the same year, or they could even have designed the procedure such that _every_ state had two elections in the same year, with one third of the states voting every two years. > > They chose (sensibly IMO) not to do so. They assigned the classes subject to the constraint that no state had two Senators in the same class. > > Likewise, as new states have been admitted, the two new Senators have invariably been assigned to separate classes. In many cases this is unavoidable. At the moment we have a 34-33-33 split so if we were to admit a 51st state, the new Senators would _have to_ be split between the two 33’s to keep the classes equal. > > And now that we’re doing it this way, we can’t change without a Constitutional amendment. Senators have six year terms, and Congress has no authority to truncate or extend the term of any given Senator. This is a good argument and surely the current Supreme Court would accept it. But I also think it’s plausible to argue that the federal power to legislate the Times and Manner of the election of Senators would allow the Congress to schedule elections two or four years in the future for a full Senate term with the interim vacancies filled according to the Seventeenth Amendment. In any case, there doesn’t seem to be any benefit to doing so so it’s academic. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-within-the-parameters-of-the-constitution-apportioning-votes-to-parties/613521.md?page=2)