# Should the U.S. adopt alternative, pro-multipartisan voting systems? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 17, 2003, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009 "2003-03-17T15:13:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![g8rguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@g8rguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/g8rguy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/61 "2003-04-01T02:10:55Z")
Ah. Perhaps displaying a touchingly naive faith in the power of the center, I don’t think that the Greens or the Libertarians or whoever else are going to win elections for important posts like senator or president. Perhaps naively, I think that as long as Republicans and Democrats represent most Americans faithfully, Republicans and Democrats will continue to be the dominant political parties. However, I would at least hope, perhaps also naively, that issues important to the Lyndon LaRouche types will get more consideration if the Lyndon LaRouche types can demonstrate some decent amount of support. Perhaps those issues will ultimately be discarded as stupid, but I posit that it is quite likely that there are issues which are important to some people and which the majority of people haven’t even thought about. Assuming this to be true, it would be nice to be able to bring these issues to peoples’ attention, even if the end result is that the majority recoils in horror and says “my God, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Better to hear “my God, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” than to get blank stares, in my view. In the end, of course, it’s not going to happen, but let me wear my rose-tinted glasses for a while longer, eh? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/62 "2003-04-03T03:07:13Z")
One point nobody has touched on yet: Moving to a multiparty system would RAISE THE CIVIC IQ of America. Walter Lippmann, in his classic book “Public Opinion,” pointed out, “Thinking is a function of an organism, and a mass is not an organism.” True and false. An organized society is not a simple mass. A society has a lot of organizations that can be thought of as its collective brains, that do its collective thinking. One of the most important kinds of collective brain is an elected multimember policymaking body such as Congress, a state legislature, or a city council. Now, an individual who is in the habit of looking at every question from as many different angles as possible, time permitting, obviously is a better thinker than one who habitually reduces everything to two alternatives, or a very narrow range of alternatives. And so with a society. A multiparty system means we have Greens, libertarians, radical populists, sitting in our public councils, and raising issues and objections and ideas NOBODY ELSE WOULD THINK OF. A libertarian once lectured me on jitney deregulation as a solution to urban and suburban transportation problems: If anybody with a car could set up as an independent taxi driver, with no or minimal hurdles to get a license from the local government, jitney service would be cheaper, it would be more convenient for everybody, and not every suburbanite would need to own a car. I’m not convinced – I think mass transit and growth management are what we really need – but the point is, it is an idea worth considering, and it took a libertarian to think of it. Certainly no Green would have thought of it. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/63 "2003-04-03T03:46:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > **A multiparty system means we have Greens, libertarians, radical populists, sitting in our public councils, and raising issues and objections and ideas NOBODY ELSE WOULD THINK OF.** Why does that mean that the people will be better represented? I worked for local government and there is a lot of involvement by concerned citizens from all over the spectrum. A lot of crazy and not-so-crazy ideas are bandied about in local councils. Having a libertarian on the council is not going to get her message across to a wider audience: the people who don’t follow local politics won’t hear about it, and those who do can already hear about it during the public discussion parts of the meetings. How is putting fringe groups into decision making positions going to make the populace better off rather than just the fringe’s constituency? Suppose you have a five person council. Then to be represented proportionally, doesn’t a third party need be at least 20% of the population? Suppose 30% of the people have third party alignments, but they are evenly split between Greens, Libs., and Huguenots. Then if a Lib. gets elected to the council, then the Libs get extra representation and the Greens and Huguenots get none. The Greens, assuming that Green means extra-statist for the sake of argument, are especially screwed, because not only do the Dems and Republicans have 80% of the council, but the other 20% is now in the hands of their ideological opposites! But you can’t give one seat each to Greens, Huguenots, and Libs, because then 60% of the council will represent 30% of the population. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/64 "2003-04-06T04:00:15Z")
brianmelendez > [@](#): > > No, every voter is still casting one and exactly one full vote. The vote cast for the less secure candidate–that is, the candidate whose bucket has not overflowed–is still counting for that candidate at its full value of 1.00 vote. The vote cast for the candidate whose bucket overflowed is still counting for that candidate to the extent of the two-thirds of each vote that was needed to exactly fill the bucket up. But the excess one-third remaining on each such vote can now count for the voter’s next-preferred active choice, now at its discounted value of 1/3 vote, so that each vote’s full strength is conserved. But the two third going to the secure candidate isn’t really counting, since he would have won anyway. Here’s an example in which it would make a difference: Say that there are three candidates and two spots. There are only 300 voters (it’s a small district). So each candidate needs 100 votes (actually, they’d need 101 to avoid ties, but that’s not important here). The preferences are as follows: ABC 102 ACB 48 BAC 60 BCA 30 CAB 40 CBA 20 If that’s how everyone votes, then A gets 150, B 90 and C 60. A overflows, with each vote counting for one third. So B gets one third of 102 (34) and C gets one third of 48 (16). Now A has 100, B 124, and C 78. C gets eliminated, and A and B win. But if everyone in group ACB change their vote to CAB, then A gets 100, B 90 C 110. A and C win, B is eliminated. This is similar to the hypothetical Riboflavin presented. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/65 "2003-04-06T13:49:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Ryan \* > **But the two third going to the secure candidate isn’t really counting, since he would have won anyway.** The secure candidate wouldn’t have won without the two-thirds of each vote. > [@](#): > > **A overflows, with each vote counting for one third.** I think that you mean two-thirds, not one third. Each vote’s discounted value after electing A is one-third, because two-thirds of each vote counted for A. Your subsequent analysis correctly counts each vote for A at two-thirds. > [@](#): > > **But if everyone in group ACB change their vote to CAB, then A gets 100, B 90 C 110.** My math gives A 102, B 90, and C 108. But the difference does not affect your point. > [@](#): > > \*\*But if everyone in group ACB change their vote to CAB, then A gets 100, B 90 C 110. A and C win, B is eliminated. This is similar to the hypothetical Riboflavin presented. \*\* You make a good point here. Proportional voting’s main selling points are that it minimizes waste and excess and maximizes effectiveness, and thus fully satisfies the right to an effective vote; and that it minimizes the incentive for strategic misrepresentation. (A vote is “wasted” if it goes to a losing candidate. A vote that goes to a winning candidate is “effective” to the extent needed to win, and “excess” beyond that point.) You have illustrated an instance in which the voters whose preference is ACB can affect the outcome by strategically misrepresenting their preference as CAB because, if they had voted their true preferences, then B would have gotten elected rather than C. This effect is possible because, while proportional representation _minimizes_ waste and excess and maximizes effectiveness, and _minimizes_ the incentive for strategic misrepresentation, no system can eliminate them entirely. The effect becomes less pronounced as the number of representatives being elected increases: that is, as the number of representatives goes up, the maximum possible total of waste and excess goes down. No other system offers that benefit. But there will always be cases at the margin where the possible waste and excess can be strategically manipulated in order to affect the outcome, as your example illustrates. And the voters whose preference is ACB do help get A elected so, even if they vote their true preferences and B gets elected rather than C, those voters are still represented; the only downside is that their representation controls only one rather than both of the available seats. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/66 "2003-04-06T15:32:05Z")
Huguenots? That’s a religious term, not a party. ---
**Author:** ![Riboflavin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Riboflavin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riboflavin)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/67 "2003-04-06T15:40:39Z")
Every time someone discusses alternate voting systems, there always seems to be this idea that third parties are just a little over on one side of the scale from one of the two major parties and that if only people could hear their ideas, they would say ‘gosh, those third parties sure have some good ideas’. But if you actually look at third parties in the US, they generally don’t have a platform that’s ‘pretty centrist with a few significant differences’, they have a platform that’s all over the place. Greens and Libertarians both are for the immediate legalization of all drug laws, and the Libs are also for repeal of all gun laws, all antitrust laws, disbanding the FDA, FCC and other regulatory agencies, withdrawal from all military treaties and overseas bases, and some other really radical things. And that’s just the party’s position, candidates and individuals working with the party advocate even more drastic changes, and the Greens have similar list of extreme positions. The libs emphatically are not “all of the small-government, individual freedom bits of both major parties” and the greens are not “neutral on most things but in favor of stronger environmental regulation than the two major parties”, they’re all extremely radical and propose a lot of sweeping changes that scare the hell out of most voters. You can try to place the blame for socialists like Nader, anarchists like Browne, and fascists like Robertson not getting elected, but it’s not going to stick when the vast majority of voters come to the labels above from what they hear directly from those candidates. Giving them a forum to more directly show that they’re far, far outside of anything that most people would ever vote for would IMO just reduce the number of protest votes cast, since people would be more aware of how bad it would be for them to win an election. Sure, it’s a fun fantasy to believe that there is a huge conspiracy between the Demopublicans and Republicrats that keeps third parties from winning elections, but there’s very little evidence that it’s really true. Also, as I’ve pointed out before, giving wacky fringe groups a better chance to force their weirdness on the rest of the country by changing voting systems is **not** just bringing issues to people’s attention. Pretending that changing the voting system so that I have to worry about what screwed-up laws a bunch of fringe parties manage to push in addition to what the D&Rs are already doing is just a way to give some people a forum is absurd. You want your message to be heard? Buy ad spots, take advantage of free air time during elections, make pamphlets, talk to people, and in other ways work to get your ideas out. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/68 "2003-06-28T20:16:12Z")
**december** just started a new GD thread – “Is the U.S. becoming a one-party nation?” – so I thought I’d resurrect this one as dealing with a closely related question. If we don’t want a one-party America, the best thing we can do is work to change the electoral system to produce, not a two-party America, but a \*\*multi-\*\*party America! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/69 "2003-06-28T23:50:00Z")
And you can link to that thread (“Is the U.S. becoming a one-party nation?”) at [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=193815](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=193815). I’ve got another relevant thread going: “What is the best scheme for mapping/classifying political ideologies?” You can link to it at [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=192457](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=192457). ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/70 "2003-06-29T03:29:52Z")
I like the 2 party system. America has the oldest democratic republic in the world and, IMO, the most stable. Although there is no limit to the number of parties, the mechanism favors 2 and it works to keep things from changing too rapidly. Not to insult the Euro countries but the number of parties that are electable dilute the majority of voters. If you have 10 parties running and each represents 10% of the populace then you risk an election where 11% wins. The ranking of candidates sounds nice but think of ranking 4 really bad choices with 2 sorta bad choices and 4 sorta good choices. Having a bad choice installed with an 11% majority is a real possibility. And if the 2 party system were literally all we had there is a separate election for each party. That in itself, can consist of many candidates, which gives an effective choice of more than 2 parties. Look at the number of Democrats that are running for President. They represent a vast selection of differing philosophies. ---
**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:** [June 29, 2003, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/71 "2003-06-29T19:30:09Z")
Hm. I’m getting more & more concerned with judicial reform, because whatever the Constitution says about Congress, the courts actually make law & rule the country. And it seems to me that if one wants to restore the idea of a legislature in charge, rather than the courts (and by no means is the morally right answer to that clear) then partisan affiliation has to be seen as a liability when disciplining uppity judges. Congressmen will leave those of their own party alone, & be afraid to be seen as abusing power by impeaching judges from the “other side”. Less broadly-based parties _might_ mitigate this tendency, & restore the Founders’ intent. I really think we could restore democratic debate by wresting power out of the courts’ hands. It wouldn’t take a Constitutional Amendment, just Congressmen with spleen. But would it be a good thing? Maybe rule by a specially educated black-robed elite is what we really need. The revolution in Iran appointed a “Council of Experts” as supreme, & the Catholic Church hierarchy is the most august body on Earth. Maybe man doesn’t really want or need to be ruled democratically, and the veneer of democracy we have in this country is more than enough. Hollywood has been talking for decades about a “shadow government” that’s really in charge, & maybe that’s for the best. Even that ostensible liberal Bill Clinton has publicly bemoaned the idea of individual life & liberty being seen as sacred, & I really think he’s right. All this talk of democracy is so much foolishness; learn to love meritocracy. But that’s another debate. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/72 "2003-09-26T14:55:34Z")
This is an old thread (by SDMB standards, anyway), but I decided to resurrect it to post some hot news from the CV&D website: [QOTE]On Friday, August 28, several leading pro-democracy organizations filed “friend of the court” amicus briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike-down current redistricting practices that have led to extreme partisan gerrymandering and a remarkable rise in noncompetitive congressional elections. The Vieth v. Jubelirer case involving congressional redistricting in Pennsylvania will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2003-2004 term. [/QUOTE] You can link to the full text of each brief via [http://www.fairvote.org/redistricting/amicusbrief.htm](http://www.fairvote.org/redistricting/amicusbrief.htm). One advantage of PR is that it does an end-run around all partisan efforts at gerrymandering. Think about it. If we use the multi-member district form – which involves merging 5 or 10 existing congressional districts into one district – then it becomes much, much harder to draw the lines so as to ensure Democratic or Republican dominance in the larger district, and even if you can, the minority views in that district STILL get represented in the districts 5- or 10-member delegation. The “party list” system is not only difficult but impossible for partisan leaders to stack in their favor. You might also want to check out another thread I started recently: “What would a multipartisan America be like?” ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=212598](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=212598)) It’s intended as a thought experiment: Assuming we DID have PR, etc., in the U.S., what kind of party system would emerge? What would be the new political groupings, and what would be their relative strength? ---
**Author:** ![dorfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@dorfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorfl)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/73 "2003-09-26T17:59:02Z")
Coming late to the party here (oh, bad pun). There seems to be some concern that the multi-party system allowed by PR will end up to be a too-many parties system. First two facts, then an observation **Fact 1** Many countries with PR use a “hurdle” that a party has to overcome in order to be in the . E.g., in Germany, if your party does not get 5% of the votes, you cannot get into the “Bundestag”. I heard Israel has a similar hurdle, not sure whether Italy has. This effectively limites the number of parties, but still you could have 10 parties with 10% each **Fact 2** How to overcome the issue that you do not feel represented in the PR system: in Germany, you have two votes: one for the party, the other one for your representative. (I think there are as many districts as seats.) The party vote determines the number of seats that your party gets in the Bundestag. Then these seats are filled up with the candidates that won their districts. Scenario a: The party won more seats than they have candidates who won in the districts. Solution: The party fills up the seats with a nationwide lists of additional candidates 9has to be published on the ballot) Scenario b: The party won _fewer_ seats, so some candidates who won districts have to stand, so to speak. In this case, \* seats are added to the Bundestag \*. This is typically around 3-5 seats, IIRC, and mostly for the smaller parties. I am unclear what this does to independent regional candidates, who obviously will never clear their 5%, but might get a regional majority. I think they don’t make it in, which is IMHO a good thing, since it prevents people with an entirely local agenda to rule on countrywide issues. The Green party succeeded because they managed to “bundle” a whole lot of local interest about the environment into a nationwide list. **Observation** Somehow there are countries with PR where the actual number of parties who made it into the governing body was always limited (Germany, I think Greece), and countries that approach saturation (Italy). I think that’s the reason why the German system (which moved from 3 important parties to 4 about 2 decades ago with the incoming Greens) is relatively stable, while the Italian is not, but it does not explain why a 5th,6th,7th party never had more than 5% in Germany (the ultra right wing dudes cames close but did not make it IIRC). They are on the ballots, alright, but can’t get over the hurdle. Have a good one Dorfl ---
**Author:** ![dorfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@dorfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorfl)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/74 "2003-09-26T18:22:50Z")
TRIED TO EDIT THE POST ABOVE BUT COULDN’T [MODERATOR, PLEASE DELETE PREVIOUS IF YOU CAN] — THIS POST EDITED AND SOME NUMBERS ADDED Coming late to the party here (oh, bad pun). There seems to be some concern that the multi-party system allowed by PR will end up to be a too-many parties system. First two facts, then an observation **Fact 1** Many countries with PR use a “hurdle” that a party has to overcome in order to be in the . E.g., in Germany, if your party does not get 5% of the votes, you cannot get into the “Bundestag”. I heard Israel has a similar hurdle, not sure whether Italy has. This effectively limites the number of parties, but still you could have 10 parties with 10% each **Fact 2** How to overcome the issue that you do not feel represented in the PR system: in Germany, you have two votes: one for the party, the other one for your representative. (I think there are as many districts as seats.) The party vote determines the number of seats that your party gets in the Bundestag. Then these seats are filled up with the candidates that won their districts. Scenario a: The party won more seats than they have candidates who won in the districts. Solution: The party fills up the seats with a nationwide lists of additional candidates 9has to be published on the ballot) Scenario b: The party won _fewer_ seats, so some candidates who won districts have to stand, so to speak. In this case, \* seats are added to the Bundestag \*. This is typically around 3-5 seats, IIRC, and mostly for the smaller parties. I am unclear what this does to independent regional candidates, who obviously will never clear their 5%, but might get a regional majority. I think they don’t make it in, which is IMHO a good thing, since it prevents people with an entirely local agenda to rule on countrywide issues. The Green party succeeded because they managed to “bundle” a whole lot of local interest about the environment into a nationwide list. **Observation** Somehow there are countries with PR where the actual number of parties who made it into the governing body was always limited (Germany, I think Greece), and countries that approach saturation (Italy). I think that’s the reason why the German system (which moved from 3 important parties to 4 about 2 decades ago with the incoming Greens) is relatively stable, while the Italian is not, but it does not explain why a 5th,6th,7th party never had more than 5% in Germany (the ultra right wing dudes cames close but did not make it IIRC). They are on the ballots, alright, but can’t get over the hurdle. Have a good one Dorfl ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/75 "2003-09-27T04:21:34Z")
**BrainGlutton** , I was going to ask about the multimember districts in your other thread but it was already highjacked to high heaven but it seems more appropriate here. What do you mean by merging five to ten House districts? Are you thinking of multimember districts that cross state lines? If so then I would think you would need a constiutional amendment. If you are just talking about multimember districts within states ( or within those states which have more than one representative in the House ) then no amendment would be necessary. I believe the principles in [Oregon v Mitchell](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=400&invol=112) apply here as well: federal law covers federal elections. Why would you want five to ten member districts anyways? It seems to me that while the gerrymandering wouldn’t be as effective as single member districts it still could be influential. Why not eliminate districting all together and just elect all of a state’s House delegation in one statewide multimember district? Also, doesn’t the districting itself preclude, or at least reduce, the need for a limit ( or “hurdle” as **dorfl** calls it )? I mean, in California where there are 53 House Members it would take almost 2% of the vote to qualify for one seat and in the other states it would take even less. A five member district would require almost 20% of the vote to earn a seat. ## Oh and thanks for the link to the Lind criticism of Daniel Lazare. I am looking it over and may start a thread on the topic. I guess I could be considered a Lazarite, if there were such a thing. Hi **dorfl** , welcome aBoard. Sounds like you will fit right in. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/76 "2003-09-28T19:17:23Z")
Posted by **2sense:** > [@](#): > > What do you mean by merging five to ten House districts? Are you thinking of multimember districts that cross state lines? If so then I would think you would need a constiutional amendment. If you are just talking about multimember districts within states ( or within those states which have more than one representative in the House ) then no amendment would be necessary. Well, yes, you’re right, that is a problem. In his 1992 article proposing the election the House of Representatives by multi-member-district PR ([http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/congress/lindf.htm](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/congress/lindf.htm)), Michael Lind stated: > [@](#): > > 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. But this proposal ignores the fact that some underpopulated states have only one representative so that crafting a multimember district would be impossible, and there is no constitutional provision for a district that crosses state lines. The Constitution does not actually forbid multi-state districts, but they would seem to be incompatible with the following language from Article I, Section 2: > [@](#): > > Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. The “three-fifths compromise” was, of course, superseded by the 13th and 14th Amendments, but the rest of this passage is still good constitutional law, and it does not seem compatible with the idea of multistate districts. In the same 1992 article, Lind also proposes increasing the size of the House to 500 or 600 members: > [@](#): > > In 1789 the first House of Representatives had sixty-five members, each representing about 30,000 inhabitants (and far fewer qualified voters). Anti-Federalist opponents of the new federal Constitution protested that districts of 30,000 were too large: congressmen would be far too remote from the concerns of their constituents (the constituencies in most state legislatures at the time were much smaller). One of the Federalist papers (No. 55) is devoted to justifying such enormous districts. > Today each of the 435 members of the House represents about twenty times as many voters as the first representatives did. Whereas the United States has, on average, one representative for roughly every 600,000 inhabitants, the ratio in Japan is one to 238,600, in Germany one to 120,000, in France one to 96,300, and in Britain one to 87,500. Obviously, the disparity is due largely to the differences in population between the United States and other Western countries, but the number of representatives also plays a role. The U.S. House of Representatives is small by Western democratic standards. Germany’s newly revised Bundestag has 662 members, the British House of Commons 651 members, France’s National Assembly 577 members, and Japan’s lower house of the Diet 512 members. > There is nothing sacred about 435, the number at which the-House of Representatives has been frozen by law since 1929. In the intervening six decades the United States has more than doubled in population. A vote for a representative, therefore, counts less than half as much in 1992 as it did in 1929–and a twentieth as much as it did in 1792. The weight of a vote will continue to decline: fifty years from now the average congressional district may include 750,000 people. Already, Montana has gone to court to challenge the present apportionment system, which would give the huge state only one congressional seat, representing 800,000 people. What is more, at the rate that the U.S. population is growing, in the foreseeable future a fifth of the states may have only one representative–and a third only two or one. > Clearly, the membership of the House cannot be increased in direct proportion to the population. If the original 30,000-member constituencies had been retained, by today there would be more than 8,000 representatives. (The House would have to meet in a stadium.) Nevertheless, moderate increases in House size can help limit the dilution of democracy caused by population growth. If the experience of other Western democracies is any guide, a 500-member House would not be unmanageable, nor would a 600-member House. The House is not the Senate; it loses its special function as districts grow too large and representatives find themselves ever more remote from their constituencies. If there is an argument against moderate increases in House membership beyond 435, it must be more compelling than mere tradition. Sixty-three years is not time immemorial. But even if we had a 600-member House, some states, such as Alaska, would STILL qualify for only one representative. I think a constitutional amendment might ultimately be necessary after all. Posted by **2sense:** > [@](#): > > Why would you want five to ten member districts anyways? It seems to me that while the gerrymandering wouldn’t be as effective as single member districts it still could be influential. Why not eliminate districting all together and just elect all of a state’s House delegation in one statewide multimember district? The point of gerrymandering is to render ineffective the votes of those voters who constitute a numerical minority within the gerrymandered district. PR makes this impossible. If we have a five-member district where more than half the voters are Republican, the rest Democrats, the delegation elected will have three Republicans and two Democrats. The result will be more or less the same no matter how the district lines are drawn. Therefore, gerrymandering becomes pointless. Posted by **2sense:** > [@](#): > > Oh and thanks for the link to the Lind criticism of Daniel Lazare. I am looking it over and may start a thread on the topic. I guess I could be considered a Lazarite, if there were such a thing. Lazare would identify himself as a socialist. In the November-December 1998 issue of _New Left Review,_ Lazare published an article, “America the undemocratic,” decrying the institutional barriers the American system has presented to simple majoritarian rule – and in Lazare’s view, majoritarian rule would necessarily lead to democratic socialism. In the February 1999 issue of NLR, Lind published a rebuttal, “Why there will be no revolution in the U.S.” His argument is that the U.S. constitution needs radical reform, but NOT because it is a barrier to socialism or to simple majoritarian rule. Lazare responded with another article, “The grand illusion of democratic nationalism: A reply to Michael Lind,” in the May-June 1999 issue of NLR. All these articles are available in the archive of the NLR website ([http://www.newleftreview.net/](http://www.newleftreview.net/)), but you have to be a paying subscriber to access them. However, Lind’s article is available for free on the website of the New America Foundation ([http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=1013](http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=1013)). You’re right, the dialogue between Lazare and Lind would make a good GD thread. My own view is that if we had PR, no one party, faction or ideology would predominate in Congress because none would command an absolute majority of the seats, **ever.** Therefore, the range of things that could be seriously proposed and discussed on the House floor would be much broader than it is now, but nothing could actually get done unless it were worked out as a compromise between several very different political camps. Obviously, this is NOT a formula for socialism, but it does make it easier for socialists to get a public hearing. ---
**Author:** ![viking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@viking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/viking)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2003, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/77 "2003-09-29T03:31:12Z")
Well, to add my politically naive two cents, it seems that the first-past-the-post system of electing local representatives (whether the status quo or an IVR system) would be fairer in a big and regionally diverse country, while a PR system of selecting parties would be fairer in a country that is diverse, but not on regional lines. I think we are (both in the US and Canada) moving from the first scenario to the second, what with instant communications and the whole global village thing happening. We are not entirely there yet, and may never be (which is not necessarily a bad thing). East-west and urban-rural differences will likely continue. That said, for the most part, I don’t _know_ my local representatives that well, being exposed more often to the platform of the party they happen to belong to. I think if I got to implement democracy from scratch, I’d have a two-house system where any legislation would have to pass both houses. One house would be completely non-partisan, stocked with independent local representatives chosen through an IVR election in their riding. Not having a party to advertise for them, they’d be forced to make their pitch locally, within their riding. The other house would be partisan, with representatives from each party chosen through pure PR. The head of state would be elected based on IVR, national voting. If the canditate felt a strong affiliation to a party in the second house, so be it, but several candidates could run from the party, or a candidate could be independent. So basically, you’d vote for three things: a local representative for house 1, a party for house 2, and a head of state. And with the exception of the head of state, there would be no worry about the `winner'' having only 11% of the votes, or whatever, because the concept of a singe `winner’’ just wouldn’t be there. For the head of state, of course there would, but I think IVR would represent the population better than the current system under most reasonably likely scenarios. I’m not sure how ministerial portfolios would be assigned; possibly appointed by the head of state to the local-rep house members, or something. Considering how random they seem now, I doubt it possible to do worse 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/78 "2003-09-29T06:57:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*The point of gerrymandering is to render ineffective the votes of those voters who constitute a numerical minority within the gerrymandered district. PR makes this impossible. \*\* That’s one way to look at it. I don’t think that the goal of those doing the gerrymandering is to disenfranchise opposing voters. I think rather that they just want to gain an advantage and are willing to disenfranchise others do get it. However you see it it isn’t true that PR makes gerrymandering impossible. An example: Assume there are 4 parties vying for the votes of 100 people who will tend to vote as follows: 44 for the Blues, 39 for the Reds, 9 for the Greens, 8 for the Yellows. If they elected ten representatives in a single PR district then the representatives would be 4 Blue, 4 Red, 1 Green, and 1 Yellow. If, however, the Blues were allowed to gerrymander this into 2 PR districts of five representative each then they could put all of their voters into one district along with 3 Red voters and 3 Green voters. This would result in a delegation of 5 Blues, 4 Reds, and 1 Yellow. Alternatively they could swallow up 3 Yellow voters instead of Greens and throw the last seat to the latter party instead. In short, while PR does reduce the amount of advantage that can be gained and doubtless adds a lot more uncertainty to the process, multimember districts can be gerrymandered. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > **Lazare would identify himself as a socialist.** Lazare _does_ identify himself as a socialist. I didn’t call myself a follower of his ideas without having some idea of what they were. I do own all three of his books. In them, as well as in [this article](http://www.prospect.org/print/V11/24/lazare-d.html) for The American Prospect, he does not write about socialism but rather the effects of governmental structures; federal, state, and local; upon the political landscape and indeed, upon people’s lives. He argues that the Haves have systematically crippled American governments in order to keep the Have Nots from easily altering the status quo. That has always been my position here and it is unsurprising that I share his view of our governments even if I don’t follow him into the belief that markets are superfluous. So, how much does a subscription to NLR cost, anyways? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009/79 "2003-09-29T14:49:55Z")
Posted by **Viking:** > [@](#): > > Well, to add my politically naive two cents, it seems that the first-past-the-post system of electing local representatives (whether the status quo or an IVR system) would be fairer in a big and regionally diverse country, while a PR system of selecting parties would be fairer in a country that is diverse, but not on regional lines. **viking,** you have to bear in mind that there is more than one form of PR. The “party-list” system, used in Israel, treats the whole country as a single electoral district. Each party puts forth a list of candidates for parliament, and then the members are chosen from the top of the party list down, for as many seats as the party merits based on its vote share; but the elected members are not representatives of any particular borough or district or constituency or riding within the country. However, there is also the multi-member-district system, which preserves the link between representatives and specific geographic regions. More more information on various PR systems go to [http://www.fairvote.org/pr/index.html](http://www.fairvote.org/pr/index.html). In his 1995 book _The Next American Nation,_\* Michael Lind proposed electing the U.S. House of Representatives by multi-member-district PR, and the Senate by national party-list PR. That would make the Senate a truly “national house” of party leaders chosen for their national prominence. The House members would still represent their geographic constituencies as well as their parties, but the districts would be larger than they are now. Posted by **2sense:** [QUOTE] So, how much does a subscription to NLR cost, anyways? [QUOTE] 32 pounds a year (it’s published in London), or $52, which includes delivery anywhere in the world and access to the online archives. If you have a credit card, you can click on [http://www.newleftreview.net/SubscriptionOrderFormNew.asp](http://www.newleftreview.net/SubscriptionOrderFormNew.asp) to order online. Your point about the possibility of gerrymandering in a multi-member-district PR system is well taken, but note that the result is STILL fairer representation than that produced by a single-member-district system. The result of a party-list PR system is fairer still but cuts the link between representatives and local constituencies – it’s a tradeoff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-u-s-adopt-alternative-pro-multipartisan-voting-systems/162009.md?page=3)