Should the U.S. adopt alternative, pro-multipartisan voting systems?

Great Debates
41

IRV doesn’t do that, you’re not allowed to vote against a candidate so you can easily end up with your vote ‘effectively’ putting someone you don’t want in office.

That is not and has never been the case; a vote for Nader is a vote for Nader, and if he’s not a contender for the whole race then it’s effectively a vote for ‘whoever of the real contenders wins’, not a particular other candidate. There are Greens who’d pick Browne as their second, or not vote for anyone else, there are Libertarians who’d pick Gore, Bush, Nader, or ‘none’ as their second choice.

IRV could also make voting for Nader equivalent to voting for Bush. Say Bush, Gore, Nader, Browne, and Buchannan are running and you’ve got 10 voters. Their votes are (choices not listed are irrelevant):

3 Vote: A. Nader B. Gore
3 Vote: A. Bush B. Gore
2 Vote: A Gore B Bush
1 Votes: A Buchannan B Bush
1 Votes: A Browne B Gore

Ohh… Lots of Democrats decided to make a purely symbolic vote for Nader, but not enough for Nader to beat Bush outright. So we go to the ‘runoff’, and take it down to the two primary candidates, Bush and Nader. With the secondary votes tallied in, Bush wins with 6 votes to Nader’s 3, a clear victory. Yet, if the Nader voters had voted for Gore, the results would be 5-3 for Gore, with 6-4 in the ‘runoff’ (if needed, a real vote wouldn’t be right on 50% obviously).

So, it’s still not all that hard for a vote for a third party candidate to be as ‘for’ the wrong guy, just like it is now, and oddities like a strongly disliked candidate winning also can happen. If you try to add more options, you still don’t get everyone’s preferences, and you make it harder for the people who had trouble with Florida ballots to figure out what’s going on.

There’s no way you’re going to convince a significant number of people to support a massive change in how votes work in the US purely to enable a symbolic gesture. You can make your desires known by writing letters to candidates and similar activities, but if you’re not really willing to cast your vote for someone other than a particular candidate then I see no reason to offer a ‘symbolic gesture’, especially when that gesture can just as easily end up being as much a real vote for the wrong guy as now.

42

I would suggest that while IRV can of course do so, it is probably unrealistic to expect that it is as likely to do so as the current system.

I should hope that I don’t come across as being so idiotic as to believe that all people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore if forced to vote for someone other than Nader! At the same time, I would think it’s fairly acurate to say that most people who voted Nader would have preferred Gore to Bush, although I could be wrong on that.

I think that it is probably also accurate to say that, for example, a not insubstantial fraction of people who voted Gore would have voted Nader if they hadn’t thought that doing so would be handing the election to Bush. Whether it would actually have done so isn’t so much the point; the perception is there. Certainly my vote would have been other than it was except that, well, Florida was kind of an important state at the time, and voting a third-party candidate in such a situation seemed likely to have rather unfortunate consequences.

Obviously, one can envision scenarios in which IRV would cause a fiasco. I don’t claim it’s a panacea[sup]1[/sup], but I would suggest that if such a large percentage of people are upset that they decide to make a symbolic vote rather than vote for the candidate who won the nomination, then the party quite obviously chose the wrong candidate and probably deserves what it gets anyway.

In other words, as I said above, a third party vote could still have the effect of voting in the wrong guy, but I think that a pretty good case could be made that such a thing is no less likely (and in fact probably far more likely) under the current system than under IRV.

Well, no, of course not. I’m not saying that I’m going to go out and dedicate my life to trying to make IRV a reality, just that I happen to think it would be a nice thing to have and here’s why.

[sup]1[/sup] Nor do I claim to have spelled that word correctly…

43
  1. Australia has used proportional representation in the Senate since 1949 and in the various State Upper House assemblies for around the same period.
  2. If there actually is a “serious” move to switch to proportional representation House of Representatives, it certainly hasn’t crossed my radar screen, occaisional sound bites from the Proportional Representation Society of Australia notwithstanding.
44

Personally, I’m not interested in changing the voting structure on a federal level (though I’d like to see 120 or so more House seats added, as I feel that there are getting to be too many people per House seat), but on a state level. I propose intorducing the voting system used in Illinois from 1870 to 1980 in California (my home state). In my version of this, the State Senate is abolished, and 159 Assembly districts are created. Each one of these districts has 3 representatives, but can only elect 2 members of each party. This will end up helping minor parties indirectly, due to the areas in my home state where a third party would do better than a major party (Greens instead of Republicans in at least one of the 4 San Francisco districts my plan creates, and in the Berkeley district, Libertarians instead of Democrats in parts of Orange County, and instead of Republicans in Compton).

So, any problems with this plan?

45

I said
Riboflavin, I do think that all civil rights should be restored once the person has served his or her sentence. In some cases of violent crime, however, it might be a good idea to make permanent loss of the right to bear arms part of the sentence. But surely restoration of the right to vote upon completion of one’s sentence should be automatic?

Riboflavin said
So what you’re saying is that you don’t stand by your statement that all of someone’s civil rights should be restored once they’ve served their sentence? And why can’t permanent loss of the right to vote be part of someone’s sentence too? If you’re going to propose a sweeping reform of how lawmakers are elected in America and go on about how the current system is broken because your candidate lost the last election, at least be consistent on what you say is broken and how you’d fix it.

My reply
If I were setting the rules, the default position would be, all civil rights restored once the sentence is served. But in cases of violent crime, the judge would have the option of handing down a sentence that included revocation of the right to bear arms. The right to vote, OTOH, would not be something that could be revoked. The right to vote cannot be seen as presenting a danger to the public, as owning a gun can.

I said
An even better solution, IMO, would be IRV. It avoids the trouble and expense of holding another election, and it also solves another problem: the strategic voting problem, where people feel that they can’t vote for the candidate they like best. Instead, they feel compelled to vote for the candidate most likely to be able to defeat the candidate they like least.

Riboflavin said
And IRV has its own problems - it’s been proven that no election system is perfectly fair (in the sense of converting individual preferences to group preferences). It’s easy to construct a case where Gore is a lot of people’s second choice, but he gets removed because he’s not one of the two winners in the primary election. IRV also doesn’t allow a vote against a candidate (like the present system), there’s no way to say ‘I don’t really care which of these 3 guys win but I don’t want that guy to win.’ Since…

I said
We all saw this in the 2000 Presidential election. People who wanted Nader felt they had to vote for Gore in order to deny victory to Bush. People who wanted Buchanan felt they had to vote for Bush in order to deny victory to Gore.

Riboflavin said
in order to win an election, you need to appeal to more than a tiny percentage of the population, you have to appeal to the population as a whole, which Nader and Buchannan clearly do not do. I can’t work up any interest in reworking the US electoral system to accomidate what are clearly fringe viewpoints; going to IRV appears mainly to be so that people can say “I voted for Nader” while effectively voting for Gore, which I find rather silly. If you’re talking about fundamentally changing the constitution of the united states, I think you need something better than that as a justification.

And why do you leave off Browne, who was IIRC on more presidential ballots than Nader and who got more votes than Buchannan?

My reply
No system is perfect. IRV would not completely eliminate all problems. But I do think it would be an improvement. The problems I spoke of would be, IMO, not eliminated but substantially reduced by going to IRV.

I remember Browne, and I believe you are correct: he was on the ballot in (every state? 49 out of 50?) more states than either Nader or Buchanan. I didn’t mention him because, IMO, there’s no certainty as to who would be a Browne voter’s second choice. The Brown voters seem unlikely to have any one other candidate who’d be their very likely second choice. I mentioned Nader & Buchanan because, in both cases, there was a candidate who would be a very likely second choice. (The news media are definitely part of the problem. What was the justification for not according Browne as much attention as they gave to Nader and Buchanan?)

I said
In the future, I suspect that most Presidential elections will turn out to have a winner who got less than 51% of the vote.

Riboflavin said:
No, because if neither candidate gets less than 51% of the vote then the election goes to congress. And if you’re talking popular vote, your ‘prediction’ is just saying that you expect what has happened in the past to happen again.

My reply
Huh? In a Presidential election, the guy who gets the most Electoral Votes is the winner. It does not matter what percent of the popular vote he got, or what the percentages were in any of the states. It’s quite possible to win in the Electoral College while getting less than 51% of the vote. In the very close election of 2000, Bush and Gore each got about 49% of the vote. In a hypothetical future election where the minor party candidates do better, we could have a situation where the candidates of the Big Two get, say, 46% and 43%.

I said
I also don’t like the way the deck is stacked against the small fry. I want to see them get a fair chance: no nearly-impossible hurdles to getting on the ballot,

Riboflavin said
Cite, please. Let’s face it, in reality there are no nearly-impossible hurdles to getting on the ballot for parties that have some chance of actually winning an election. In North Carolina, one of the hardest states to get on the ballot of, the Libertarian Party had more ballot slots than real candidates (and, BTW, were the only third party on the ballot). Getting some signatures saying ‘put these guys on the ballot’ is just not that difficult if your party has even a remote chance of winning an election.

My reply
In most states the Big Two are on the ballot automatically. The minor parties have to earn a spot. It’s not just that they have to collect a huge number of signatures, it’s also that they are given only a limited amount of time to collect them. And, knowing that many of the signatures will be disallowed (often for no good reason), to be sure of getting on the ballot, they have to collect substantially more than the number required.

I said
inclusion in any televised debates, etc.

Riboflavin said
So, now you oppose the freedom of the press, since televised debates aren’t government functions? And why should anyone waste thier time with candidates who clearly don’t appeal to remotely enough of the population to win an election, when their valuable airtime can be spent on those who might win?

My Reply
No, I don’t oppose freedom of the press. I don’t think it was the press that decided who would be in the debates. Wasn’t it the League of Woman Voters? Whoever it is, I would urge them to include more candidates than just the Big Two. I think including the more major of the minor party candidates, who are less well known to the public, would draw a bigger audience, as people would be interested in hearing what they had to say. If they want to set a standard, why not make it, include any candidate who is on the ballot in any combination of states that, if he won all of them, he would get enough electoral votes to win the election?

46

True. But the other side of the coin is that currently many people are left out of the system altogether. If neither of the Big Two represents you, you have no real voice. They may be “big tents” but no tent is big enough to represent a full half of the people. And in recent years, as each of the Bet Two has moved toward the middle, they have moved away from many people they used to represent, but now no longer do.

The traditional image of a long straight line, the left to right spectrum, leaves many people out. But it always did, so never mind that for now. For now, pretend that the left-right spectrum is it. Neither of the big two ever represented a full half of the spectrum; it would be impossible to do so. In their recent moves toward the middle, they’ve moved away from people they used to represent but no longer do. To the left of the Democrats, and to the right of the Republicans, are many people who are not represented by either party.

At least, that’s how it was before Bush II was elected. From my perspective, he’s farther right than other recent Republican Presidents. No doubt this move to the right has left many of the more “leftish” Republicans behind.

(Okay, now stop pretending the left-right spectrum is all there is.) So we’ve got people on the left-right spectrum who are not represented by either party, and we’ve got the people who aren’t on the spectrum who also are not represented by either party.

Is it any wonder that half the population does not vote?

What should have been happening is that other parties should have arisen to represent various constituencies that were being left out. This natural process has been thwarted by the stranglehold the Big Two have on the system.

I see no liklihood of this ever changing. The Big Two are 500 pound gorillas; the minor parties are little leumurs. Dispite their overwhelming lead, the Big Two are ever vigilant to keep the minor parties from getting any bigger.

And we’ll probably never get IRV, as the Big Two will not want to let the cat out of the bag as to the status of their candidates as the 2nd choices of many voters.

47

Imagine two competing refreshment stands on a beach. If the first chooses a point a third of the way down, the second will choose a point a third plus some iota of the way down thus giving himself two-thirds of the beach and leaving one-third to the first guy. The equilibrium is for both to end up right next to each other in the middle. That basically serves as a model for the two party system–because of the median voter theorem (whoever gets the median vote wins).

I’m not sure what the equilibrium is for three refreshment stands. But let’s suppose that it is where the three stands are spread out instead of together in the middle. Now close two of the three stands. Before, the farthest anyone had to walk, if one of the stands was closed, was half the beach. Now, if it’s one of the off-center stands that remains open, then people have to walk even farther.

I heartily acknowledge that these are two different scenarios with their own strengths and weaknesses. Yet it seems to me that on net, the two stand solution is preferable the three stand solution, because with my luck it will always be the stand farthest away from me that stays open. I would rather minimize my the risk of getting a ruling party far away from my views than maximize the chance of getting one very close to me. It would be nice to have the refreshment stand closest to me stay open, but not at the risk of it being closed.

(Of course, if the equilibrium is for them to all huddle in the middle, then the three party model is essentially no different from the two party model.)

How many people who don’t vote do so because they figure things are okay with either candidate?

I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with that. If a district has 99 Dems and 1 Republican, then each Dem is getting 1/49.5 of a representative whereas the Republican gets one.

Here’s a paper every one may find interesting, somewhat related to this topic: www.gmu.edu/jbc/fest/files/foldvary.htm

What should have been happening is that other parties should have arisen to represent various constituencies that were being left out. This natural process has been thwarted by the stranglehold the Big Two have on the system.

I see no liklihood of this ever changing. The Big Two are 500 pound gorillas; the minor parties are little leumurs. Dispite their overwhelming lead, the Big Two are ever vigilant to keep the minor parties from getting any bigger.

And we’ll probably never get IRV, as the Big Two will not want to let the cat out of the bag as to the status of their candidates as the 2nd choices of many voters. **
[/QUOTE]

48

Oops! Scratch those last three paragraphs. I forgot to delete them.

49

brianmenlendez

I don’t understand. If one-third of each vote is poured into the next bucket, won’t the person that voted for the less secure candidate to begin with still have a full vote, and therefore be better off? Isn’t there still an advantage to voting for a less preferred, but less secure, candidate, over a more secure and more preferred one?

50

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.

Here is an example of how proportional voting works in practice:

Three representatives are being elected. The Insiders, whom 60% of the electorate support, nominate three candidates, A, B, and C. The Outsiders, whom 40% support, also nominate three candidates, X, Y, and Z.

Under plurality voting, with each voter voting for three nominees, A, B, and C would each get 60%. X, Y, and Z would each get 40%. A, B, and C would win; that is, the Insiders would elect all three representatives. The Outsiders would be unrepresented.

Under proportional voting, A, B, and C split 60%; X, Y, and Z split 40%. The threshold is 1/(3+1), or 1/4, or 25%. For example:

Step One
A: 22%
B: 20%
C: 18%
Insiders: 60%

X: 15%
Y: 13%
Z: 12%
Outsiders: 40%

Step Two

Nobody has reached the threshold, so the least-preferred nominee, Z, is dropped. Z’s votes transfer to X and Y, the surviving Outsider candidates. Let us assume that X and Y pick up Z’s votes—X picks up 8%, Y picks up 4%:
A: 22%
B: 20%
C: 18%
Insiders: 60%

X: 15**+8**=23%
Y: 13**+4**=17%
Z: 12**-12**=0%
Outsiders: 40%

Step Three

Still nobody has reached the threshold, so the least-preferred active nominee, Y, is dropped. Y’s votes all transfer to X, the only remaining Outsider nominee:

A: 22%
B: 20%
C: 18%
Insiders: 60%

X: 23**+17**=40%
Y: 17**-17**=0%
Z: –
Outsiders: 40%

X has reached the threshold, and is elected. Two seats are left.

Step Four

X exceeded the threshold by 15%, so 15/40 of each vote “spills over” into the next choice who has been neither elected nor eliminated. This surplus will transfer to the Insiders candidate who best appeals to the Outsiders. Let us assume that it is C:

A: 22%
B: 20%
C: 18**+15**=33%
Insiders: 75%

X: 40**-15**=25%
Y: –
Z: –
Outsiders: 40-15=25%

C has reached the threshold, and is elected. C’s surplus “spills over” to A or B. There are only two candidates left for one representative, so whoever comes out ahead is elected. The Insiders have won two representatives; the Outsiders, one. The Insiders and Outsiders are represented in proportion to their strength in the electorate.

51

If we don’t have a two-party system, why assume that that means we will have three parties? Why not four, five, or six? Or more? I think we need more than three!

I think we need a party adjacent to the Dems, to their left. I think the Repubs need to split into two parties: a religious right, pro-legislation of morality party, and a traditional conservative party that doesn’t want to legislate morality. Plus we need several parties for the people who are off to one side or the other of the traditional spectrum.

On another topic, re people who don’t vote, you said, “How many people who don’t vote do so because they figure things are okay with either candidate?” I’ve heard this before, but I find it hard to believe. I can believe in people who just plain don’t care who wins. (I suspect the “don’t care” people are just too self-absorbed to pay much attention to anything but themselves.) But to contemplate the prospect of either a Gore Presidency or a Bush Presidency and think either one would be just as okay as the other? No, it just isn’t plausible. And I’d say the same re any Presidential election in the last 40 or so years.

I think this is something politicians say. I don’t think they believe it, either, but they say it. They don’t want to admit that many non-voters (not all, but many) are fed up; don’t like either party, and are by not voting trying to send an “a pox on both your houses” message. So they say that the non-voter are people who “trust the candidates of both parties to ‘usually do the right thing,’ and so see no need to vote”. It’s a face-saving fiction.

Personally, I think that sitting out the election is absolutely not an effective way to say “a pox on both your houses” – the way to send that message is to either vote for a minor party candidate or write someone in. Writing in Donald Duck, for example, is sure to get the point across.

52

What impact does that have on the points I tried to make?

Fine, don’t believe it. Though I’m not sure how one can believe or disbelieve in a question. :smiley:

As to the point you were trying to make, abstention is a perfectly legitimate form of political communication. I don’t vote in alot of elections. I haven’t voted in almost all the local elections in this village. I haven’t done so not because I’m disgusted with all the available options, but rather because they are all fine with me. You seem to assume that a failure to vote signals disgust with the candidates; however, based on my experience, nothing could be farther from the truth. If I was really disgusted, I’d go out there and get involved.

(I gotta get a thesaurus.:frowning: )

From my experience with student government, fraternities, and honor societies, I can say that the vast majority of the times that I’ve seen people not vote it was because they were indifferent between the choices, and when they really cared they got involved.

53

:raises hand: Ooh! I do! I do!

A House of Lords, so to speak. I’ll have to think about that…

Hey! I coined a phrase, & it got quoted! :smiley:

Our federal constitution, as written, “de-emphasizes”–actually, it ignores–parties. Our actual system–as it actually functions in most states–enshrines them as the only way to power.
As for kowtowing to a party line, it still happens. But imagine if you could form your own party & still be a player in national politics; you wouldn’t have to.

Of course. The right to vote is a joke when you’re one vote among millions. Says it all, doesn’t it?:frowning:

Also, I think there’s a non sequitor in js_africanus’s “refreshment stand” analogy, but maybe it’s just the flawed postulate. Why would I want to open a stand right next to a competitor? What’s the point of having two political parties that are effectively the same? Do you realize how much time is spent demonizing opposing parties & exaggerating the differences? They have to stake out distinct territory!

54

A lot of time and money is spent distinguishing Pepsi from Coke as well.

Regarding the model, it was brought up that we might think of parties/candidates representing positions on a scale from left to right. The model is analogous–the beach is essentially one dimensional. So suppose you and I are refreshment vendors on a beach. I stake out the midpoint, where will you set up your stand?

55

How long is the beach?

Besides, on further reflection, it’s a false analogy. On the beach, one refreshment stand is as good as another, and the potential customer might pick his spot on the beach to be close to any of them.

But what kind of unprincipled mental defective would a voter have to be to change his “alignment” (opinions) so he can vote for a more successful candidate? The candidates have to go where the votes are.

56

It doesn’t matter–just assume that you could handle all the business if you were there alone.

This model is meant to fit the politics in order to illustrate a point. So just assume that the people are already there.

Because if the Dems are way too far left for a voter’s preferences, and the Republicans are spot on with his views, in regards to his left-right leanings, then it seems sensible that he’ll vote Republican. Maybe not, but it seems hard to believe.

So let’s go back to the beach. I’ve picked the middle of the beach, what spot do you choose?

57

No, foolsguinea, a Senate elected by straight party-list PR would not be a “House of Lords” – more of a house of ideologues – but of ALL parties, including the fringe ones. It would still be better than what we’ve got now. I imagine each party, when drawing up a list of nominees for the Senate, would put forward its most prominent leaders and spokesmen – e.g., the Greens would put Ralph Nader at the top of their nomination list; maybe the socialists, if we have any, would elect Noam Chomsky; the America First Party would elect Pat Buchanan. After these media stars, the next ranks of nominees on the list would be established politicians, who have paid their dues in lower offices, and the party leaders themselves – persons who, at present, hold party offices but no public offices. At present, you get elected to the Senate by having an obscene amount of money and the right connections in your state; under the PR system, you would get there by making a national name for yourself as a political figure or by working your way up a party organization’s ladder. This is a much better way of training real leaders.

58

Suggestion: two large stands, each a little more than 1/3 of the way from their respective ends (that is, near the middle). A whole bunch of small stands elsewhere. I see this as better than just the two big stands. Mind you, the two small stands will probably always be small stands, but for those people who live near the tiny stand marked “Libertaria,” for instance, they won’t have to walk half way down the beach to get to something they like, even though they’re not likely to ever become a big stand themselves, being too far down one end. :slight_smile:

I think what you’ve just shown is basically that the interests of the majority of citizens can be met by the two party system. You’ve also shown that it is in the interest of the two parties to pick relatively centrist positions. What you haven’t shown is that the two-party system serves the interests of the citizens not near the center, of course. There won’t be as many of those, presumably (since otherwise the center would be, well different), but while their voices shouldn’t play a major role because they ARE far from the center, their voices shouldn’t play NO role, either.

59

No, foolsguinea, a Senate elected by straight party-list PR would not be a “House of Lords” – more of a house of ideologues – but of ALL parties, including the fringe ones. It would still be better than what we’ve got now. I imagine each party, when drawing up a list of nominees for the Senate, would put forward its most prominent leaders and spokesmen – e.g., the Greens would put Ralph Nader at the top of their nomination list; maybe the socialists, if we have any, would elect Noam Chomsky; the America First Party would elect Pat Buchanan. After these media stars, the next ranks of nominees on the list would be established politicians, who have paid their dues in lower offices, and the party leaders themselves – persons who, at present, hold party offices but no public offices. At present, you get elected to the Senate by having an obscene amount of money and the right connections in your state; under the PR system, you would get there by making a national name for yourself as a political figure or by working your way up a party organization’s ladder. This is a much better way of training real leaders.

60

What you haven’t shown is that an n-party system, where n>2, is going to represent more people than the two party system. If a far right or far left candidate gets elected, then that seems as if the system is far less representative than a system where a centrist gets elected. Why should I think that the Greens or the Lyndon LaRouche parties will represent more Americans more faithfully than the Dems or Republicans? On the face of it, the idea seems preposterous. Where am I going wrong?