The Fair Representation Act

[UDS]

@Bassman

What happened in Maine is a move to ranked-choice voting in single-seat constituencies. While I am wholeheartedly in support of that, I want to go further. As it stands, Maine couldn’t go with multi-member constituencies for Congress because it would conflict with federal statute as described earlier in this thread.

Short version- This proposal uses (almost) the same system that is used to elect the Australian Senate to elect the U.S. House of Representatives. It does not address the U.S. Senate. IMO, I think that would be a good place for single-member ranked-choice voting (like the Australian House of Representatives).

I wouldn’t recommend the Australian Senate system for House elections. The Senate system is complicated by an above-the-line voting option which allows you, essentially, to vote for a party, and delegate to the party the power to determine how your preferences will be allocated, not just between that party’s own candidates but as between all the other parties and independent candidates as well. This puts enormous power in the hands of the parties, and regularly sees the election of senators who have an absolutely tiny electoral appeal, and virtually no votes. 90% plus of the voters vote above-the-line, so in many respects this functions as a party list system.

The system used for the Irish lower house is preferable. Districts return between 3 and 5 members, depending on population, there are typically between 10 and 15 candidates on the ballot paper, and voters can assign a preference to as many or as few of the candidates as they wish. Voters, not the party, decide which candidates on a party’s slate will be elected and which will not.

[UDS]

@Sage_Rat

My post punted on the ranked voting question. I was just talking about expanding the electoral districts to encompass the whole state.

Expanding electoral districts so that the whole state becomes a single multi-member district while retaining FPTP would be the worst of both worlds. An absolutely dreadful idea.

[foolsguinea]

Isn’t that just bloc voting? I’ve seen that in action, and it’s a really bad system.

[Sage_Rat]

I have run simulations of a variety of scenarios.

The assumptions that I have made are that:

1. Each person (both candidates and voters) has four primary characteristics. These are:
   [ul]
   [li]Partisan Leaning - Which way a person leans politically. 0 is far-left and 1 is far-right. Normal distribution, mean varies by district, standard deviation = 0.12[/li][li]Knowledge - General civics knowledge, understanding of law, understanding of policy, the ability to do research, etc. Normal distribution, mean = 0.5, standard deviation = 0.15[/li][li] Good Points - Charisma, military service, worked for a charity, etc. Normal distribution, mean = 0.5, standard deviation = 0.15[/li][li] Bad Points - Scandals, weird personality, etc. Normal distribution, mean = 0.5, standard deviation = 0.15[/li][/ul]
2. There is some simple selection process for primary candidacy. In this process, you are scored highly for being middle of the road within the party. You are scored highly for being knowledgeable. And you gain a bonus for your good qualities. Bad qualities are ignored, because when you are interviewed / primaried, you’re mostly selling yourself on your good qualities. Think of this like a party head selecting the person he wants to have run, more than it is a person being elected by a popular vote of the party’s electorate.
3. When voters are selecting / ranking a candidate, they only care about the candidate’s knowledge if they are themselves knowledgeable (Dunning–Kruger effect) and only consider it a positive if that person is aligned with themselves; they rank a candidate highly for good points if the person is of the same politics, otherwise they mostly ignore those points; and similarly, they will recognize all of that person’s bad points if they are politically opposed to a person, and ignore them if they are politically aligned with the candidate.
4. For the purposes of the simulation, we have a state with four districts. The partisan lean of these districts are, on average: 0.5, 0.4, 0.3, and 0.7. It’s a somewhat left leaning state. (Left = 0, Center = 0.5, Right = 1)

Now, the hope for any system - from my vantage - would be to increase knowledge, increase the number of moderates, and get rid of people who are scandal ridden / corrupt.

The results of the simulation suggest that ranked voting makes the world a worse place, according to my vantage.

But let me post the code:

import java.io.*;import java.lang.*;import java.util.*;import org.apache - Pastebin.com (Source Code)

And here are the results of 2500 elections each using the current first-past-the-post system and a system where we use ranked voting and elect representatives for the whole state rather than localizing them to particular districts:

== Current System ==
Leaning: {count=10000, sum=4481.757812, min=0.091142, average=0.448176, max=0.884863}
Knowledge: {count=10000, sum=8967.415668, min=0.497042, average=0.896742, max=1.322163}
Good Qualities: {count=10000, sum=8531.276688, min=0.396473, average=0.853128, max=1.332031}
Bad Qualities: {count=10000, sum=5186.343023, min=-0.039530, average=0.518634, max=1.088351}

== Ranked Voting / Districts Merged ==
Leaning: {count=10000, sum=4158.194121, min=0.132793, average=0.415819, max=0.879885}
Knowledge: {count=10000, sum=9249.023574, min=0.584901, average=0.924902, max=1.305352}
Good Qualities: {count=10000, sum=8826.542469, min=0.466071, average=0.882654, max=1.310954}
Bad Qualities: {count=10000, sum=5639.884872, min=-0.038608, average=0.563988, max=1.065391}

Centrism: 0.45 -> 0.42 (fail)
Knowledge: 0.90 -> 0.92 (success)
Good Points: 0.85 -> 0.88 (success)
Bad Points: 0.52 -> 0.56 (fail)

I also ran tests where we don’t merge the districts. The results of that are:

== Ranked Voting ==
Leaning: {count=10000, sum=4508.162147, min=0.098601, average=0.450816, max=0.895232}
Knowledge: {count=10000, sum=8959.368247, min=0.434112, average=0.895937, max=1.398422}
Good Qualities: {count=10000, sum=8524.673094, min=0.388930, average=0.852467, max=1.301097}
Bad Qualities: {count=10000, sum=5178.494531, min=-0.002682, average=0.517849, max=1.060949}

Centrism: 0.45 -> 0.45 (no change)
Knowledge: 0.90 -> 0.90 (no change)
Good Points: 0.85 -> 0.85 (no change)
Bad Points: 0.52 -> 0.52 (no change)

And I ran a test where, instead of each party just giving a single candidate per district (with ranked voting, why not promote multiple?) they offer two.

== Ranked Voting / Multiple Candidates ==
Leaning: {count=10000, sum=4528.906850, min=0.062552, average=0.452891, max=0.925153}
Knowledge: {count=10000, sum=8728.157926, min=0.388989, average=0.872816, max=1.327300}
Good Qualities: {count=10000, sum=8834.024973, min=0.414788, average=0.883402, max=1.304908}
Bad Qualities: {count=10000, sum=5554.809937, min=0.010005, average=0.555481, max=1.113475}

Centrism: 0.45 -> 0.45 (no change)
Knowledge: 0.90 -> 0.87 (fail)
Good Points: 0.85 -> 0.88 (success)
Bad Points: 0.52 -> 0.56 (fail)

And I ran the same test, but where we have merged all of the districts, so the people are now choosing 4 candidates for the whole state from among 16 candidates who came from the entire population of the state.

== Ranked Voting / Districts Merged / Multiple Candidates ==
Leaning: {count=10000, sum=4109.496885, min=0.110117, average=0.410950, max=0.865148}
Knowledge: {count=10000, sum=9109.164519, min=0.534267, average=0.910916, max=1.295913}
Good Qualities: {count=10000, sum=8915.534160, min=0.441027, average=0.891553, max=1.298725}
Bad Qualities: {count=10000, sum=6116.363123, min=0.201319, average=0.611636, max=1.031694}

Centrism: 0.45 -> 0.41 (fail)
Knowledge: 0.90 -> 0.91 (success)
Good Points: 0.85 -> 0.89 (success)
Bad Points: 0.52 -> 0.61 (fail)

Takeaways:

1. If you merge the districts, you get smarter candidates (on average).
2. If you merge the districts, the state becomes more partisan.
3. If you use ranked voting, it selects for the good qualities of a candidate. (But, in my estimation, that’s all stuff that doesn’t matter.)
4. If you use ranked voting, it selects for (or overlooks) the bad qualities of a candidate.

Now, that’s highly dependent on the assumptions that I made. And that is quite debatable. A different way of looking at it which is probably safe to assume is that:

1. Merging the districts gives the party that the state leans towards more of an advantage to put the guy they want into power. This will be true whether the person is selected by a party head or via an election-style primary.
2. Using ranked voting amplifies the selection power of the people.

Since I subscribe to the idea that most people don’t know anything about politics, the world, the technical intricacies of issues, etc. they are inherently unable to meaningfully rank politicians. This means that amplifying the selection power of the people targets the good points of a politician. And, it seems, that allows the majority who are entranced by the charisma of the scumbag to win over those who recognize that person as a scumbag.

On the whole, I’d actually say that the current system is the best of all of the alternatives. I would worry that the partisan lean or the increase in corruption that would come with the other options outweigh any possible advantage that they might otherwise have. The wisdom of our representatives can come from career professionals in the government, we don’t strictly need them to be geniuses.

I further come out of this noting that none of these numbers really moved all that far. And I suspect that the reason for that is because, fundamentally, you’re limited to the people that the parties picked and they’re really reducing the pool down pretty tight. We still end up with relatively knowledgeable candidates, on average, despite the people not giving it much care, because you don’t become a candidate, on average, unless you have that knowledge and got the nod from the party.

To really affect the landscape, you need a better primary process.

[That_Don_Guy]

@Smapti

I don’t see how the Constitution permits Congress to dictate to the states how their representatives are elected.

Constitution, Article I, Section 4:
“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 choosing Senators.”

@Chronos

So, the place with most of the people gets most of the Senators? Huh, I wonder how that happens.

If you’re referring to the USA, it doesn’t - in fact, each state having the same number of Senators is pretty much the only thing still active in the Constitution that cannot be amended. (In Australia, each state also has the same number of Senators - 14, I think, with the two territories getting two each.)

My only problem with multiple-Representative districts is, I have a feeling there are going to be quite a few people demanding that it works like this:
“Since there are five seats in my district, I want five votes - and I want the right to cast all five votes for the same person.” (This is a trick activists use to try to get one of their own onto boards of directors of major corporations.)