Proportional representation

[dg4ever]

I would definitely support proportional representation but I think the ideal system for the USA is a mixed system. I would favor either 4 regions or 9 regions where each state is included. National allocations wouldn't be good because I bet any of the major parties would have to put a threshold like 5% of the vote to qualify for seats. This is what I think: major parties wouldn't support a parallel mixed system and third parties would support a compensatory mixed system. So, why not have a semi-proportional mixed system? I favor a multi-tier system where you vote once but your vote counts more than once like in Denmark, Sweden or other countries. I would use a preferential IRV ballot where you rank at least 2 or 3 candidates (I favor a fill-in-the-oval style) and candidates need to get 50% +1 of the votes to win the single-member districts.

I don't like party lists but I do favor parties fielding 2 or 3 candidates per district. They can run just like the district candidate but can't go on to win the seat and they transfer their 1st choices. This would give candidates exposure. An at-large candidate can run in 2 or half the districts within the super-district (this could apply to a district candidate but it can run in only 2 districts). I like transferring the votes of a winner instead of excluding them because smaller parties would get a disproportional share of the votes and seats. If you transfer the winner's 1st choices, I think it should be semi-transferrable: a candidate wins x% of the 1st choice vote and is elected, the % of votes that go to the next party candidate would be x% of vote*x% of vote= x% party vote. So if it won 45% then the % of votes that stay is 20.25%. The remaining 1st votes are transferred to each voter's 2nd choice (if a voter ranked an at-large candidate 2nd, then it would count towards the at-large candidate's number of votes). So, voters would have the 1st round as a semi-primary since I favor having only 1 candidate per party to stay and have the votes of the at-large candidates to be transferred to each voter's 2nd choices. If a voter ranked an at-large candidate as 2nd choice, it would go to that candidate's party. There are several ideas I still have to get out of my head but what do you think?

[minionofmidas]

Jake is partially right(I don't support multiple member disticts), especially on the non-partisan thing.
Anyways, Even if there is "open list" PR, the party just chooses those who go into the open list, and the people only choose the order.
This also removes the accountabiity to a certain constituent body, and before you mention MMP, know that in Germany even constituency MPs don't care about constituent services at all.

Well that has alot to do with the political culture of a country. If you're politicians just don't care, they just don't care. You can make the same assesement of American political leaders as well. Besides giving out money to where they represent they really don't do anything for their district. Politicians everywhere want to stay in power no matter what. Sometimes and in some places that means kissing up to the party and towing their line, in some places and at other times it's kissing up to your electorate. Then you have some who do both. It happens in America, it happens everywhere.

Remember that most (not all) German constituency MP's would have been elected anyways if the state list vote had gone the same but they had lost their constituency. The constituency vote in Germany is pretty much a scam. In practice, we have pure national pr.

[Democratic Hawk]

I don't support it in the UK, so I wouldn't support it in the US. So count me as a No (D). That said, I favor AV rather than FPTP

Dave

[J. J.]

I wouldn't mind a tricameral legislature with one house being made up of proportional representation, elections for it every six months (well, semi-annually), and it serving as a revising body.