Electoral Reform Idea for the House, Senate and Presidential Elections

[defe07]

I was thinking how many of you would support the following idea:

U.S. House: each voter has a number of votes equal or more than 1, according to number of House seats each state has

U.S. Senate: each voter has 2 votes, according to the equal representation each state has in the Senate

U.S. President: each voter has a number of votes equal or more than 3, according to a state's number of Congress members

In all 3 cases, I also would propose that each candidate could vote for as many candidates as they want but each candidate is given a value (e.g., if you vote for 3 candidates and you have 2 votes, each candidate would get 0.66 votes). What do you guys think?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'd hate to have to vote in a California election under this system.

[Smid]

This proposal is known as "Multiple First Past the Post" using multi-member electorates.

This was the system used for the Australian Senate many years back.

The disadvantage (and principal reason it was changed over here) is because it typically produces large swings and very skewed results.

I'll explain by way of example:

In California, Kerry and the Dems carried the state with 54.31% of the vote. Assuming a similar result in the Congressional race, you'd have 54.31% of the population casting their 53 votes for the entire 53 candidates put up by the Dems. Enough to elect all of the positions.

New Hampshire is a good example of the large swings - in 2000, Bush carried the state. If voters voted the same way for the Congressional race, there would be two Republicans, who just managed to get elected. In 2004, the state swung to the Dems and it would have completely changed over. Ohio would probably be an even better example if it flips in 2008.

If I was suggesting changes, I'd put forward a couple of ideas:

Preferential voting: allowing voters to allocate preferences assists minor parties. If people vote for a minor party presently, they realise their candidate probably won't be elected and it prevents them from voting for a major party candidate (which may influence a close race) resulting in their least-preferred candidate winning. Allocating preferences would at least allow them to vote in order of preference.

For President, I most prefer the Nebraska/Maine model of CD+2.

I like the idea of Congressional Districts because it means that Members of Congress can focus on their individual regions.

[defe07]

This proposal is known as "Multiple First Past the Post" using multi-member electorates.

This was the system used for the Australian Senate many years back.

The disadvantage (and principal reason it was changed over here) is because it typically produces large swings and very skewed results.

I'll explain by way of example:

In California, Kerry and the Dems carried the state with 54.31% of the vote. Assuming a similar result in the Congressional race, you'd have 54.31% of the population casting their 53 votes for the entire 53 candidates put up by the Dems. Enough to elect all of the positions.

New Hampshire is a good example of the large swings - in 2000, Bush carried the state. If voters voted the same way for the Congressional race, there would be two Republicans, who just managed to get elected. In 2004, the state swung to the Dems and it would have completely changed over. Ohio would probably be an even better example if it flips in 2008.

If I was suggesting changes, I'd put forward a couple of ideas:

Preferential voting: allowing voters to allocate preferences assists minor parties. If people vote for a minor party presently, they realise their candidate probably won't be elected and it prevents them from voting for a major party candidate (which may influence a close race) resulting in their least-preferred candidate winning. Allocating preferences would at least allow them to vote in order of preference.

For President, I most prefer the Nebraska/Maine model of CD+2.

I like the idea of Congressional Districts because it means that Members of Congress can focus on their individual regions.

Maybe I wasn't clear when I typed this. What I propose is totally different than the old Australian multiple-FPTP system because, let's consider California's example, I propose that a voter gets a number of votes equal to the number of U.S. House seats his state gets. In this case, a Californian voter would have 53 votes but could vote for more than 1 candidate in his Congressional District race.

[Kevinstat]

This proposal is known as "Multiple First Past the Post" using multi-member electorates.

This was the system used for the Australian Senate many years back.

The disadvantage (and principal reason it was changed over here) is because it typically produces large swings and very skewed results.

I'll explain by way of example:

In California, Kerry and the Dems carried the state with 54.31% of the vote. Assuming a similar result in the Congressional race, you'd have 54.31% of the population casting their 53 votes for the entire 53 candidates put up by the Dems. Enough to elect all of the positions.

New Hampshire is a good example of the large swings - in 2000, Bush carried the state. If voters voted the same way for the Congressional race, there would be two Republicans, who just managed to get elected. In 2004, the state swung to the Dems and it would have completely changed over. Ohio would probably be an even better example if it flips in 2008.

If I was suggesting changes, I'd put forward a couple of ideas:

Preferential voting: allowing voters to allocate preferences assists minor parties. If people vote for a minor party presently, they realise their candidate probably won't be elected and it prevents them from voting for a major party candidate (which may influence a close race) resulting in their least-preferred candidate winning. Allocating preferences would at least allow them to vote in order of preference.

For President, I most prefer the Nebraska/Maine model of CD+2.

I like the idea of Congressional Districts because it means that Members of Congress can focus on their individual regions.

Maybe I wasn't clear when I typed this. What I propose is totally different than the old Australian multiple-FPTP system because, let's consider California's example, I propose that a voter gets a number of votes equal to the number of U.S. House seats his state gets. In this case, a Californian voter would have 53 votes but could vote for more than 1 candidate in his Congressional District race.

Hmm, that's interesting.  I wouldn't support it, but it is interesting to think about.  What would probably happen is that each party would run sacrificial lambs in a bunch of districts (where the other party had a popular incumbent with a fairly high personal vote that won't split in favor of other candidates of that party) and, based on the perceived overall split between the parties, each party's leadership would urge it's members and other voters to vote only for a list of candidates designated by the party (which would be longer for the majority party).  It would basically be like cumulative voting (which I've read is sometimes done in terms of fractions of a vote rather than multiple votes), only "districtized."  Parties would want to have at least a token challenger in each district and perhaps some decoy candidates they pretent to really be trying to elect to force the other party to give their candidate in those districts a slice of that parties vote pie.  Elections would almost be more about which party could sucessfully (and beneficially) "fake out" the other party more and less about parties competing for support based on their records, issue positions and such.  So, it wouldn't be a good system overall in my opinion.  Fun to think about though.