OT: Thoughts on Proportional Representation

[FLaw47]

I feel like the thread on what to do to fix the budget went about as well as any political thread could go on this board. I have another political topic but I think we can have a relatively non partisan conversation about it.

Gerrymandering is wildly unpopular but also very difficult to fix. Both political parties are moving away from the center and our current electoral system has a problem with the winners being signficantly over-represented. For example, in 2016, 60% of the votes in Maryland were for Democrats but they ended up with 87.5% of the total representatives.

One proposal that I'm fond of is Proportional Representation through multi member districts. Basically, states would have much larger districts (California might have 3 districts, for example). Each person would vote for either a party or rank individual candidates. Seats are awarded based on the proportion of the vote they received. If this was done in Maryland in 2016, it would have likely been 5 Democrats and 3 Republicans instead of 7 Democrats and 1 Republican. There are a lot of benefits to this: individual votes matter more, you're much more likely to have a representative you voted for, you don't have to worry about gerrymandering, candidates would benefit from appealing to a wider variety of people, etc etc.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: It would also make it much easier to have a 3rd party actually win seats.

 

[SlovenskoTiger]

Anything that could be done to break up the two party system would be a win for all.

 

[ChicagoTiger85]

Anything that could be done to break up the two party system would be a win for all.

I really don't think so. That's how you end up with extremists and weirdos being elected with small pluralities.

As far as proportional representation goes, I prefer having the political process decide what the districts should be. I don't think districts should be created based on some sort of abstract principle like symmetry or simple population numbers. I'm not sure "gerrymandering" (which is usually just what one side calls the other side's maps) is the best way to do this, but it actually makes sense to draw lines that represent communities with a natural affinity (ie. real communities).

The multi-member district thing is interesting, but again, you face running into the problem of people being elected with small percentages of the vote. Sometimes there are many people who are actually voting against those candidates by giving much larger percentages to other candidates, but the proportional system would still seat these people.

I suspect that almost all the sturm und drang about "gerrymandering" and "anti-majoritarianism" (in the Senate, relative to the national population) is from people whose party is currently out of power. That's not to say that there's no authentic concern for reform, but it's no coincidence that we're hearing more about it now from certain quarters.

 

[Toasted712]

Anything that could be done to break up the two party system would be a win for all.

so much this.

 

[moonspider]

It'd probably result in a pretty sizable democratic shift in most bodies, so I very much doubt it'll get support on this hellsite.

 

[Toasted712]

I really don't think so. That's how you end up with extremists and weirdos being elected with small pluralities.

As far as proportional representation goes, I prefer having the political process decide what the districts should be. I don't think districts should be created based on some sort of abstract principle like symmetry or simple population numbers. I'm not sure "gerrymandering" (which is usually just what one side calls the other side's maps) is the best way to do this, but it actually makes sense to draw lines that represent communities with a natural affinity (ie. real communities).

The multi-member district thing is interesting, but again, you face running into the problem of people being elected with small percentages of the vote. Sometimes there are many people who are actually voting against those candidates by giving much larger percentages to other candidates, but the proportional system would still seat these people.

I suspect that almost all the sturm und drang about "gerrymandering" and "anti-majoritarianism" (in the Senate, relative to the national population) is from people whose party is currently out of power. That's not to say that there's no authentic concern for reform, but it's no coincidence that we're hearing more about it now from certain quarters.

We already have extremists and weirdos in politics so I don't see how it'd be any different. What you're saying makes some sense and the first paragraph might work in South Carolina but the large cities of the country you simply cannot do that. There is too much polarization although they are generally your bluer areas.

The second paragraph, the ballet has ranks so you could simply rank someone you didn't want a 1 and thus wouldn't have to worry about that unless a large majority of other people loved the candidate. Then it's just sorta democracy and not a large group of people living in an area banding against one guy. I think a guy who lives in Greenville could potentially accurately represent rural SC for instance. Correct me if I'm wrong but you must live within the district you serve. I caution that you'd run the risk of all your delegates living in the same area/city, but with social media and the internet I'm not sure it'd be that big a deal.

Third paragraph pretty much nailed it.

 

[CUFam98]

No. I vote for the individual not the party they happen to choose for fundraising purposes. Proportional distribution equates a vote for the candidate as a vote for the party.

 

[FLaw47]

No. I vote for the individual not the party they happen to choose for fundraising purposes. Proportional distribution equates a vote for the candidate as a vote for the party.

I'd personally prefer using Ranked Choice Voting with Single Transferable Vote. That avoids the problem of voting for a political party.

 

[FLaw47]

The multi-member district thing is interesting, but again, you face running into the problem of people being elected with small percentages of the vote. Sometimes there are many people who are actually voting against those candidates by giving much larger percentages to other candidates, but the proportional system would still seat these people.

I don't think this is correct. Someone is only going to get elected if they had more votes than someone else. So if hypothetically 51% of a district voted for Candidate A for first choice and 49% voted for Candidate B first choice, candidate B is also getting seated. It doesn't matter if the 51% hate that person, which is sort of the point. The idea is that you de-marginalize the minority. If someone with 11% of first place votes got seated, it's only because no one else did better.

 

[ChicagoTiger85]

We already have extremists and weirdos in politics so I don't see how it'd be any different. What you're saying makes some sense and the first paragraph might work in South Carolina but the large cities of the country you simply cannot do that. There is too much polarization although they are generally your bluer areas.

The second paragraph, the ballet has ranks so you could simply rank someone you didn't want a 1 and thus wouldn't have to worry about that unless a large majority of other people loved the candidate. Then it's just sorta democracy and not a large group of people living in an area banding against one guy. I think a guy who lives in Greenville could potentially accurately represent rural SC for instance. Correct me if I'm wrong but you must live within the district you serve. I caution that you'd run the risk of all your delegates living in the same area/city, but with social media and the internet I'm not sure it'd be that big a deal.

Third paragraph pretty much nailed it.

You don't prevent more extremists and weirdos from being elected by lowering the barrier to election, though. I do agree with your point in the second paragraph about the potential for urban areas to be overrepresented.

 

[FLaw47]

You don't prevent more extremists and weirdos from being elected by lowering the barrier to election, though. I do agree with your point in the second paragraph about the potential for urban areas to be overrepresented.

How would urban areas be over-represented? They'd be more represented than they currently are (generally) but they're under-represented presently. The only way you're "lowering the barrier to election" is by allowing sizable minorities to not get completely overwhelmed by majority opinion.

 

[ChicagoTiger85]

I don't think this is correct. Someone is only going to get elected if they had more votes than someone else. So if hypothetically 51% of a district voted for Candidate A for first choice and 49% voted for Candidate B first choice, candidate B is also getting seated. It doesn't matter if the 51% hate that person, which is sort of the point. The idea is that you de-marginalize the minority. If someone with 11% of first place votes got seated, it's only because no one else did better.

What you're pointing out where somebody only wins by a couple of percentage points is an ideal scenario for proportional representation. I'm not sure a minority party candidate should be seated with less than 30% of the vote just because we want to "de-marginalize" the minority. Sometimes, the minority really is on the margins, and should be until they can gain significant support. To me, the majority vote system (and, yes, the two party system) increases the legitimacy of elected officials by preventing situations where people get elected with small pluralities, as often happens in parliamentary systems.

 

[FLaw47]

What you're pointing out where somebody only wins by a couple of percentage points is an ideal scenario for proportional representation. I'm not sure a minority party candidate should be seated with less than 30% of the vote just because we want to "de-marginalize" the minority. Sometimes, the minority really is on the margins, and should be until they can gain significant support. To me, the majority vote system (and, yes, the two party system) increases the legitimacy of elected officials by preventing situations where people get elected with small pluralities, as often happens in parliamentary systems.

I think you're confusing some things. Parliamentary systems sometimes have a system where the largest individual party has substantially less than a majority of the seats (Tony Blare era Great Britain) but they only get control of government in that situation by forming coalitions. If you can point to candidates being elected with a small percentage of the population I'd be interested to see.

 

[1Clemson]

I really don't think so. That's how you end up with extremists and weirdos being elected with small pluralities.

As far as proportional representation goes, I prefer having the political process decide what the districts should be. I don't think districts should be created based on some sort of abstract principle like symmetry or simple population numbers. I'm not sure "gerrymandering" (which is usually just what one side calls the other side's maps) is the best way to do this, but it actually makes sense to draw lines that represent communities with a natural affinity (ie. real communities).

The multi-member district thing is interesting, but again, you face running into the problem of people being elected with small percentages of the vote. Sometimes there are many people who are actually voting against those candidates by giving much larger percentages to other candidates, but the proportional system would still seat these people.

I suspect that almost all the sturm und drang about "gerrymandering" and "anti-majoritarianism" (in the Senate, relative to the national population) is from people whose party is currently out of power. That's not to say that there's no authentic concern for reform, but it's no coincidence that we're hearing more about it now from certain quarters.

"That's how you end up with extremists and weirdos being elected with small pluralities."

That's what we have now. Most of those holding office (those in party safe districts) represent the fringe 15%-20% of the electorate, and even less of the adult population. Imagine a moderate of either party winning office in SC or California, let alone a minority party win. In either state and most others, 60% of the electorate (out party plus independents) have exactly zero chance of being represented by someone they agree with. In those cases, the winning candidate is determined in the primary of the dominant, where all they need to do is satisfy the extremists in their parties, roughly 15-20% of the voting population or taken to the extreme probably less than 10% of the adult population- hardly "representative".

As for your conclusion that it is simply sour grapes from those in the other party- no. I've been hearing this from both sides for at least 30 years. I've been a Republican usually living in a Republican district for over 40 years and I often hate that the Republicans that would actually be good at governance (adults in the room) cannot get past the crazies that determine the primaries.

I like single member districts in principal, but allowing the parties to determine the boundaries is an obvious flaw in our system. We either need to eliminate (as much as possible) the partisan gerrymandering or go to something like multi-member districts.

 

[tigrbybirth]

This approach would increase the likelihood of 3rd party or independent candidates getting elected. It would also increase minority party representation in each state. Red states would have more blue reps and blue states more red reps. It would also decrease the impact of state legislatures in federal elections.

In SC, Clyburn would not be the only Democrat. In California, we would have more Republicans.

 

[FLaw47]

This approach would increase the likelihood of 3rd party or independent candidates getting elected. It would also increase minority party representation in each state. Red states would have more blue reps and blue states more red reps. It would also decrease the impact of state legislatures in federal elections.

In SC, Clyburn would not be the only Democrat. In California, we would have more Republicans.

That's a very good summary, thank you. That all sounds really good to me.

 

[ChicagoTiger85]

"That's how you end up with extremists and weirdos being elected with small pluralities."

That's what we have now. Most of those holding office (those in party safe districts) represent the fringe 15%-20% of the electorate, and even less of the adult population. Imagine a moderate of either party winning office in SC or California, let alone a minority party win. In either state and most others, 60% of the electorate (out party plus independents) have exactly zero chance of being represented by someone they agree with. In those cases, the winning candidate is determined in the primary of the dominant, where all they need to do is satisfy the extremists in their parties, roughly 15-20% of the voting population or taken to the extreme probably less than 10% of the adult population- hardly "representative".

As for your conclusion that it is simply sour grapes from those in the other party- no. I've been hearing this from both sides for at least 30 years. I've been a Republican usually living in a Republican district for over 40 years and I often hate that the Republicans that would actually be good at governance (adults in the room) cannot get past the crazies that determine the primaries.

I like single member districts in principal, but allowing the parties to determine the boundaries is an obvious flaw in our system. We either need to eliminate (as much as possible) the partisan gerrymandering or go to something like multi-member districts.

I'm not really sure what your post has to do with proportional representation versus majority representation. In fact, proportional representation would just mean that even more of those 15-20% that you worry about would have representation. What you actually seem worried about is primaries, but the solution to that is more people voting not getting away from majorities. And, in fact, the reason why a two-party system that relies on majorities results in less extreme candidates is that parties have to be formed from a coalition that makes up a majority, rather than going to extremes in one direction or the other and thus alienating large chunks of its potential coalition.

I'm not sure if this was OP's point, but I think nearly all of your concerns here could be addressed by more active citizenship. If the "60%" of voters who you say won't have somebody who represents them (and I think that number is obviously dubious) would actually vote in primaries or run for office, then they'd have more representation. The other option would be to empower parties to pick candidates with broader appeal by making the primary process less democratic.

 

[ChicagoTiger85]

I think you're confusing some things. Parliamentary systems sometimes have a system where the largest individual party has substantially less than a majority of the seats (Tony Blare era Great Britain) but they only get control of government in that situation by forming coalitions. If you can point to candidates being elected with a small percentage of the population I'd be interested to see.

The issue is when candidates are in a crowded field with many other parties. I think this happens pretty frequently, and results in situations like how Donald Trump won the Republican nomination despite only getting something like 22% of the vote in the most important primaries. Of course, the difference is that primaries feature low turnout, while general elections are open to everybody.

 

[FLaw47]

I'm not really sure what your post has to do with proportional representation versus majority representation. In fact, proportional representation would just mean that even more of those 15-20% that you worry about would have representation. What you actually seem worried about is primaries, but the solution to that is more people voting not getting away from majorities. And, in fact, the reason why a two-party system that relies on majorities results in less extreme candidates is that parties have to be formed from a coalition that makes up a majority, rather than going to extremes in one direction or the other and thus alienating large chunks of its potential coalition.

I think you've got this backwards. I'm not aware of any state that lets you vote in both parties primaries and a lot of states have closed primaries. So if you have only one party being able to vote on who will represent that party, the voters are more aligned with that party than average so you end up with skew almost by default. This has been shown again and again in our country.

I'm not sure if this was OP's point, but I think nearly all of your concerns here could be addressed by more active citizenship. If the "60%" of voters who you say won't have somebody who represents them (and I think that number is obviously dubious) would actually vote in primaries or run for office, then they'd have more representation. The other option would be to empower parties to pick candidates with broader appeal by making the primary process less democratic.

More active citizenship does not solve most of these problems. Gerrymandering isn't fixed by having more people vote. Best case scenario is that candidates draw the lines different. More active citizenship does not solve the runaway leader problem that I mentioned. It does not solve the problem where urban areas tend to be grossly under-represented (through a combination of self sorting and partisan gerrymandering). It doesn't help 3rd parties in any way (unless the non-voters are almost exclusively hypothetical voters for the same 3rd party). I also don't know where you go the "60% of voters..." from. Our current system guarantees that a majority of voters will be represented by someone they voted for, but it also guarantees that every other person isn't. The only way more active citizenship results in less extreme candidates is if the primary voting population becomes more moderate (and I'll concede that if 100% of the population voted in primaries, that's probably true).

 

[ClemsonPaws]

I feel like the thread on what to do to fix the budget went about as well as any political thread could go on this board. I have another political topic but I think we can have a relatively non partisan conversation about it.

Gerrymandering is wildly unpopular but also very difficult to fix. Both political parties are moving away from the center and our current electoral system has a problem with the winners being signficantly over-represented. For example, in 2016, 60% of the votes in Maryland were for Democrats but they ended up with 87.5% of the total representatives.

One proposal that I'm fond of is Proportional Representation through multi member districts. Basically, states would have much larger districts (California might have 3 districts, for example). Each person would vote for either a party or rank individual candidates. Seats are awarded based on the proportion of the vote they received. If this was done in Maryland in 2016, it would have likely been 5 Democrats and 3 Republicans instead of 7 Democrats and 1 Republican. There are a lot of benefits to this: individual votes matter more, you're much more likely to have a representative you voted for, you don't have to worry about gerrymandering, candidates would benefit from appealing to a wider variety of people, etc etc.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: It would also make it much easier to have a 3rd party actually win seats.

"That's how you end up with extremists and weirdos being elected with small pluralities."

That's what we have now. Most of those holding office (those in party safe districts) represent the fringe 15%-20% of the electorate, and even less of the adult population. Imagine a moderate of either party winning office in SC or California, let alone a minority party win. In either state and most others, 60% of the electorate (out party plus independents) have exactly zero chance of being represented by someone they agree with. In those cases, the winning candidate is determined in the primary of the dominant, where all they need to do is satisfy the extremists in their parties, roughly 15-20% of the voting population or taken to the extreme probably less than 10% of the adult population- hardly "representative".

As for your conclusion that it is simply sour grapes from those in the other party- no. I've been hearing this from both sides for at least 30 years. I've been a Republican usually living in a Republican district for over 40 years and I often hate that the Republicans that would actually be good at governance (adults in the room) cannot get past the crazies that determine the primaries.

I like single member districts in principal, but allowing the parties to determine the boundaries is an obvious flaw in our system. We either need to eliminate (as much as possible) the partisan gerrymandering or go to something like multi-member districts.

Agreed. I would love to change the way districts are drawn. As they are now, a huge portion of house members have absolutely no threat of being defeated by the opposing party. Thus, the primary decides the seat. Primaries in general have relatively low-turn out and the turn out that does occur is disproportionately represented by the outer fringes of the parties. Candidates have to satisfy these fringe voters in order to be elected and reelected or, even worse, one of the fringe types is actually elected. We continually end up with a lot of elected officials whose core values are farther left or right (as the case may be) than probably 85% of their constituency.

Drawing districts in a way that does not singularly focus on political parties would likely result in more districts that can hold candidates accountable in both the primary and the general, which would help fix this non-representative representation.

 

[FLaw47]

The issue is when candidates are in a crowded field with many other parties. I think this happens pretty frequently, and results in situations like how Donald Trump won the Republican nomination despite only getting something like 22% of the vote in the most important primaries. Of course, the difference is that primaries feature low turnout, while general elections are open to everybody.

If you've got single transferable vote, it takes care of this problem. Maine is trying to do something like this after they elected that lunatic of a governor two times by accident. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out. But that's another example of the problem with first past the post voting. And that was only three major candidates.

 

[1Clemson]

I'm not really sure what your post has to do with proportional representation versus majority representation. In fact, proportional representation would just mean that even more of those 15-20% that you worry about would have representation. What you actually seem worried about is primaries, but the solution to that is more people voting not getting away from majorities. And, in fact, the reason why a two-party system that relies on majorities results in less extreme candidates is that parties have to be formed from a coalition that makes up a majority, rather than going to extremes in one direction or the other and thus alienating large chunks of its potential coalition.

I'm not sure if this was OP's point, but I think nearly all of your concerns here could be addressed by more active citizenship. If the "60%" of voters who you say won't have somebody who represents them (and I think that number is obviously dubious) would actually vote in primaries or run for office, then they'd have more representation. The other option would be to empower parties to pick candidates with broader appeal by making the primary process less democratic.

How about a more simple solution as suggested by George Washington- no parties, thus no primaries? Then the voting population gets to choose from all that are running rather than those that survive a partisan pre-selection process.

The 60% is pretty obvious, each party today has roughly 40% of the voting public with the remaining 20% independent or non-declaring- add the out party total to most of the independents and a few disaffected within the dominant party (like myself) and you easily see that 60% of the electorate is not served. It is the system we have and it may have some merits, but it also has many demerits.

 

[Trading Tiger]

I read the first few posts, trying to figure out how this would work and what it would look like, and I'm still clueless. Please explain to me how this suggestion is nothing more than "my team lost, so instead of working harder and getting better, we're going to try to change the rules to suit us better"? Even Nick Saban knew that was a battle not worth fighting very long. He quickly changed his tune to the much more popular "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".

My personal opinion, I don't want a more representative body. Have you seen the people in this country lately? It doesn't matter what side you're on, I think we can agree that most people in the country are stupid as shit, like literally on the borderline of mental retardation. Of course, which side you're on does dictate who you think those people are, but again, we agree that "the people" are stupid.

So why would a more representative body be a good thing? That is the opposite of what we want. We should actually want a less representative body.

 

[iceheart08]

Not a fan of proportional representation. Also not a fan of politicians or judges drawing electoral maps.

We are working on a solid option in CO this cycle where a non partisan board draws the maps.

http://fairmapscolorado.com

 

[SlovenskoTiger]

Whatever we do, that stupid California system of "jungle primaries" where their only two options for senate are two democrats is absolute crap. Cant imagine how frustrating that is for the conservatives in that state.

 

[FLaw47]

I read the first few posts, trying to figure out how this would work and what it would look like, and I'm still clueless. Please explain to me how this suggestion is nothing more than "my team lost, so instead of working harder and getting better, we're going to try to change the rules to suit us better"? Even Nick Saban knew that was a battle not worth fighting very long. He quickly changed his tune to the much more popular "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".

Let's pretend that you're right and it's nothing but sour grapes. It doesn't make the argument any less true.

My personal opinion, I don't want a more representative body. Have you seen the people in this country lately? It doesn't matter what side you're on, I think we can agree that most people in the country are stupid as shit, like literally on the borderline of mental retardation. Of course, which side you're on does dictate who you think those people are, but again, we agree that "the people" are stupid.

So why would a more representative body be a good thing? That is the opposite of what we want. We should actually want a less representative body.[/QUOTE]

This is flatly undemocratic but it seems like you know that. Sure, you can make the government less representative if you let me decide who all is in charge. Sound fair? If not, maybe we can just keep letting everyone vote and maybe make it so that those votes are as equal as we can make them.

 

[FLaw47]

Not a fan of proportional representation. Also not a fan of politicians or judges drawing electoral maps.

We are working on a solid option in CO this cycle where a non partisan board draws the maps.

http://fairmapscolorado.com

C'mon Ice, don't just say you're not a fan. Tell me why.

 

[1Clemson]

I read the first few posts, trying to figure out how this would work and what it would look like, and I'm still clueless. Please explain to me how this suggestion is nothing more than "my team lost, so instead of working harder and getting better, we're going to try to change the rules to suit us better"? Even Nick Saban knew that was a battle not worth fighting very long. He quickly changed his tune to the much more popular "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".

My personal opinion, I don't want a more representative body. Have you seen the people in this country lately? It doesn't matter what side you're on, I think we can agree that most people in the country are stupid as shit, like literally on the borderline of mental retardation. Of course, which side you're on does dictate who you think those people are, but again, we agree that "the people" are stupid.

So why would a more representative body be a good thing? That is the opposite of what we want. We should actually want a less representative body.

Because those elected are even more "stupid as shit, like literally on the borderline of mental retardation" than the general population. 50% of the elected are self serving life politicians that will side with whatever group helps them get re-elected, 25% are simply crooks and thieves, the remaining 25% are loony as batsh*t and should be locked up.

 

[ChicagoTiger85]

How about a more simple solution as suggested by George Washington- no parties, thus no primaries? Then the voting population gets to choose from all that are running rather than those that survive a partisan pre-selection process.

The 60% is pretty obvious, each party today has roughly 40% of the voting public with the remaining 20% independent or non-declaring- add the out party total to most of the independents and a few disaffected within the dominant party (like myself) and you easily see that 60% of the electorate is not served. It is the system we have and it may have some merits, but it also has many demerits.

I guess I just don't buy that there's a simple 60% that isn't served by a majority, unless we're saying that people just aren't served by representatives who aren't exactly like them. We're never going to get government that does everything we want because other people differ from us. To me, using a (mostly) majority rules system is the best way to ensure perceived legitimacy.

 

[ChicagoTiger85]

Because those elected are even more "stupid as shit, like literally on the borderline of mental retardation" than the general population. 50% of the elected are self serving life politicians that will side with whatever group helps them get re-elected, 25% are simply crooks and thieves, the remaining 25% are loony as batsh*t and should be locked up.

You're going overboard with these percentages . Plus, I'd say that we're getting the government we deserve.

 

[1Clemson]

You're going overboard with these percentages . Plus, I'd say that we're getting the government we deserve.

On this we agree. Lack of attention and participation by voters guarantees we get exactly what we deserve- crap.

As for the percentages, I was trying to be kind.

 

[ChicagoTiger85]

I think you've got this backwards. I'm not aware of any state that lets you vote in both parties primaries and a lot of states have closed primaries. So if you have only one party being able to vote on who will represent that party, the voters are more aligned with that party than average so you end up with skew almost by default. This has been shown again and again in our country.



More active citizenship does not solve most of these problems. Gerrymandering isn't fixed by having more people vote. Best case scenario is that candidates draw the lines different. More active citizenship does not solve the runaway leader problem that I mentioned. It does not solve the problem where urban areas tend to be grossly under-represented (through a combination of self sorting and partisan gerrymandering). It doesn't help 3rd parties in any way (unless the non-voters are almost exclusively hypothetical voters for the same 3rd party). I also don't know where you go the "60% of voters..." from. Our current system guarantees that a majority of voters will be represented by someone they voted for, but it also guarantees that every other person isn't. The only way more active citizenship results in less extreme candidates is if the primary voting population becomes more moderate (and I'll concede that if 100% of the population voted in primaries, that's probably true).

I was mostly responding to another post in this thread, not to you, which might explain why I can't really figure out where you're going. You seem to have gotten more of the point by the end, there. The issue is that only the most motivated voters vote in primaries, and many of those voters are motivated by extremism. The person I was responding to was saying that the more "moderate" members of the parties don't tend to vote, and that those "moderates" make up about 40% of the population (with another 20% being the hard-core of the minority party), thus 60% of people have "aren't represented." However, if more of the "moderates" voted in the primaries, then candidates wouldn't be so extreme.

As far as our current primary system producing extreme candidates, I'm not so sure this is the case. Republicans, in particular, have tended not to nominate more extreme candidates for president. @1Clemson says that he can't imagine SC electing relatively moderate candidates to statewide office, and yet that's what they have in Lindsey Graham. I could be wrong, but it seems to me SC's governors have tended not to be extreme. Even the more politically extreme Sen. Scott takes a more moderate tone.

 

[Trading Tiger]

Because those elected are even more "stupid as shit, like literally on the borderline of mental retardation" than the general population. 50% of the elected are self serving life politicians that will side with whatever group helps them get re-elected, 25% are simply crooks and thieves, the remaining 25% are loony as batsh*t and should be locked up.

I agree 100%!!! But when things go bad, continuing to use the football analogy, isn't it funny how everyone thinks that firing the coach and hiring a new one will solve everything? What if you fired Jimbo Fisher and wound up with Willie Taggert? Or fired Mora Jr and hired Chip Kelly? Change just for the sake of change is almost always bad.

Point is, you could get rid of everyone currently in politics, "drain the swamp" as some like to say...it would just fill right back up again. Crooks aren't drawn to politics, politics turns normally decent people into crooks.

 

[Trading Tiger]

maybe we can just keep letting everyone vote and maybe make it so that those votes are as equal as we can make them.

How do votes not count equally right now?

 

[FLaw47]

I was mostly responding to another post in this thread, not to you, which might explain why I can't really figure out where you're going. You seem to have gotten more of the point by the end, there. The issue is that only the most motivated voters vote in primaries, and many of those voters are motivated by extremism. The person I was responding to was saying that the more "moderate" members of the parties don't tend to vote, and that those "moderates" make up about 40% of the population (with another 20% being the hard-core of the minority party), thus 60% of people have "aren't represented." However, if more of the "moderates" voted in the primaries, then candidates wouldn't be so extreme.

As far as our current primary system producing extreme candidates, I'm not so sure this is the case. Republicans, in particular, have tended not to nominate more extreme candidates for president. @1Clemson says that he can't imagine SC electing relatively moderate candidates to statewide office, and yet that's what they have in Lindsey Graham. I could be wrong, but it seems to me SC's governors have tended not to be extreme. Even the more politically extreme Sen. Scott takes a more moderate tone.

I think by most every measure, Lindsay Graham is a hardline Republican (which honestly makes sense for our state). I wouldn't say that we have any "moderates" representing our State in Washington right now but that's a matter of perspective (and tone doesn't make one moderate). I'm honestly not old enough to remember what was going on politically before Haley, but I know that Sanford is a hard Republican now (so I assume he was then). McMaster is also quite conservative. Again, this is South Carolina so I don't really expect any different with our system. I'd prefer that we had more than just Clyburn as a Democrat from our state though and that I had any chance of not being represented by just Joe Wilson.

 

[FLaw47]

How do votes not count equally right now?

Votes in different states very clearly have different value in Presidential and Senatorial elections (not the point of this particular topic, I'll admit). For House races you effectively only have votes mattering in some 90 races or so this year (the "competitive ones"). The others are all foregone conclusions which leads to a lot of "wasted" votes. I'm totally without any sort of voting power in this state because I'm in a decided political minority. Dems in this state don't deserve the same representation as Republicans because we're outnumbered but I do feel like our representation should be more in line with the voting totals, just as I feel like Republicans deserve more of a voice in Maryland.

 

[CU Alumnus]

This approach would increase the likelihood of 3rd party or independent candidates getting elected. It would also increase minority party representation in each state. Red states would have more blue reps and blue states more red reps. It would also decrease the impact of state legislatures in federal elections.

In SC, Clyburn would not be the only Democrat. In California, we would have more Republicans.

The Libertarians had a real chance at the big chair this past election. Had they put up a good, moderate, CONSERVATIVE candidate (ie small government, and what you do in your own house is your own business so long as nobody else gets hurt) they had a shot. And while there are bits of that I don't like 100%, I'd probably vote for that guy because I agree with the philosophy.

But they pissed it away.

 

[CU Alumnus]

I feel like the thread on what to do to fix the budget went about as well as any political thread could go on this board. I have another political topic but I think we can have a relatively non partisan conversation about it.

Gerrymandering is wildly unpopular but also very difficult to fix. Both political parties are moving away from the center and our current electoral system has a problem with the winners being signficantly over-represented. For example, in 2016, 60% of the votes in Maryland were for Democrats but they ended up with 87.5% of the total representatives.

One proposal that I'm fond of is Proportional Representation through multi member districts. Basically, states would have much larger districts (California might have 3 districts, for example). Each person would vote for either a party or rank individual candidates. Seats are awarded based on the proportion of the vote they received. If this was done in Maryland in 2016, it would have likely been 5 Democrats and 3 Republicans instead of 7 Democrats and 1 Republican. There are a lot of benefits to this: individual votes matter more, you're much more likely to have a representative you voted for, you don't have to worry about gerrymandering, candidates would benefit from appealing to a wider variety of people, etc etc.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: It would also make it much easier to have a 3rd party actually win seats.

I think that's kinda what the idea between the two houses of congress is supposed to do. The HoR is so that everyone gets an equal voice whether they are in a big state or a small one. The Senate is so that each state's voice is heard regardless of population.

And if you divide states up into districts there will still be gerrymandering.

 

[1Clemson]

I agree 100%!!! But when things go bad, continuing to use the football analogy, isn't it funny how everyone thinks that firing the coach and hiring a new one will solve everything? What if you fired Jimbo Fisher and wound up with Willie Taggert? Or fired Mora Jr and hired Chip Kelly? Change just for the sake of change is almost always bad.

Point is, you could get rid of everyone currently in politics, "drain the swamp" as some like to say...it would just fill right back up again. Crooks aren't drawn to politics, politics turns normally decent people into crooks.

I agree that change for change sake alone is fraught with risk, but doing the same thing over and over with repeated failure is insanity. Based on your analogy, Bowden is still here because the risk of doing worse was pretty high. Taking a flyer on a position coach was riskier yet.

I’m not certain about your last statement as I believe narcissist are natural politicians and do not believe normal laws apply to them which is a prerequisite for a crook.

 

[allorangec]

There is a simple solution for the complaint that the 15% extremes run both parties.

Get the middle 70% to get involved and vote.

The problem isn't the extremist or the politicians. The problem is YOU! Assuming you are the middle.

A politicians job is to listen to his constituents. Which constituents do you think complain or voice their opinion to the politician the most? The extreme or the middle? The extremes are just more involved than the middle. People in the middle, for the most part, just want to live their lives and be left alone. So they leave the politicians alone unless they are bothered. The extremes want to change policy so we can live in their socialist or capitalist paradise.

And when doing so. Upset a portion of the middle to get involved. But over time, they go back to not caring.