AMERICA, PLEASE BE WARNED: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION WILL NOT FIX YOUR BROKEN DEMOCRACY!
New Zealand (where I am writing from) has had Mixed Member Proportional Representation since 1996 and our multi-party parliament is now a squabbling and dysfunctional shambles. This has occurred because minor parties negotiate “deals” with the major party after an election to enable the major party to govern. Unpopular and divisive minor party policies are supported by the major party in return for the minor party agreeing to support the major party’s policies. This results in the unpopular minor party policies being rammed through our parliament. Proportional representation may have worked in less divided times, but it’s not suited to the highly polarized societies we live in now.
I am sure these problems are not localized to New Zealand and my conclusion is that democracies around the world are failing because:
Competing political parties + Cyclic elections =
Economic waste + Social turmoil + Inability to implement long-term plans
What you’re describing is the classic downside of the parliamentary system of government. On the upside, requiring negotiation, compromise, and cooperation are positive features. Also, it’s not particularly relevant to the USA. Proportional representation here in the US would still be predominantly between the two major parties. Perhaps some more independents or "third parties” could win a few seats, but those would likely be very limited in the near future. Perhaps long-term, more diverse groups would win representation, but that’s more a positive than a negative result.
I agree with your view of the polarization resulting from the power of political parties. Despite being given nothing by the Constitution, and despite being one of the primary fears of the founding fathers, the two major parties in the US have been given the power to control nearly everything. If we are ever able to progress as a nation and a society, that needs to be changed. It starts by removing them from their preordained preeminent roles in elections. Political parties are private membership associations, and taxpayer-funded primary elections should not exist, much less have the power to dictate who is on the ballot. Let the parties decide however they want to endorse candidates, but the public must not pay for it, nor should the ballot choices be limited because of the party control.
As for election cycles, I would have to disagree. Term durations and limits are essential. Elected officials need some time to do their work, and citizens need the ability to regularly hire and fire their representatives.
With regard to election cycles, in my proposal you will see that I don't propose changing the terms that individual officials are elected for. Instead, I propose cycling elections throughout the country at the rate of few electorates per month. Officials serving their electorate well would serve out their full term, but the makeup of Congress would be subject to monthly change. In effect, Congress would receive monthly feedback as to how well it is meeting the public's expectations.
If I understand what you’re saying, and assuming you’re referring just to the House of Representatives, without changing the 2-year term, that would require staggering the terms of representatives so that 18 (4%) of them are up for election every month. That would be cumbersome, and also potentially changes the control of Congress on a monthly basis, throwing the entire legislative process into chaos. I think it’s better to leave the terms and election timing as it is (after eliminating taxpayer funded party primaries), and add a process for a recall election when enough constituents call for it.
Hmm - it seems to me that legislative processes are in chaos everywhere!
While rolling elections would certainly have the potential to change control monthly, I would hope that the risk of new blood better reflecting the current wishes of the public would encourage the majority of representatives to think more carefully and work more cooperatively. In any event, the introduction of rolling elections could be a gradual process, affecting just 4% of electorates per month. I don't think that would be a high risk trial.
My view is that the world's democracies are in such a mess now that it would be hard to make them worse. Certainly, for us in New Zealand, proportional representation has not worked and we need to try something different.
Yes but also the districts wouldn’t matter much. No wasted votes. Even for the races that would otherwise be “already decided,” it would be helpful to get out the vote. It would probably require a constitutional amendment but could be tried in some state houses first.
What an interesting thought!! I haven't heard that suggested before either, but it seems like it would offer excellent incentives for politicians to adopt policies that favor the majority rather than fringe interests!
I agree that proportional representation would be good for the People. I question the how to make it happen. Does anyone think the current make-up of our House of Representatives is going to take up the issue anytime in the next 10 years? While single-member districts are a root cause, the bigger problem is our lack of Citizen Representation in our own House. With only 435 members it's easy for both parties to gerrymander to their hearts content. Triple the membership to 1,305 members and it almost becomes a moot point. The most important issue facing Americans is our need to dramatically size up the House to bring fair representation and and the Voice of the People to our governance again. The last time the House was increased was in 1913 - that's 113 years ago. To make sure they had a stranglehold on American politics, both parties passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 that literally froze the size at 435. The Senate voted unanimously in favor, even though Article 1, Sec 2 clearly calls for the House to be increased with each census. Until we uncap the House our political system will continue to degrade. Want solutions to universal healthcare, immigration reform, affordability? Sizing up the House will bring in younger, more diverse Representatives. George Washington spoke only one time at the Constitutional Convention. It was about his concern of too little representation as appropriate representation is the single pillar holding up Democracy. You can go to Project1305.org (an educational site) and ProjectNoCap.com (a grassroots movement). If anything about Why 435 is new to you then please find out more. And spread the word.
I like the idea of proportional representation, but there is a much bigger problem that must be solved first.
That is Citizens United, which has undergirded and expanded the power of money in politics till we now have, essentially, an oligarchy. Very wealthy people and corporations now run our country by purchasing senators and representatives with campaign donations. They basically tell "their" representatives' staffs what legislation they want passed, what regulations they want watered down, which justices they want on the Extreme Court.
Constituents are no longer in charge of our public servants.
A very interesting and exceptionally well-presented post.
I still can't figure out who allowed mid-cycle redistricting. I thought that wasn't the deal.
But be that as it may, the fly in the ointment is that such a change doesn't come from 500+ experts. It comes from Congress. And Congressmembers have one goal: to spend their careers sucking off the government tit by being repeatedly re-elected. They're not going to block public money from politics, and not big money, and they're not going to agree to end redistricting. This makes the process fair, and it exposes them to precisely the chance of losing their seats that they resist more than anything.
As I said, you're right, and your presentation is perfect. But it can't proceed. It depends on electeds to take risks they very much don't want to take. Since 1812, despite complaint.
According to the US Constitution, drawing district lines within a state is under the control of that state's legislature, and since the US Constitution doesn't forbid mid-cycle redistricting, any state that wants to do it can. (Some state Constitutions may forbid it; I don't know.)
For the same reason, any state that wanted to implement proportional representation could do so tomorrow, EXCEPT that the "Uniform Congressional District Act of 1967" forbids multi-seat House districts. (This was with the best of intentions: multi-seat and at-large districts, were being used at the time to dilute black voting power. See, if the state is 60% white, electing some or all House members individually in state-wide, at-large elections guarantees that white voters can control the outcome and prevent blacks from getting elected at all. Similarly, if a state is 60% of one party, that party will probably win 100% of the at-large seats. This is why multi-seat districts should be allowed only in combination with proportional representation.)
So let's suppose Congress amended that law to _allow_ multi-seat districts (at least in combination with some attempt at proportional representation). Would state legislatures take the next step? Proportional representation means the legislature giving up the power of redistricting, and it means the current-majority party in the legislature giving up its ability to get a disproportionate super-majority through the magic of single-seat districts. And if, say, Democratic-led states adopt proportional representation while Republican-led states don't (or vice versa), it amounts to unilateral disarmament by one party in the House of Representatives. All strong incentives NOT to enact proportional representation.
If we want to actually make this happen at the national level, it may take a Constitutional amendment mandating it on all states simultaneously. And that's not likely to happen until the American people are more familiar with proportional representation. So I think the best immediate step forward is getting a variety of states (red, blue, and purple) to enact proportional representation for their own legislatures (which aren't covered by the Uniform Congressional District Act). We could likewise have cities enact proportional representation for city council or other local legislative body.
Proportional representation would be absolutely fantastic.
I faced the same problem when designing Restricted Elections for the No Confidence Amendment (https://UTW.vote/explainer); the RE criteria specify that *no* districts can be used, which significantly increases voter workload and is only feasible because states will only ever need to use the RE rules at times when the electorate is already energized and engaged.
Multi-seat electoral districts give much the same benefits and with far less voter workload. I do have a concern, though: does it require the use of parties? I don't love the idea that I'd start voting for a party rather than a candidate. Just because such-and-so party has endorsed a particular person doesn't mean *I* trust that person.
There are proportional representation systems that don't mention the word "party" anywhere, such as Single Transferrable Vote, currently used by (e.g.) the Irish Parliament. Each voter ranks all the candidates in the (multi-seat) district. The ones with more than a certain threshold number of first-place votes get seats, and the ballots that elected them are considered "used up". Of the remaining ballots, the least-popular(*) candidates are eliminated, and any ballot whose first choice has been eliminated reverts to the second choice on that ballot. Repeat until the allotted number of seats have been filled.
This has the advantage that if some political issue in your area cuts across party lines, you can meaningfully vote for candidates based on that issue rather than what party they're attached to. In so doing, it weakens the power of parties and encourages voters to evaluate individual candidates, which sounds like a good thing to me (YMMV).
The main disadvantage of Single Transferrable Vote is that it's more complicated to explain than the various systems for filling single seats, or than party-based proportional representation; this makes it a difficult sell to a voting public that already suspects elections are rigged.
(*) The usual definition of "least-popular" is "having the fewest first-place votes among not-yet-eliminated candidates". Which means, for example, that a "consensus" candidate who was ranked second by every single voter would be eliminated immediately, despite being majority-preferred over possibly every other candidate. An alternative definition is "having the most last-place votes among not-yet-eliminated candidates"; this way you can meaningfully "downvote" a candidate you think is really horrible, and broadly-acceptable consensus candidates can actually win.
Aha, thank you so much for explaining, Stephen! My intuition was telling me that there *had* to be some good way to make proportional representation happen without relying on party dynamics; Single Transferable Vote is exactly the shape I was expecting!
The idea of voting for issues rather than parties was absolutely what I wanted to see and enable. I am 100% in alignment with you on weakening the power of the parties being a good thing; one of UTW's explicit goals is to eliminate the two-party duopoly in US politics.
I'm going to put some thought into making some educational shorts on Single Transferable Vote-style systems; it really isn't that complex of an idea, it's just different than we're used to.
I have a similar question about proportional representation. I believe it’s an essential part of the solution, but I want to understand more about the actual voting. In a 3-member district, does each voter only get to choose one candidate, or three? How are the votes tallied? How can ranked choice voting (another concept that I think is essential) be used in multi-member districts?
If each voter only gets to choose one candidate, it's likely that one or two candidates will get most of the votes, with the remaining candidates getting only a handful each, hardly a mandate for public office.
If each voter in a 3-member district gets 3 votes, the majority party in that district can ensure that the top 3 vote-getters are all from that party, so if you fill seats using a simple "which candidates got the most votes?" system, that party will get 100% of the seats rather than a proportional number. So the selection system has to be more complex, e.g. grouping candidates by party, counting total votes per party, allocating seats proportionally, and picking individual winners by "which candidate within Party X got the most votes?"
Yeah, I’ve thought about those issues. If each voter in a 3-member district got 3 votes, it would pretty much defeat the purpose of having multi-member districts. I definitely advocate for ranked choice voting when only one person is being elected, but it’s not obvious to me whether it makes sense when the contest is choosing multiple winners. I think it probably does work just fine, but need to think it through and read some more analyses of it.
Ranked voting does seem like the way to go, both for single seats and for PR, but you can’t just transfer a good single-seat ranked algorithm straightforwardly to multi-seat; it takes careful analysis.
I’m a big fan of Borda (much simpler to explain, analyze, and implement) for single-seat elections, so naturally I tried to adapt Borda to the multi-seat setting, and it just doesn’t work: a majority party can lock in most of the seats by having voters rank its candidates in random order (ahead of all other parties’ candidates). STV is as complicated as it is because that’s what works.
Yeah, I also worry about any system that restricts the number of votes a voter can cast. I'd definitely be interested to see an analysis of the difference in effects between RCV and approval voting in proportional representation districts!
Once you’ve decided to use ranked ballots or approval ballots, you’re not done; in both cases, there are still non-trivial decisions to be made on how to count those ballots to produce a result.
For example, if you use approval ballots and add up the total number of votes for members of party X in order to compute a target proportion, voters have an incentive to “approve” members of their preferred party whom they actually don’t like because it improves the chances for the members they do like. The system actively encourages party-line voting.
There may be a party-free system like STV for approval, but I don’t know of one.
Yup, the difficulty in choosing, understanding, and explaining how to process the results is definitely a significant barrier when it comes to adopting anything like that in America (or anywhere else there is significant reason to distrust the voting process).
The fact of "all of the solutions that work fairly are too complicated to explain simply" makes me wonder if we're looking in the wrong place for the solution. For example—and only as illustration—both RCV and approval are forms of single-round asynchronous voting, but you could theoretically have electoral systems that are multi-round or synchronous. I'm curious if the "required complexity in order to achieve fair results" metric changes when you adjust some of these types of priors.
I'm sure there must be an approval-based party-free system similar to STV, because I can come up with a methodology for one! I'll have to figure out what it's called so I can find out what people have said about it.
That's the conceptually simplest way to do it, but voters' eyes glaze over when faced with a roster of dozens or hundreds of candidates, so large and medium-sized states would probably subdivide into districts of, say, 3-6 seats each. Which sounds like redistricting all over again, except that as the article points out, moving a voter from one district to another has very little effect on the voter's contribution to the proportions.
If you only voted for a party, and the party won 7 of 12 seats, who would decide which 7 party members got those seats? IIUC, most proportional-representation systems allow voters to vote for individual candidates. Typically, you add up all the votes for members of Party X, and that's the vote count for Party X, to determine what percentage of seats Party X should get; the candidates with the most votes within the party get those 7 seats. Which means your ballot would have to contain the names of all the candidates from all the parties in your district/state.
Of course, as I mentioned above, there are proportional-representation systems like STV that don't depend on parties at all. I prefer that approach.
AMERICA, PLEASE BE WARNED: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION WILL NOT FIX YOUR BROKEN DEMOCRACY!
New Zealand (where I am writing from) has had Mixed Member Proportional Representation since 1996 and our multi-party parliament is now a squabbling and dysfunctional shambles. This has occurred because minor parties negotiate “deals” with the major party after an election to enable the major party to govern. Unpopular and divisive minor party policies are supported by the major party in return for the minor party agreeing to support the major party’s policies. This results in the unpopular minor party policies being rammed through our parliament. Proportional representation may have worked in less divided times, but it’s not suited to the highly polarized societies we live in now.
I am sure these problems are not localized to New Zealand and my conclusion is that democracies around the world are failing because:
Competing political parties + Cyclic elections =
Economic waste + Social turmoil + Inability to implement long-term plans
I think democracies need to get rid of both polarizing political parties and election cycles. My suggestions for achieving these changes may be found here: https://medium.com/@cliffwainui1/our-democracies-are-breeding-grounds-for-inequity-and-discontent-this-is-because-5bfa5810a96e
What you’re describing is the classic downside of the parliamentary system of government. On the upside, requiring negotiation, compromise, and cooperation are positive features. Also, it’s not particularly relevant to the USA. Proportional representation here in the US would still be predominantly between the two major parties. Perhaps some more independents or "third parties” could win a few seats, but those would likely be very limited in the near future. Perhaps long-term, more diverse groups would win representation, but that’s more a positive than a negative result.
I agree with your view of the polarization resulting from the power of political parties. Despite being given nothing by the Constitution, and despite being one of the primary fears of the founding fathers, the two major parties in the US have been given the power to control nearly everything. If we are ever able to progress as a nation and a society, that needs to be changed. It starts by removing them from their preordained preeminent roles in elections. Political parties are private membership associations, and taxpayer-funded primary elections should not exist, much less have the power to dictate who is on the ballot. Let the parties decide however they want to endorse candidates, but the public must not pay for it, nor should the ballot choices be limited because of the party control.
As for election cycles, I would have to disagree. Term durations and limits are essential. Elected officials need some time to do their work, and citizens need the ability to regularly hire and fire their representatives.
With regard to election cycles, in my proposal you will see that I don't propose changing the terms that individual officials are elected for. Instead, I propose cycling elections throughout the country at the rate of few electorates per month. Officials serving their electorate well would serve out their full term, but the makeup of Congress would be subject to monthly change. In effect, Congress would receive monthly feedback as to how well it is meeting the public's expectations.
If I understand what you’re saying, and assuming you’re referring just to the House of Representatives, without changing the 2-year term, that would require staggering the terms of representatives so that 18 (4%) of them are up for election every month. That would be cumbersome, and also potentially changes the control of Congress on a monthly basis, throwing the entire legislative process into chaos. I think it’s better to leave the terms and election timing as it is (after eliminating taxpayer funded party primaries), and add a process for a recall election when enough constituents call for it.
Hmm - it seems to me that legislative processes are in chaos everywhere!
While rolling elections would certainly have the potential to change control monthly, I would hope that the risk of new blood better reflecting the current wishes of the public would encourage the majority of representatives to think more carefully and work more cooperatively. In any event, the introduction of rolling elections could be a gradual process, affecting just 4% of electorates per month. I don't think that would be a high risk trial.
My view is that the world's democracies are in such a mess now that it would be hard to make them worse. Certainly, for us in New Zealand, proportional representation has not worked and we need to try something different.
I’ve never seen this proposed, but what if the voting power of the representative depended on the vote share obtained on Election Day?
Yes but also the districts wouldn’t matter much. No wasted votes. Even for the races that would otherwise be “already decided,” it would be helpful to get out the vote. It would probably require a constitutional amendment but could be tried in some state houses first.
What an interesting thought!! I haven't heard that suggested before either, but it seems like it would offer excellent incentives for politicians to adopt policies that favor the majority rather than fringe interests!
I agree that proportional representation would be good for the People. I question the how to make it happen. Does anyone think the current make-up of our House of Representatives is going to take up the issue anytime in the next 10 years? While single-member districts are a root cause, the bigger problem is our lack of Citizen Representation in our own House. With only 435 members it's easy for both parties to gerrymander to their hearts content. Triple the membership to 1,305 members and it almost becomes a moot point. The most important issue facing Americans is our need to dramatically size up the House to bring fair representation and and the Voice of the People to our governance again. The last time the House was increased was in 1913 - that's 113 years ago. To make sure they had a stranglehold on American politics, both parties passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 that literally froze the size at 435. The Senate voted unanimously in favor, even though Article 1, Sec 2 clearly calls for the House to be increased with each census. Until we uncap the House our political system will continue to degrade. Want solutions to universal healthcare, immigration reform, affordability? Sizing up the House will bring in younger, more diverse Representatives. George Washington spoke only one time at the Constitutional Convention. It was about his concern of too little representation as appropriate representation is the single pillar holding up Democracy. You can go to Project1305.org (an educational site) and ProjectNoCap.com (a grassroots movement). If anything about Why 435 is new to you then please find out more. And spread the word.
We used to make fun of Iraq’s Saddam Hossein because he would win “elections” with 98%.
But why do we think our “elections” are any more legit when a similar percentage of congressional seats have a lock on party power?
I like the idea of proportional representation, but there is a much bigger problem that must be solved first.
That is Citizens United, which has undergirded and expanded the power of money in politics till we now have, essentially, an oligarchy. Very wealthy people and corporations now run our country by purchasing senators and representatives with campaign donations. They basically tell "their" representatives' staffs what legislation they want passed, what regulations they want watered down, which justices they want on the Extreme Court.
Constituents are no longer in charge of our public servants.
Agree completely. If the country uses this moment of obvious oligarchical abuse of our funds, quality of life, dignity and natural resources to both
a) deliver on affordability, healthcare, etc. AND
b) outlaw wide open windows of abuse like Citizens United, we have a chance.
A very interesting and exceptionally well-presented post.
I still can't figure out who allowed mid-cycle redistricting. I thought that wasn't the deal.
But be that as it may, the fly in the ointment is that such a change doesn't come from 500+ experts. It comes from Congress. And Congressmembers have one goal: to spend their careers sucking off the government tit by being repeatedly re-elected. They're not going to block public money from politics, and not big money, and they're not going to agree to end redistricting. This makes the process fair, and it exposes them to precisely the chance of losing their seats that they resist more than anything.
As I said, you're right, and your presentation is perfect. But it can't proceed. It depends on electeds to take risks they very much don't want to take. Since 1812, despite complaint.
"Who allowed mid-cycle redistricting?"
According to the US Constitution, drawing district lines within a state is under the control of that state's legislature, and since the US Constitution doesn't forbid mid-cycle redistricting, any state that wants to do it can. (Some state Constitutions may forbid it; I don't know.)
For the same reason, any state that wanted to implement proportional representation could do so tomorrow, EXCEPT that the "Uniform Congressional District Act of 1967" forbids multi-seat House districts. (This was with the best of intentions: multi-seat and at-large districts, were being used at the time to dilute black voting power. See, if the state is 60% white, electing some or all House members individually in state-wide, at-large elections guarantees that white voters can control the outcome and prevent blacks from getting elected at all. Similarly, if a state is 60% of one party, that party will probably win 100% of the at-large seats. This is why multi-seat districts should be allowed only in combination with proportional representation.)
So let's suppose Congress amended that law to _allow_ multi-seat districts (at least in combination with some attempt at proportional representation). Would state legislatures take the next step? Proportional representation means the legislature giving up the power of redistricting, and it means the current-majority party in the legislature giving up its ability to get a disproportionate super-majority through the magic of single-seat districts. And if, say, Democratic-led states adopt proportional representation while Republican-led states don't (or vice versa), it amounts to unilateral disarmament by one party in the House of Representatives. All strong incentives NOT to enact proportional representation.
If we want to actually make this happen at the national level, it may take a Constitutional amendment mandating it on all states simultaneously. And that's not likely to happen until the American people are more familiar with proportional representation. So I think the best immediate step forward is getting a variety of states (red, blue, and purple) to enact proportional representation for their own legislatures (which aren't covered by the Uniform Congressional District Act). We could likewise have cities enact proportional representation for city council or other local legislative body.
Thank you very much for the answer and for the discussion.
Proportional representation would be absolutely fantastic.
I faced the same problem when designing Restricted Elections for the No Confidence Amendment (https://UTW.vote/explainer); the RE criteria specify that *no* districts can be used, which significantly increases voter workload and is only feasible because states will only ever need to use the RE rules at times when the electorate is already energized and engaged.
Multi-seat electoral districts give much the same benefits and with far less voter workload. I do have a concern, though: does it require the use of parties? I don't love the idea that I'd start voting for a party rather than a candidate. Just because such-and-so party has endorsed a particular person doesn't mean *I* trust that person.
There are proportional representation systems that don't mention the word "party" anywhere, such as Single Transferrable Vote, currently used by (e.g.) the Irish Parliament. Each voter ranks all the candidates in the (multi-seat) district. The ones with more than a certain threshold number of first-place votes get seats, and the ballots that elected them are considered "used up". Of the remaining ballots, the least-popular(*) candidates are eliminated, and any ballot whose first choice has been eliminated reverts to the second choice on that ballot. Repeat until the allotted number of seats have been filled.
This has the advantage that if some political issue in your area cuts across party lines, you can meaningfully vote for candidates based on that issue rather than what party they're attached to. In so doing, it weakens the power of parties and encourages voters to evaluate individual candidates, which sounds like a good thing to me (YMMV).
The main disadvantage of Single Transferrable Vote is that it's more complicated to explain than the various systems for filling single seats, or than party-based proportional representation; this makes it a difficult sell to a voting public that already suspects elections are rigged.
(*) The usual definition of "least-popular" is "having the fewest first-place votes among not-yet-eliminated candidates". Which means, for example, that a "consensus" candidate who was ranked second by every single voter would be eliminated immediately, despite being majority-preferred over possibly every other candidate. An alternative definition is "having the most last-place votes among not-yet-eliminated candidates"; this way you can meaningfully "downvote" a candidate you think is really horrible, and broadly-acceptable consensus candidates can actually win.
Aha, thank you so much for explaining, Stephen! My intuition was telling me that there *had* to be some good way to make proportional representation happen without relying on party dynamics; Single Transferable Vote is exactly the shape I was expecting!
The idea of voting for issues rather than parties was absolutely what I wanted to see and enable. I am 100% in alignment with you on weakening the power of the parties being a good thing; one of UTW's explicit goals is to eliminate the two-party duopoly in US politics.
I'm going to put some thought into making some educational shorts on Single Transferable Vote-style systems; it really isn't that complex of an idea, it's just different than we're used to.
You've probably already looked it up, but the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote goes into much more detail than I did.
I have a similar question about proportional representation. I believe it’s an essential part of the solution, but I want to understand more about the actual voting. In a 3-member district, does each voter only get to choose one candidate, or three? How are the votes tallied? How can ranked choice voting (another concept that I think is essential) be used in multi-member districts?
Good questions!
If each voter only gets to choose one candidate, it's likely that one or two candidates will get most of the votes, with the remaining candidates getting only a handful each, hardly a mandate for public office.
If each voter in a 3-member district gets 3 votes, the majority party in that district can ensure that the top 3 vote-getters are all from that party, so if you fill seats using a simple "which candidates got the most votes?" system, that party will get 100% of the seats rather than a proportional number. So the selection system has to be more complex, e.g. grouping candidates by party, counting total votes per party, allocating seats proportionally, and picking individual winners by "which candidate within Party X got the most votes?"
And yes, ranked voting can play a big role in this; see my reply https://protectdemocracy.substack.com/p/how-to-end-the-redistricting-wars?r=sun5i&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=299913834 above.
Yeah, I’ve thought about those issues. If each voter in a 3-member district got 3 votes, it would pretty much defeat the purpose of having multi-member districts. I definitely advocate for ranked choice voting when only one person is being elected, but it’s not obvious to me whether it makes sense when the contest is choosing multiple winners. I think it probably does work just fine, but need to think it through and read some more analyses of it.
Ranked voting does seem like the way to go, both for single seats and for PR, but you can’t just transfer a good single-seat ranked algorithm straightforwardly to multi-seat; it takes careful analysis.
I’m a big fan of Borda (much simpler to explain, analyze, and implement) for single-seat elections, so naturally I tried to adapt Borda to the multi-seat setting, and it just doesn’t work: a majority party can lock in most of the seats by having voters rank its candidates in random order (ahead of all other parties’ candidates). STV is as complicated as it is because that’s what works.
Yeah, I also worry about any system that restricts the number of votes a voter can cast. I'd definitely be interested to see an analysis of the difference in effects between RCV and approval voting in proportional representation districts!
Once you’ve decided to use ranked ballots or approval ballots, you’re not done; in both cases, there are still non-trivial decisions to be made on how to count those ballots to produce a result.
For example, if you use approval ballots and add up the total number of votes for members of party X in order to compute a target proportion, voters have an incentive to “approve” members of their preferred party whom they actually don’t like because it improves the chances for the members they do like. The system actively encourages party-line voting.
There may be a party-free system like STV for approval, but I don’t know of one.
Yup, the difficulty in choosing, understanding, and explaining how to process the results is definitely a significant barrier when it comes to adopting anything like that in America (or anywhere else there is significant reason to distrust the voting process).
The fact of "all of the solutions that work fairly are too complicated to explain simply" makes me wonder if we're looking in the wrong place for the solution. For example—and only as illustration—both RCV and approval are forms of single-round asynchronous voting, but you could theoretically have electoral systems that are multi-round or synchronous. I'm curious if the "required complexity in order to achieve fair results" metric changes when you adjust some of these types of priors.
I'm sure there must be an approval-based party-free system similar to STV, because I can come up with a methodology for one! I'll have to figure out what it's called so I can find out what people have said about it.
Quick question: what would the new districts be, state boundaries?
That's the conceptually simplest way to do it, but voters' eyes glaze over when faced with a roster of dozens or hundreds of candidates, so large and medium-sized states would probably subdivide into districts of, say, 3-6 seats each. Which sounds like redistricting all over again, except that as the article points out, moving a voter from one district to another has very little effect on the voter's contribution to the proportions.
wouldn't people be voting for a party though, as opposed to individual candidates?
If you only voted for a party, and the party won 7 of 12 seats, who would decide which 7 party members got those seats? IIUC, most proportional-representation systems allow voters to vote for individual candidates. Typically, you add up all the votes for members of Party X, and that's the vote count for Party X, to determine what percentage of seats Party X should get; the candidates with the most votes within the party get those 7 seats. Which means your ballot would have to contain the names of all the candidates from all the parties in your district/state.
Of course, as I mentioned above, there are proportional-representation systems like STV that don't depend on parties at all. I prefer that approach.