An ideal political system would allow for proportional representation

[JackRiddler]

Every vote should really count, including those of the minority parties. Eight percent of the vote should get your party eight percent of the representation in the legislature. This would probably end the domination of single parties (when in power) and force more coalition politics.

(There are many systems for achieving proportional representation, so if you vote yes say how you would like to see it effected.)

Executive elections should include instant run offs (i.e., where you rank two or more choices and if your first choice is a loser, the second vote is counted, until one of the candidates has an actual majority).

This plus a system of public campaign financing would ultimately solve most of the problems we decry here. The age of lies and lesser evils would end.

Proportional representation - agree or disagree?

[La_Serpiente]

1. I really like Brazil's system of elections

They have touchscreens "in almost every precinct". However, I am not sure if they give out a paper receipt.

[jeter]

2. This is one area where I disagree with my lefty compatriots

Proportional Representation is a bad idea. Very undemocratic in my view. I don't agree with the idea that people vote for a party and that party selects its representatives from lists.

At least in our first past the post system, there is direct accountability - people vote to elect or remove their Congressman or Senator. Under the PR system, we couldn't do that. The party itself would decide who stays and who goes.

Who do you guys think the GOP would get rid of? Trent Lott or Olympia Snowe?

Also, the PR system leads to rise of right wing fanatical groups everywhere it has been implemented.

I don't know. I just don't support it.

[JackRiddler]

3. No and no.

First, there are ways to do PR without having party control of lists.

But even with: The Snowes would end up in their own party, separate from the Lotts. And it would be represented.

(Hm, maybe you could object to it on the basis that some milquetoast center party of Snowe and a few Dems would become number one...)

This is WRONG: "Also, the PR system leads to rise of right wing fanatical groups everywhere it has been implemented."

Fanatic groups exist everywhere. PR allows them to rise to their actual level of representation in society; and that is where they tend to get stuck. In Europe, the far right has come to power only as junior partiners in coalitions with more moderate conservative (really Christian Democrat) parties; and they tend to lose popularity while in power.

I'm not sure if I would mind seeing the fundamentalists off in their own party, which would never get more than 10 percent, peak in the first election it ever participated in, and perpetually get smaller after that.

Whereas in the U.S., right wing fanatical groups have come to power without need of PR; they now exercise a monopoly of power in the federal government; and they are trying to abuse that monopoly to secure permanent power.

[Nazgul35]

7. As I study this for a living...

let me put in my two cents....

You are wrong about why right wing parties are not as prevelant in Germany, first, they have a mixed system, where half the candidates are elected by SMD Plurality and the other half by lists using a proportional electoral rule that is designed to limit the number of parties....

- see there are different electoral rules that count votes
differently...Germany has one of the more restrictive...

Germany also has a 5% threshold, which limits the support for fringe groups who can not generate enough support across the entire country...

- the exception to this is if you win three districts (which is
how the PDS are in office)

In Germany they announce the lists and intended coalition partners prior to the election, which is true....but I noticed you ddn't use Italy as an example, which is a better example of proportional system than Germany....and until they made the system stricter, was a mess....go see how many governments Italy has had in the last 60 years as compared to SMD-plurality systems...

You also stated:

Fanatic groups exist everywhere. PR allows them to rise to their actual level of representation in society; and that is where they tend to get stuck. In Europe, the far right has come to power only as junior partiners in coalitions with more moderate conservative (really Christian Democrat) parties; and they tend to lose popularity while in power.

this is not accurate....in fact, the emergence of right wing (and left wing)parties in Europe have happened when the larger parties have attempted to move to the center.....

Germany is also unlike the US in that it has a clear bimodal distribution to its electoral population...unlike the US which has a unimodal distribution....

Finally, we have a federal system...if you think that things are hard now, consider the following scenario....

we hold our first proportional election, the US House is comprised of 36 parties, the US Senate has 5 parties and the President is the leader of a coalition of 3 parties....amongst the states, this isrepeated 50 times (see German Lander elections for example)...now how more efficient do you think our system will get under these conditions....

- The type of parties that will be produced will be more ideological, and the leaders will have greater control over their members...

- Our system forces our parties to seek the ideological center in the electorate...this breaks down in the House, not because we don't use proportional electoral laws, but because we allow the districts that are drawn to maximize incumbent safety...in the 2002 election, only about 20 House seats out of 435 were actually competitive!

I am always amazed at how much the proponents of propotional representation are not aware of the massive changes that would be required (kind of like the result prohibition had on creating Las Veghas)and the impact this would have on our system of government....for a good read on the effect of PR versus Plurality I recommend Gary Cox's Making Votes Count....for a good read on the effect of PR versus Plurality I recommend Gary Cox's Making Votes Count plus a tun of readings on parties and institutional rules....

Changing the electoral sounds good when you say it real fast, but given the institutional structure to our government is would make matter worse, not better for a number of reasons I simply didnt get into for time reasons....If you want to make the system more democratic, than emcourage you fellow citizens to get off their asses, learn how their system really works and get invloved in the process....

to a certain degree our system doesnt work because we have let it down as much as it has let us down...if not more so...


edited for typo

[JackRiddler]

10. bimodal German system

I am very familiar with it, seeing as I live here.

Whatever it may look like on paper, it results in a very close fit. Eight percent of the vote gets you eight percent of the seats. (They always say, Zweitstimme entscheidet!) The direct mandate goes to the outright winner (pluarity) in each of 323 territorial units, while the other 323 are spread based on lists. However, since the outright winners are invariably on the lists, you end up with a very correct rendering of the electorate's will.

Hm, Italy's revision to less PR has given them Berlusconi.

35 parties in the House? Don't get my hopes up!

They will find a way to deal, just like they do today with 435 individual representatives unbound by party affiliation.

[Nazgul35]

13. except the literature shows us something else...

Germans are exercising strategic voting based upon the expected coalition partner...so 8% of the vote does not mean 8% support from the public....some SPD voters are actually voting for the Greens to ensure that there is enough seats to win government...

Your response to the Italy argument would be what we call anecdotal...for ever Burlusconi there is...who?! The change occured in the mid 90s....so if you dont like Italy, how about that wonder PR system in Israel...ya know, the one where extremist right wing parties are having more of a say in the system because they are needed to form a government...

You didn't respond to the idea of thresholds...which is the real reason that extremist's are limited.....and we Americans should know how your system works...we, along with the British and the French gave it to you....we even determined which parties could and could not legally form for the first elections...

:evilgrin:


the current system employeed by Germany is not the first, the original was more permissive...

Let's not also forget that extremist parties have actually one election to Lander governments...which would also be expected to happen here....

I am often suspicious of supporters of PR because they usually are supporters of small, ideological parties in like the Greens, so it is understandable that they would want to magnify their voices beyond what it actually represents within a society...

[JackRiddler]

26. You're certainly showing your ideology...

"Germans are exercising strategic voting based upon the expected coalition partner...so 8% of the vote does not mean 8% support from the public....some SPD voters are actually voting for the Greens to ensure that there is enough seats to win government..."

Not when there is no doubt the Greens will beat the threshold, anyway. Most German voters have learned to play strategically, I know many who are constantly outthinking themselves in how they vote (CDU for Greens, Greens for PDS, etc.)

What makes you think 8 percent is not the true Green total in Germany? It's far higher: They have turned off many of their original voters through the compromises in government and especially support for the Kosovo war. And Joschka personally is the most popular politician in Germany.

"I am often suspicious of supporters of PR because they usually are supporters of small, ideological parties in like the Greens, so it is understandable that they would want to magnify their voices beyond what it actually represents within a society..."

So do you prefer large, ideological parties, like the Republicans? Are you against having third-party voices heard in proportion to their actual representation within a society? Is it fairer when their voices are simply zero, as in the present American system?

We're talking about the U.S. The problem here is a stifling duopoly, where the Democrats see little reason to actually follow what the majority of Democratic voters want, and where the money for both parties comes largely from the same classes and corporations. Right, left and center are defined by the dominant ideology and the media, and "center" is supposed to always be the goal. Groups as high as 20 percent or even 40 percent of the population are not necessarily allowed to define their own politics, but are trapped within the definitions of the media and of the duopoly.

Given that the Bush is in power we're stuck voting for ABB, which really rots. Why shouldn't I be free to vote for a Green or Libertarian WITHOUT this being a vote for Bush?

In the U.S. the non-voting majority are mostly coming from the demographics and classes that in Europe end up supporting the Social Democratic parties. Interesting, isn't it?

The actual opinions of this non-voting majority are presumably not Social Democratic, but thanks to the duopoly, the media and the campaign finance system there has never been a consistent representation of Social Democratic views in the first place; thus most don't even know what social democracy is.

What's wrong with a bit of competition? Are you scared? Got something against a free and level marketplace of ideas?

[Darranar]

4. Not really...

the party lists are and should be released before the election.

As for your second point, we currently have a right-wing fanatical group in our White House, don't we?

[Mairead]

6. You're objecting to the parliamentary model, not PR

If the majority of states had proportionality laws, then Gore, not Cokespoon would be in the WH today because Gore had more of the popular votes and that would have given him more electoral votes too.

[Nazgul35]

16. actually....

Gore would not have won....because if we had propotional electoral laws with the current electoral college, there would not have been a clear winner and it would have gone to the House and Senate for determination....so we would in all likelyhood have had a Bush-Lieberman Whitehouse....something I think Joe would have really liked...

:evilgrin:

[Mairead]

25. Actually actually

That half-million additional votes might well have given Gore 10 or 12 more electors than Smirk, rather than only one. Why wouldn't it have?

[JackRiddler]

28. Strawman

In a PR reform, or in any reform towards greater democracy, the electoral college is obviously one of the first things that must go.

Note in the original poll I say PR for legislatures and "instant runoff" systems for executive positions (governors, president), which would have easily handed the last election to Gore.

Unless, of course, it had gone to Nader. :)=

[Darranar]

5. I disagree...

because I'm even more radical.

The problem with a multiparty system is that the small parties ahve a lot more power. In order to build a coalition, small parties are neccesary, and some of those small parties have one special interest which they care about and nothing else. In order to please that small party, that interest must be put forth - even if it is against the will of the people. That said, a multiparty system is far wiser then the current system, but the best form would be direct democracy.

I'd have a multiparty election, and when one-third or more of the legislature agrees to a resolution, it is sent to the people to vote on. Both sides must be heard by law for each resolution. Then the people decide.

[Nazgul35]

8. You mean like California

and the recent governor's recall...

:evilgrin:

Direct Democracy is even worse than proportional (see my post above)...our country is too big, too complicated and our people too damn under informed (and dont care) about the process that you would allow for extremist highly organized groups to succeed every time....

- see Mancur Olson...

[Darranar]

9. Not at all...

The recall itself was stupid, but the idea behind recalls as a whole - greater political freedom - is acceptable to me.

Everything those "extremist, highly-organized groups" would do would be subject to the people's will. And it would be a consitutional direct democracy, with civil rights guaranteed for all.

Anyway, i don't see how direct democracy would make it any easier for such groups to take control.

[Nazgul35]

11. really!?

Do you know the definition of the term demagogue means....

You are operating on a faulty premise that are citizens are engaged and informed on every subject that is likely to be offered before the demos....

As proof I offer you the fact that 75% of voters (who actually vote) use party ID as their main method of voting...

Have you seen the numbers of people voting for ballot initiatives? It's pathetic....there's where your highly active ideoligicall y driven groups would dominate....

you're actually flying in the face of political science literature on turnout and ballot initiatives...as I suggested above, try Mancur Olson's great book (a classic he would have won the nobel had he lived) on the collective action problem...also, any article in the American Political Science Review on interest groups and ballot initiatives...

[Darranar]

12. But you're missing my main point....

how are those problems SOLVED in a federal system like ours?

[Nazgul35]

14. those problems may not be solved...

and as a person who studies political science...these things can enver be solved....it is not helped by allowing the type of governing you are talking about....

representative government works in a country of our size...read Rousseau if you want to understand just how direct democracy can work....than tell me exactly what the sovereign will is and how we protect the minority from the majority...because minority rights flies against the idea of democracy....the majority always wins...right?!

I suggest that the problems are in fact ourselves....we have (as a public) retreated from our duties as citizens of this country and have allowed it to rot from the inside out....as I teach college students, it is appalling how little they know about their own government and how resistant they are to learn it...they're the ones going to take over...

The system we have works just fine...those who want to participate do, those who dont...dont and have only themselves to blame...but we must do more to ensure that we have a more egalitarian country where plurality is the rule and not the exception...

[Darranar]

15. With a constitution.

[Nazgul35]

17. now come on...

really!? You think just having a constitution matters....have you ever read the consititutions of the old Soviet block countries? Man they were beautiful things...the people really had a say in those countries...the only problem was that the government never paid attention to the constitution....

One thing you learn in political science is that it frequently doesnt matter what a country's constitution says...most are so ambiguous that they rarely apply....

I'm going to stop now cause...quite frankly, i've suggested that people actually read up but are still only concerned about pushing their own opinion about how things should work....

and as my father use to say: "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one..."

I prefer that assholes are verifyable through statistical analysis myself...

[BonjourUSA]

18. A total proportional representation is not a very good system because

a majority is needed for leading a policy of a country.

We lived under this system. But the parties got power and blocked the gov with the alliance game. Now we have elections with two runs. In the first, we clean up and in the second we choose between two or three possiblities. But your federal organisation complicate the reseach of an equitable solution.

Even this solution isn't the best because why five or ten percent of the population wouldn't be represented in the National Assembly ?

For the campaign financing we set recently a game rule. The law forbids the corporation or union funds and determines the level of money whose each party don't have to spend over. If a candidate raises up this level, his election is canceled and he is ineligible for a long time.

[Paschall]

19. Yes, when Jean-Marie Le Pen was elected to the French Parliament...

...that was not a good thing. Full proportional representation can block all government action. As it stands the slating of lists of candidates in France is generally abused. Most parties put big names out front, then those candidates withdraw after the election to leave the representative's post to a stand-in. On the other hand, this type of system works when parties are strong and exert a certain amount of discipline over their members. Loose cannons either bolt and form their own party or buckle to the party organization, which--if it is democratic--is not necessarily bad. Currently, the French Socialists have democratic house rules; Chirac's conservatives operate more on the good ole boy/smoke-filled room model.

The poster above who mentioned that Berlusconi was a product of one or another electoral system is overlooking Mr. Media's wealth and media influence. Not a fair analysis.

I think the jist of this thread is that we might do something to favor a truly multi-party system in the US. There I strongly agree. But I think campaign financing is the more pressing issue.

[Bucky]

20. agree. Note Israel and Italy

In Israel their PR system of voting has left right wing Jewish ayatollahs dictating theocratic policies to the ruling government, be it Labour or Likkud.

In Italy, they'll occasionally elect a porn star to Parliament. Not too bad, you think? But consider this, she's a tax-and-spend porn star!

But seriously, PR systems tend to fragment the body politic. They force multiple parties to clamor for public attention, which means usually pandering to exciteable emotions like greed, xenophobia, and intolerance. It forces the country's rulers to cut their coalition deals after the election.

Majoritarian democracy like we have here encourages the populace to participate in coalition building and thus to emphasize unity. This is why so many people got suckered in by the guy saying he was "a uniter, not a divider." People essentially want to get along with each other and majoritarian democracy encourages that tendency.

[Paschall]

21. Really?

But seriously, PR systems tend to fragment the body politic. They force multiple parties to clamor for public attention, which means usually pandering to exciteable emotions like greed, xenophobia, and intolerance. It forces the country's rulers to cut their coalition deals after the election.

Do you have any experience living in a country with some variant of a PR system?

From my vantage point in France it seems all too apparent that the body politic in the US is far more fragmented than ours here. And the greed, xenophobia, and intolerance are also much higher in the US.

In other words, I don't believe the evils you attribute to a PR system are inherent, but are more national/cultural.

And what about the 50-60% of eligible US voters who abstain? Voter participation is much higher in Europe, where PR systems are common.

[BonjourUSA]

23. I'm gonna be a provocateur...

Are the USA a democracy ?

After this question, I pick up a helmet and I jump in a hole.

[JackRiddler]

29. this is your problem: lies, damned lies, statistics...

If you invoke your expert authority instead of descending to actually making an argument, well, I've read plenty of political science, both while majoring it with a high GPA at an Elite Eastern University of Evil and ever since, autodidactically (give or take the 3 weeks of grad school before I dropped out).

My paper in the required poli sci statistics course was about the deficiencies of relying on statistical analysis without first substantiating a philosophical basis; and second, making sure your operationalizations are actually relevant and useful. (These are usually not even considered in your typical poli sci lab, where the questions and categories are all prefab and you just input the "data" and run the program.)

My hero, discovered after college, is C. Wright Mills and he will dust your daddy's ass. (Who's your hero, Paul Lazarsfeld?) Indicative of what I think of the state of American polisci is that my one major publication is a history book.

Anyways, now that you might allow me to actually discuss these highflown topics with you...

Unlike the Soviet countries, where a one-party state interpreted the constitution as it willed, the U.S. constitution certainly does matter, as it has been lived out by the country, defined and enforced through two centuries worth of court decisions. Nearly every clause is relevant and actually in use, shaping the institutions under which we live. (NOTE: We are especially lucky that the real PEOPLE back in 1787 refused to take it without a group of 10 amendments you may be aware of.)

In the meantime, the money has found ways to circumvent nearly every limit in that Constitution. A parallel power of corporations has arisen; it uses a party duopoly and a cartelized media circus to subvert whatever was left of democratic will; it marginalizes all truly dissenting voices; and worst of all, it must in the present stage eat up the people and their livelihoods, and respond to its seemingly terminal crisis by launching a series of imperial wars.

Is this on your radar screen, ace, or do you not think it's a worthy issue? I say the situation requires a systemic reform of the political system that acknowledges and deals with these realities. One possibility is PR: giving voice to all the people who are marginalized under the duopoly system.

Precedent does not always tell us what will come of the experiment. PR here would be introduced to an entirely different environment from anywhere else where you have it. The shock of it might solve the problems I am addressing, or it might prove ineffective. I doubt sincerely the results would look worse than the present nightmare.

[RandomUser]

22. No

I don't want to see an Italy, where the government was always in crisis because some fragment of the the coalition government made of multiple parties got pissed off and threatened to leave -- changing the composition of the government every few months, heightening partisan divisions, diverting attention from the business of actually governing.

And instant run-off elections are prone to strategic voting and manipulation. Our present plurality voting system sucks and is probably the worse, but instant run-offs are pretty horrible too. There have been studies of all these alternative voting systems and they all have flaws. And although some of them may be better than plurality voting in some ways, there is no perfect system.

While the current system in the US is flawed and should be reformed, chucking the whole system is an mistake.

And I vote for the person, not just the party. Creating a smorgaboard of parties, like the chaos that kept shutting down Italy, emphasizes party loyalties and competition to the point where people are voting for parties, not for individual candidates on their own merits.

[JackRiddler]

27. Italy & Germany...

Interestingly, neither of these countries is considered a major threat to the world. Score one for "divisiveness."

Italian postwar politics has been very colorful and looks chock full of crisis, but actually the economic growth and developments in quality of life ran along the same lines as in the rest of the West. Things got constantly richer until mature capitalist relations were achieved, and since then it's been a battle between economic social democrats and neoliberals in the context of industrial crisis and rationalization.

Italians were having a more entertaining time of it, but the system was incredibly stable - the Christian Democrats were in every coalition for going on 50 years, whereas the Communists never made a single one.

Germany has the opposite image. Germans flatter themselves for orderliness and always invoke Italy as the opposite extreme. Fact is, life in both countries developed in a very similar fashion, with Germany having an image of extreme stability - just four changes in government and seven chancellors since 1949! - and Italy an image of total chaos. Both of these were illusions.

I don't know too much about Italy but I can tell you that Germany is a democracy, with all its flaws, and that the political demands of many groups usually flow constructively into the policy that comes out, and that this has a lot to do with PR.

I can also tell you that the perpetual talk of German crisis is vastly exaggerated (I've been listening to it for 14 years now), certainly when compared to the simultaneous talk of an economically dynamic, super-growth United States. Germany is in debt, but the U.S. economy runs ENTIRELY on debt and that will become obvious as the dollar continues its long slide against the euro.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. Strategic voting is not limited to PR

It will appear wherever a third party has the ability to get a substantial vote in particular voting areas.

In the UK, any seat where the Liberal Democrats, or the Scottish or Welsh Nationalist parties (and don't even start with Northern Ireland...) have the ability to come second, or first, can result in all kinds of permutations of people voting against one party rather than for another.

And in the USA, people called for Green voters to abandon their party in favour of the Democrats, to stop Bush. Many people on this board consider their failure to do so hateful.