Knave vs. Scoundrel - any viable way out of negative campaigning?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


The recent house elections showed a great deal of stuff that I disapprove of, and would want taken out of the political system:
1. Excessive negative campaigning
2. Non-competitive elections
3. Low voter turnout
4. Many voters thinking that the least bad alternative (in their opinion) is not good enough.

Obviously, they are linked - 1,2, and 4 often lead to 3.

Outlawing negative campaigning is impractical - it will run afoul of amendment#1, be awfully hard to police, among other drawbacks. Better then to have an election system which makes it counterproductive (at best) or at least a waste of resources to the politician who does it.

Below, I suggest an election system which should greatly allevieate problems #1-4. I do not see any objections in principle to it, but I expect that you will point out them to me if you see them. If you can devise a system which solves the listed problems to the same degree, and has less drawbacks, then I would like to see that outlined too.

The principle: The house should consist of 435 members, each voted from one district. The voters should not be forced to vote for a candidate in their district.

The procedure:
1. Each candidate announces his party affiliation and candidacy to run the house 6 months before the election. He may run for election in the district where he was born, any district where he has resided at least 5 years, the district where he is presently residing, or in any district which he has previously won a house election. He may only run in one district, and in the case that he is eligble to run in more than one district, he is not under any obligation to reveal which district he chooses to run in.
2. During election day, each voter has one vote which he can give to any candidate in the country.
3. When the voting time is up, the districts in which the individual candidates have chose to run in ae revealed.
4. The total votes cast over the entire county for each party is tallied.
5. Each party gets seats in the house in direct poportion to the total vote count.
6. All candidates are listed according to their total vote count, not only in their home district, but also votes that they have gotten from other districts. Only the total vote counts - no difference is made between votes from home district and other districts.
7. The candidate with the highest total vote count gets the 1st house seat.
8. All candidates from the district which was awarded a representative in #7 are struck from the list.
9. The party which the winner in stage #7 is affiliated has its seat count deducted by one.
10. If stage #9 causes the seat count o that party to reach 0, all other candidates from that party are struck from the list.
11. The number of outstanding seats for the entire house is deducted by one.
12. If stage #11 causes the total number of outstanding seats to reach 0, the allotment of house seats is finished.
13. If there are still outstanding seats to be allotted, the process is repeated at stage #7, with the new list of candidates and their total vote counts.

The features of the system:
1. Each district gets exactly one house representative - no place is let out.
2. Relative voter simplicity - the voter only has to state which candidate he favors.
3. Each voter gets an opportunity to find a candidate which is a good fit to his own preferences - if he does not like the local ones, there is bound to be better ones among the literally thousands of candidates nationwide.
4. Primaries voting can be done away with - primaries are detrimental, not conducive, to the fortunes of the party conducting them.
5. Diversity is supported, since a party with candidates from only one (or few) groups will lose an oppotunity to attract fence-sitter votes from other groups.
6. The system promotes voter education, since voters will search out info about candidates all over the county, if their local ones are not good enough.
7. Excessive negative campainging is of limited usefulness, since it will in all probability drive voters not from the target to non-voting, but to another candidate of that party in another district. That is detrimental to the party friends of the negative campaigner in those districts.
8. The system makes it very hard for campaign strategists to war-plan, since they are not only up against one other major party candidate in their own district, but also against candidates of diferent parties from other districts. Furthermore, they do not necessarily know which their direct (same district) opponents are.
9. The voter turnout will go up - democrats in Utah, and GOPs in DC , which previously have not had any reason to vote since their candidate was a surefire loser, will be able to find a candidate to their liking somewhere else.
10. Uncontested elections will be a thing of the past - to not field a candidate in a uphill battle is tantamount to throwing away votes which count in the national allottment of seats.
11. Maveick quashing will be less of a problem - the parties can use votes for thie mavericks, and in any case the parties will have less tools to quash the mavericks since there will be no primaries.
12. Well-financed pressure groups will wield less power - they can not scour each and every one of the thousands of candidates for political correctness. Under the present system, they can see to it that both major party candidates are positive to their cause, and the voter who does not wish to waste his vote has no choice but to vot for a candidate who supports the pressure group. Under the sugggested system, however, voters who do not agree with the pressure group can easily search out a candidate more to their liking somewhere else.

The system described above is designed to foster conflicts of interest within individual parties. It is in the interest of the party to have many viable candidates in each district, in order to reach every possible voting demographic segment. However, this is contrary to the interest of the leading candidate in that district, since they cannibalize on his voter base. Furthermore, if there are two very similar candiates in the same party, they will end up competing for the same voter base.

Some candidates (Nancy Pelosi, John McCain) will atttract a lot of out-of district votes. 2nd-tier candidates from their own party will have a motivation to fight against them, in order to keep their local votes and get in. Some candidates (Ralph Nader) will not get all that many votes from their own district, but will attract many from other. In some districts where the vote is split many ways, the winning candidate will not be the one that won the most number of votes from that district, since the ones above him have been deducted in stage #10 of the seat allotment procedure.

Another way of putting it would be to say that today, the house election is a paralell set of 435 duels, many of them quite lopsided. Under the suggested system, the house election would be a melee with thousands of contestants simultaneously fighting for 435 places, against both opponents from other parties and from within their own party. Furthermore, the individual candidate would not know exacly who they are fighting against.

So, what do you think of the system? Any obvious flaws (other that parties would hate to have a system which actively promotes intraparty fighting)? Can you envision any circumstances in which it would stall, and not produce a house? Can you envision a system which solves the same problems to the same degree, but is easier?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[mrbiggs]

So I have at least 435 candidates to choose from? d:

I don't see how that could possibly work. Then there's voter fraud and candidates representing districts other than their own.

For example, I run for house in California, but I see that there's no liberal candidate from most of Alabama. I campaign around Alabama, and get tons of votes from the minority liberal population there, and get the seat. Now, I'm going to be looking out for the interests of liberals from Alabama, not people from California.

Furthermore, it allows for the election of crazy people. Let's say a Nazi runs in Connecticut. All the Nazis in the United States are going to vote for him because he's the only Nazi candidate. Polls won't show that the Nazi is in the lead, because the polls aren't going to be able to get to the entire nation. Then on election day, everyone in that district is surprised to find that while they're all voting for people from California, they are now being represented by a Nazi.

Not to mention that this system is quite complicated. I mean, we had enough trouble with "Did Bush or Gore have more votes in Florida?"

[TrainingDummy]

Hmm.... the Nazi could easily be outvoted in Congress. You brought up a good point, though: state populations want to be represented by polticians who support the interests of that state, and a "single issue" candidate from one state could very well win that state if the issue is important enough to a proportion of voters nationwide.

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by TrainingDummy

Hmm.... the Nazi could easily be outvoted in Congress. You brought up a good point, though: state populations want to be represented by polticians who support the interests of that state, and a "single issue" candidate from one state could very well win that state if the issue is important enough to a proportion of voters nationwide.

Maybe. I'm not sure that I completely understand the system; it's pretty complicated.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

So I have at least 435 candidates to choose from? d:

Well, most likely, the two major parties would field at least one man, one woman, and one minority candidate in each district in order to reach all demographics. The minority parties would field anywhere from 0 to many candidates in a given district, let us assume on average two. That gives us (2*3+2)*435=3480 candidates to choose from.

However, the great majority of voters would only consider the 3 candidates from their party and district. However, the voters who are willing to sift through a bigger selection would be the ones who would really decide the list placement of the individual candidate.

With in excess of 3000 viable candidates, the only way to reasonably exhaustively search fot your best fit would be through a computerized matchmaking system.

When the Swedish voters voted for European parliament members a few years ago, the entire country was one voting district, and each of the 7 national-wide parties fielded at least 30 candidates for the 14 (IIRC) seats that Sweden holds in the European Parliament. So, each voter had in excess of 200 candidates to choose from. The solution: The papers published candidate selection tools on their websites. They subjected each candidates to 50 or so questions, and the candidate had do make their position clear on each and every one of them. In the selection tool, the voter stated their position on each issue, and also how strongly they felt about that issue on a numerical scale. The selection tool then instantly returned an ordered list of how well the voters´ opinion meshed with each candidate, with a numerical agreement index for each candidate. One could then go in and look at detailed info for the top of that list. Candidates who did not answer one of the 50 yes/no questions were graded as disagreeing with all voters on the issues that they fudged, that took away the motivation for not speaking up.

I would assume that something similar would pop up in USA, were my suggested election system to be implemented. (fat chance! )
Pressure groups of all stripes (NRA, NOW, Audubon society, JDL, what have you) would set about to grade the candidates. Someone would create websites where all these gradings could be merged, and the individual voter could find his best match. The individual voter would be able to focus on the gradings of some groups, and disregard others.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

However, the great majority of voters would only consider the 3 candidates from their party and district. However, the voters who are willing to sift through a bigger selection would be the ones who would really decide the list placement of the individual candidate.

I see your concept now.

However, with modern American media and politics, I think that the loudest candidates would win. That's even true to a certain extent today; Ned Lamont defeated an incumbent Senator in the primary, an almost unprecedented event, through an intense advertising campaign. In a large election with so many options, advertising constantly across the country would become a necessity. Maybe not though, I'm just speculating.

Your suggestion reminds me of the California governor's race from about 4 years ago. I wasn't really following politics enough back then to be able to make comments on it; perhaps someone from California could say what the pros and cons of a large number of candidates is.

[dcmdale]

I am not sure that I completely understand the details.

5. Each party gets seats in the house in direct poportion to the total vote count

I understand this to mean that each party is entitled to seats in proportion to its national outcome (in units of 1/435). So lets say that there is a big local issue in Berkeley. The Greens have a large turnout and vote for a semi-reasonable Green congressional candidate--large enough in combination with the rest of the country to give them a seat, but it is not enough in the overall calculus to get that particular seat for the Greens. It seems quite possible that the Green seat might end up going to someone who finished dead last in a conservative district in West Va.

If I understand it, you are going to walk through the top vote getters, giving them "their" district. At some point, however, you are going to run into the point where one of the major parties or the other has been awarded all of the seats that they are entitled to. I am assuming that at that point the process continues with districts awarded based on the highest vote totals for candidates excluding the party that already has its share? (This would seem to make it almost impossible to be an independent, BTW). Since the Berkeley (9th-CA) district could easily be one of the earlier districts awarded, removing the semi-reasonable Green candidate who might have finished second. As we move towards the end of the allocation of seats, it seems quite likely that the last few seats awarded will be to very small parties in seats with few voters. In those cases, it may well be that the last place candidates end up representing a completely inappropriate district. Am I missing something or is this the result you were looking for?

As far as doing away with primaries: if I am the DNC/RNC, I am looking at this from the perspective of the more national votes I get, the more seats that I am entitled to; therefore, rather than putting up one candidate for each seat, I will put up 10 or more because that will get my party the most total votes. As a party, I mostly don't care which candidates end up with the seat nearly as much as I care about total seats. Is this your anticipated result?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I am not sure that I completely understand the details.

I understand this to mean that each party is entitled to seats in proportion to its national outcome (in units of 1/435).

Yup, that is it. One might have a bar for minimum party size as what mrbiggs was getting to in post #2 in order to weed out the N*zi. To that effect, the Swedish House has a limit of 4%, and other European parliaments have cut-offs in the same range. However, my original proposal did not have any such bar.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

So lets say that there is a big local issue in Berkeley. The Greens have a large turnout and vote for a semi-reasonable Green congressional candidate--large enough in combination with the rest of the country to give them a seat, but it is not enough in the overall calculus to get that particular seat for the Greens. It seems quite possible that the Green seat might end up going to someone who finished dead last in a conservative district in West Va.

Entirely possible. Not something that I was *hoping* for, but decidely better than the greens (in this case) being entirely shut out. The minor parties would in all likelyhood put their best candidates in the district where both major party candidates are relatively weak and evenly matched, if such districts are open to those candidates. A plus of such an outcome is that it shakes up the WVa elections.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

If I understand it, you are going to walk through the top vote getters, giving them "their" district.

Yup.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

At some point, however, you are going to run into the point where one of the major parties or the other has been awarded all of the seats that they are entitled to.

Yup. Then all the other candidates from that party are out of the running.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I am assuming that at that point the process continues with districts awarded based on the highest vote totals for candidates excluding the party that already has its share?

Yup.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

(This would seem to make it almost impossible to be an independent, BTW).

Could you please rephrase that? I do not understand you.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

Since the Berkeley (9th-CA) district could easily be one of the earlier districts awarded, removing the semi-reasonable Green candidate who might have finished second.

That is entirely possible.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

As we move towards the end of the allocation of seats, it seems quite likely that the last few seats awarded will be to very small parties in seats with few voters.

I thought house district were roughly the same size, but if you say otherwise I trust your statement.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

In those cases, it may well be that the last place candidates end up representing a completely inappropriate district. Am I missing something or is this the result you were looking for?

Not "looking for" in the sense "best possible", rather "looking for" in the sense "entirely possible, and in any way far better than the current situation".

My proposed system ensures that all parties get a fair share of the house. It ensures that all voters get a chance to vote for someone who they agree with on as many counts as possible. It ensures that all districts will be represented by one, and only one, house member. It ensures that all races are competitive. It ensures that all votes count for something. It ensures that a seat can not be won entirely on negative campaigning.

It does not, however, ensure that a district will be represented by the candidate who got the most votes in that particular district. (most seats will be won by the local winners, but not where the vote is split manyways) To me, that is not an important drawback to the proposed system. In fact, I do not consider it a drawback at all, or at most a very minor one. Others may think differently, but I think that the houses should first and foremost vote for what is best for the country. Only in cases where the descision is neutral to the nation (both sides have their pros and cons, but they are evenly matched) should the house members take into consideration what is best for their district. YMMV.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

As far as doing away with primaries: if I am the DNC/RNC, I am looking at this from the perspective of the more national votes I get, the more seats that I am entitled to; therefore, rather than putting up one candidate for each seat, I will put up 10 or more because that will get my party the most total votes.

That is an intended consequence. Just imagine what Pelosi or McCain would think about their party putting in a bunch of other reasonable candidates in their districts! For that very reason, the system must be safeguarded so that any citizen who is an official card-holding party member can announce his candidacy in the districts (plural) that he is eligible in, and that they party structure can not stop members from running.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

As a party, I mostly don't care which candidates end up with the seat nearly as much as I care about total seats. Is this your anticipated result?

That is a both anticipated and intended result. It will force candidates of the same party to differentiate themselves from another, while at the same time presenting a reasonably unified front against the candidates of other parties. That will be a further hurdle for the dumbasses. It will alleviate the problem of "Message Control". I read that during some of the recent (within Bush II presidency) GOP conventions, journalists were having big problems getting the politicians to say something - they all spewed out the Rove line (IIRC the article in Newsweek). With my proposed system, all 2-nd tier candidates in the major would have to differentiate themselves from each other, and preferably get some voter base from the 1st-tier candidates. Parochial candidates will be at a disadvantage (which is a good thing, IMNSHO), while those who have links to many parts of the country will have easier to get out-of-district votes.

In a tight race with many contenders, no candidate can be sure of the next move of any of his competitors. It is entirely possibly that one may start a out-of-district, or even out-of-state, vote-getting drive that the other candidates do not pick up before it has gotten some steam, and to which they do not have any obvious antagonistic counterstrategy. Should make for some interesting electoral politics. It will also be a nightmare for political election strategists, which is a pro in itself.

It is always a pleasure to discuss politics with you, dcmdale.



Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[dcmdale]

Follow on question for clarity:

What is the purpose of retaining districts at all? It seems more straight-forward, if the main goal is distribution of seats proportionately to parties and there is no expectation that they actually represent a district, to just have a national election. I think that I wouldn't want to be the guy who goes down to the VFW Hall to explain why the guy who finished dead last in the election went to Washington because of a bunch of tree-hugging hippies on the West coast. I am not sure how retaining the district concept fits into your goals.

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

Could you please rephrase that? I do not understand you.

One does not have to belong to a party to run for office in the U.S. Party structure helps in getting elected, but it comes with strings attached in the form of "party discipline" after you are elected. For various reasons, candidates do chose not to affiliate themselves with party and run independently. Some get elected.

In order for an independent to get elected under this system, it seems that they would need to get 1/435th of the vote nationally--essentially become a party of one. That seems like a high barrier.

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

That is entirely possible.

One of the reasons that I posed this scenario is that small parties, like the Greens, could reasonably guess that they would get a couple of seats, but might find it difficult to anticipate which district that might fall in. Even the Republicans and Democrats today are unable to field reasonable candidates in every district. If I am part of a minority party that is only going to get a seat or two, I want my best people in there. The person in Berkeley that is getting all of the votes might well be very experienced and effective, but it seems that under your plan the person who actually gets the seat could be a real wacko that doesn't represent the party well.

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

I thought house district were roughly the same size, but if you say otherwise I trust your statement.

Yes and no. Under the existing system, every state is entitled to at least one Representative regardless of population. Even among districts of roughly the same population, some districts may be effectively "smaller" or "larger" for your purposes because of voting demographics. And, it seems, that under your plan, it is quite possible that certain races might become more prone to attract national votes at the expense of the local district race making it "larger" vs. the races that don't attract the same attention.

When evaluating a proposal like yours, I tend not to think about how it serves or doesn't serve good purposes. I put myself in the place of the people who want to subvert the system, the DNC/RNC, because the first thought of those people will be on how to benefit from/abuse a proposed change.

The reason that we see so much negative campaigning is precisely because it works. Voters may not like it that Candidate A points out that Candidate B is a drooling, wife beating drunk financed by Big Business/Big Labor and the Mafia who doesn't clean his lips before kissing babies and skims money from the local food bank. However, they won't vote for B.

I suspect that if I were part of the DNC/RNC structure, my first thought would be to conduct an even more negative campaign. Because I don't know all of the information I need to target my negativity, the focus will be smearing the entire slate on a national level. I would find the most outrageous candidates from the other party and conduct a campaign based on the notion that "a vote for that party is a vote for this idiot."

Were I a DNC/RNC type, I would also be seeking to use the fact that I can run multiple candidates--appealing to different audiences--to obfuscate what my real party goals were. In the old days, a candidate could go to a Right to Life meeting in the morning as a pro-lifer and a NOW meeting in the afternoon as a abortion advocate. The media and internet have made this more difficult (though certainly still done--one of the reasons candidates often don't want to actually say anything important where it will be picked in the press). By running two candidates from the same party, you can run a pro-lifer and an abortion advocate in the same race and collect votes for both for the party.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by dcmdale

Follow on question for clarity:

What is the purpose of retaining districts at all?

To ensure that each area in the country gets represented by someone who has at least some link to that region. Some regions in the country - probably Ohio, Hawaii, Alaska would be among them - have very low negative ratings among people living outside them. OTOH, states like New York and Texas have significant negative connotations among out-of-staters. If there is no mechanism ensuring that all regions get a fair representation, it is quite likely that a system where voters can vote out of state would lead to a situation where Alaska gets a disproportional number of house members due to conservative voters flocking there. Likewise, Hawaii would get a lot of seats due to Dem. vote flocking, and Ohio would get a lot of middle-of-the-roaders. Since the total umber of places in the House is set, the zero-sum consequence would be that states like NY and TX would be underrepresented. That would breed big-state resent, never a good thing.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

It seems more straight-forward, if the main goal is distribution of seats proportionately to parties and there is no expectation that they actually represent a district, to just have a national election.

On the contrary, there is an expectation of the elected House members to represent their district. That representation takes the form of being from there, or have lived there for a significant time. It does not necessarily take the form of being the guy who got the largest number of votes locally, even if that would be the case in most districts.

A drawback with a straight national election (while it certainly is better than what USA has now) compared to the system that I am suggesting is that the game plan and predictions for each candidate becomes easier. In a straight national election, you just have to get out your vote, stop voters from voting for you local opponents, and hopefully attracting voters from other districts who otherwise would have voted for a party mate somewhere else.

In my suggested system, candidate has to do all that, and on top of that be prepared to take into consideration voter flows between candidates of other parties in other places. There would be literally millions of possible voter flow channels, and there is simply no way that a campaign planner could take all of them - or even all the important ones - into consideration. Since the voting campaign would unfold in 435 districts at the same time - and they interact - the Karl Roves would be overwhelmed. Their only recourse would be to try to play it by ear.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I think that I wouldn't want to be the guy who goes down to the VFW Hall to explain why the guy who finished dead last in the election went to Washington because of a bunch of tree-hugging hippies on the West coast.

I do not know what you are referring to with "VFW Hall", (Wikipedia sheds no light on it) but I will assume that it is a followup on the West Virginia example from previous posts. In that case, simply explain that you were voted into the House following all legal procedure. Furthermore, state that the conservative votes that they have cast have helped the GOP on a national scale. Then, tell the voters that they are stuck with you for the next two years, and that is the way it is - deal with it. Once the system I have suggested is underway for a few voting cycles, it will become appearent that candidates who represent districts which they did not locally win will in most cases not be reelected, since their election to that district was a product of several chancy things happening at the same time. Next time over, the Greens would in all probability be represented by someone coming #5 locally in an Ohio district, which should give the local parochial rednecks some consolation. By doing some voter service in DC, you would likely get some previous non-voters in your district to vote Green next time around. While your chances of reelection would remain slim, the extra votes would help the Green Party on a national scale.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

I am not sure how retaining the district concept fits into your goals.

See above.

Originally Posted by dcmdale

One does not have to belong to a party to run for office in the U.S. Party structure helps in getting elected, but it comes with strings attached in the form of "party discipline" after you are elected. For various reasons, candidates do chose not to affiliate themselves with party and run independently. Some get elected.

In order for an independent to get elected under this system, it seems that they would need to get 1/435th of the vote nationally--essentially become a party of one. That seems like a high barrier.

Would not a guy like Lieberman easily clear that hurdle? An independent who is loud and clear on one topic that is presently not represented would have a clear path to DC - campaign nationally on your chosen topic, and get voters who dislike all local front runners but agree with your topic. There would in all probability be several ethnic parties with 1-2 house members each, and a slew of hot-button single issue parties of the same size. Their existance would make it harder for the big parties to try to be all things to all people, and they would have to focus on their core values.

You pose several good points, but I will have to deal with them later on. More to come!


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[oiuyt]

Seems like a good way of ensuring that elections become significantly more about money spent and fundraising than they are currently.

I don't believe that this would be an improvement.

Even aside from all of the other considerations, making every election a national one quickly moves to block out the smaller, newer candidates, barring massive amounts of self funding.

Also seems like the immediate rational approach from the parties is to flood the system with niche candidates that don't have a hope of beating out the main-stream candidates from their district, but that can pull isolated votes from all over to help bolster the party total. Basically gather "long tail" votes, but then use them to elect more traditional candidates.

Also raises the potential issue of coalition governments needing to be formed once a N-party (N > 2) legislature has been formed. While this is clearly common in other countries it would be a large shift in US politics. Not a clear positive or negative, merely a (significant) change, which is an additional complicating issue.

-B

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

There would in all probability be several ethnic parties with 1-2 house members each, and a slew of hot-button single issue parties of the same size.

And this is a Good Thing?

Seems like that National Socialist Workers Party mentioned in posts 2, 3, and 8 qualifies as such a party.

Still not sure what would prevent the major parties from co-opting candidates that might form up such focused groups and using them for vote totals, but without yielding any representation to the groups.

Then again, I'm not sold on the (current) idea of gerrymandering districts to "ensure" election of minority candidates (hideously artificially shaped districts for the purpose of making them majority minority).*</understatement>

-B

*for that matter, gerrymandering them into "safe" seats for either party, or for any other purpose, either.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by oiuyt

And this is a Good Thing?

I personally think that all possible permutations of the major issues should be represented in the parliamentary-like body, provided that the permutation in question is reasonably common among the voters.

An example: Today, many US. elections have exacly two viable candiates:
1. pro-gun, anti-abortion
2. gun-control, pro-choice
(not much attempt at hiding my preferences there. )

However, what if the a voter is either:
3. pro-gun, pro-choice
4. gun-control, anti-abortion

Since both sides on both topics are fairly common, it seems reasonable that opinion combinations #3-4 should be fairly common - at least much more than 1/435th of the population. However, in very many house races voters with those opinion sets can only choose between wasting their vote or staying home. Neither is good.

Compare the voting to a pizza parlor. There, you typically have 50+ permutations of toppings, and you usually can add extra toppings or mix together your own combination. Even dimwitted people manage to order a pizza, why should they not manage a vote? Provided that the voting mechanics are in order, that is.

During the time when I have been politically interested, there have been 3 big hot-button issues in Sweden - nuclear power, worker´s funds (I can explain if really necessary, but it is really Swedish thing), and national application for EU membership. That gives 2^3=8 opinion permutations. 5 of those have at one time or another been official policy of at least one party in the parliament. At least 7 of them have been the stated opinion of at least one member of parliament. Almost everyone could find a matching candiadate to vote for. Not coincidentally, the voter turnout in Swedish parliamentary votes has been 86% or more during the last 30 years, IIRC.

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Seems like that National Socialist Workers Party mentioned in posts 2, 3, and 8 qualifies as such a party.

I checked up that on Wikipedia. If that is to be trusted, that party would not have enough possible sympathisers to get even one House seat. Actually, they would fall sort of the mark by almost an order of magnitude.

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Still not sure what would prevent the major parties from co-opting candidates that might form up such focused groups and using them for vote totals, but without yielding any representation to the groups.

Then again, I'm not sold on the (current) idea of gerrymandering districts to "ensure" election of minority candidates (hideously artificially shaped districts for the purpose of making them majority minority).*</understatement>

-B

*for that matter, gerrymandering them into "safe" seats for either party, or for any other purpose, either.

Both topics are quite interesting in their own right.

However, I have some armouring to do - right now - so that will have to wait. The co-opting issue I will deal with later on in this thread. I have already written about gerrymandering some time ago, I have another idea about brewing in my head that I will post some time later on.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

An example: Today, many US. elections have exacly two viable candiates:
1. pro-gun, anti-abortion
2. gun-control, pro-choice
(not much attempt at hiding my preferences there. )

However, what if the a voter is either:
3. pro-gun, pro-choice
4. gun-control, anti-abortion

Since both sides on both topics are fairly common, it seems reasonable that opinion combinations #3-4 should be fairly common - at least much more than 1/435th of the population. However, in very many house races voters with those opinion sets can only choose between wasting their vote or staying home. Neither is good.

False dichotomy fallacy. There is another option, and a much better one: Voters can prioritize the issues, and choose the best candidate for them based on that.

No one is owed a candidate who exactly matches his or her position on all the issues...not even if the issues that matter to the voter are limited to two, as you describe.

What if you add a few more choices to your dyad? For instance, throw positions on capital punishment, the minimum wage, the environment, and maybe illegal immigration into the mix. Are we now to require a separate candidate for each possible combination of positions? Seems terribly unwieldy, and probably the death of cooperation ( if it isn't already dead ). At least a legislator elected by a constituency of many positions has some room to compromise on the legislation and still lay some claim to not having compromised his principles. A legislator who must be an exact match to an ultraspecific constituency would have no such latitude. To compromise on ANY of the issues would be a betrayal of the entirety of his constituency, not a subset of it only...

Almost everyone could find a matching candiadate to vote for. Not coincidentally, the voter turnout in Swedish parliamentary votes has been 86% or more during the last 30 years, IIRC.

Assuming a causative link not in evidence. There are many possible reasons for high voter turnout, so what is the basis for your "not coincidentally"?

[scrapinpeg]

I'm not a fan of political parties, for several reasons. Many people vote a party line, regardless of the individual qualities of the specific candidates, thereby giving electoral power to unelected private organizations; whoever the party decided to nominate gets the votes. Often, party nominations are not made by voters, but by the unelected party leadership, commonly in return for party loyalty. Party platforms are monolithic, and do not represent the complex variety of public interests on the policies and issues of the day. Parties control power, and usually control their local districts entirely, which leads to political machines, various levels of corruption, and marginalization of minority voices. At best, the present two-party system provides an artificial dichotomy of options; at worst, in machine-controlled or gerrymandered districts, it provides no option whatsoever.

Instead, I would prefer to eliminate parties altoghether, and force candidates to run on their own merits. Instead of a nominating convention, I'd prefer a nominating election -- anyone who got a certain amount of petition signatures qualifying them as a serious contender could run, and those candidates sharing the top two-thirds of the votes cast would then run against each other in the general election. Voters would choose the candidate who best represented their interests, with respect to the issues most important to the voters.

Only candidates with enough public support to justify a candidacy could seek nomination. To be nominated, a candidate's positions must resonate with at least a significant minority. Voters will choose from the elected candidates the one individual who most closely approximates the overall voice of the populace.

Instead of choosing from nominees who best pandered to the vocal fringe of their party, or who offer the best quid pro quo to party bosses, voters would choose from nominees who best speak for the voters.

[dcmdale]

VFW = Veterans of Foreign Wars. These are the guys that will sit around and tell you, "I kicked Hitler's hienny with Patton from Normandy to Berlin and who are you to tell me that now we have a government where the guy who got the least votes wins."

I'll opine that your plan introduces a lot of complexity and uncertainty that people don't necessarily want and that the value proposition for this is kind of iffy. My immediate reaction, if I were a party strategist, would be to create the mother of all negative campaigns. Since I can't anticipate specific targets, I am going to smear the whole lot. The element of uncertainty means that I can set up scare tactics that "if you vote for this nice guy here, you may be electing a wife-beating, baby-hating, bribe-taking slimeball over there."

If it is really that important to get rid of negative campaigning, consider the Classic Greek approach--select representatives at random from the eligible population. No voting. No campaigning. No Parties.

However, while there are issues with the current system, I am not as down on it as you. I think there is a lot of room within the current system to improve. However, negative campaigning will continue as long as voters respond to it. As it is, voters may hate campaign, but they still vote for the least of the perceived evils.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

I personally think that all possible permutations of the major issues should be represented in the parliamentary-like body, provided that the permutation in question is reasonably common among the voters.

Perhaps we'll have to agree to disagree. Politicians that are elected solely for a single topic don't seem like the best choice for governing. Especially if a few get elected for each side of said topic. Either their topic is the current issue, in which case they'll likely too extreme to be reasonable, or their topic of interest ISN'T part of the current discussion, in which case they're either irrelevant or, worse, arbitrary (they were elected without consideration on their opinions on topics A, B, and C, when X is their hot-button).

Ethnic reasons are, if anything, significantly worse.

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

I checked up that on Wikipedia. If that is to be trusted, that party would not have enough possible sympathisers to get even one House seat. Actually, they would fall sort of the mark by almost an order of magnitude.

Wasn't referring to the Swedish version (which had a name that exactly matched what I used). Was referring to the German party, removing the country designation from their name.

Rather than inventing a new system, perhaps it would be better to look at an existing model and then tweak. Australia seems to have many of the features that you desire (and voter turnout higher than Sweden, albeit legislatively enforced). Of course the complications there seem to result in increased party-line voting. Depending on one's viewpoint this may or may not be a Good Thing (I prefer independent thought, so I personally don't favor blind party-line thinking, but I know others feel differently).

-B