Should the US adopt Proportional Representation?

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This has been discussed before, but perhaps it's worth a recap.

A lot of people - including a lot of WP members - will soon have the option (or will they?) of voting on November 3 for not only president, but also for Congress (all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats).

And the most important election of the year takes place on September 22, where the finale is held for America's Got Talent, Season #15. Sh*t will get real, and sh*t will go down.

In recent years, however, the United States has seen increasing levels of political polarization, both in society and in its political institutions in Congress. Public faith in congress is also low (back down at 18 percent in July 2020), and turnout for Congressional elections is unimpressive, with Midterms occasionally being abysmal (36.7 percent in 2014).

It is not inconceivable that the current First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system might be the cause of this political malaise. And while detonating the entire US nuclear arsenal in Washington DC might seem to be the easiest fix, why not try introducing Proportional Representation instead?

If so, it probably would only be feasible for the 435 members of the House, as only 1 person is elected for the Presidency, and 1 person in each state for each Senate seat up for election. The House, on the other hand, has an average of 8.7 seats per State (sorry, DC chums. You get none), which could in principle be allocated on the basis of PR.

One would also have to decide the electoral threshold percentage (the share of votes required for eligibility). This could theoretically be 0 % (but obviously limited by the total number of seats), but varies in practice from 0.67 % (Netherlands) to 10 % (Turkey). Obviously, the higher the threshold, the greater risk of wasted votes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportio ... esentation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-pas ... ost_voting

Some advantages of PR:

- It significantly reduces (and can often entirely eliminate) the use of Gerrymandering.
- It is much more representative of the myriad of views in the United States than FPTP systems.
- It reduces political polarization, as large gaps between party positions offers room for new "Middle Ground" parties.
- It results in fewer wastes votes (depending on electoral threshold).

Some disadvantages of PR:

- Without a clear majority, the political system may become unstable. This was infamously the case for the Weimar Republic.
- Small parties may exert disproportionate influence by strategically positioning themselves as king-makers of a political majority.
- Extremists will have an easier time getting elected (depending on electoral threshold)

Thoughts?

Very strongly yes - it would hugely improve the quality of US democracy (and other countries that don’t have it).

The Presidency is inherently anti-proportional and should have its powers dramatically stripped down.

I don’t think the concern about extremism is warranted when you have nut jobs like Tom Cotton, Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib and of course the current President holding office.

How should proportional representation be defined.

Specifically?

We have it in the House of Representatives,it's just that the numbers of seats have not been adjusted in a long time,so each seat represents more people than proportionally intended by the founding fathers.

The senate was not designed to be proportional,it was supposed to be like the Roman senate:An assembly of old or wise men not meant to have the election pressures of the HOR.Also to be be sort of like the House of Lords in Britain,a house of wisdom not public representation.

Would we then get rid of the senate?Or would senator's be merged into the HOR,because having proportional representation in the US senate would be like having two HOR,pointless really,so merge it or get rid of it.

Now would the president be elected by popular vote or would the HOR form a government like a lot of European parliaments,in other words we would adopt a parliamentary system.

Honestly I feel my state has plenty of representatives,accept rural Berkshire county is represented by someone from urban Springfield.But if they made it so Berkshire county had it's own Rep. then MA would have like 50 Rep's in the HOR,not real practical.

Last edited by vermontsavant on 19 Aug 2020, 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Roughly speaking, the seats in an electoral district are allocated on the basis of the proportion of votes each party gets. So if there are 20 seats, and 4 parties get 40, 30, 20 and 10 percent of the votes, respectively, they will get 8, 6, 4 and 2 seats.

Under First-Past-The-Post, the party with 40 percent of the votes would get all 20 seats.

A country with proportional representation here.
You vote for a party not a person, so the selection of the people is done by party leaders' whims. This promotes faceless toadies and changeable weathercocks. You see the same faces over and over in ever changing party colors.
In theory, your opinions should be proportionally represented by your party.
In practice, no one gives a damn after elections - no one takes individual responsibility because if people are unhappy with your party, you just switch to the party that looks best in polls, you just need to know how to talk to its leader.
It's a spineless, faceless mess.

That would be a massive overhaul of the present system,you might as well abolish the US senate at that point.

As previously said, it wouldn't make sense to have Proportional Representation in the Senate, only in the House.

Only one Senate seat (Class I, II or III) in a state is up for election at one time (except for occasional special elections like in Georgia this year), so there is one one seat to assign. The outcome would thus be the same in both FPTP and PR.

Last edited by GGPViper on 19 Aug 2020, 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The multi party system has been tried in the past,in the late 1800's and never took off.The Progressive party had brief success with Teddy Roosevelt but quickly died.Then the Dixiecrats in the early 60's but when the 64 civil rights bill passed with the support of LBJ,they all went republican and there has not been any third party success outside of Bernie Sanders in Vermont.

I'm not saying a multi party system couldn't benefit America but it's not likely to catch on.

The same with the House of Representatives electing the president,not a bad idea but Americans by large want to elect there president.Most parliamentary countries never had the right to vote for president,Americans have had that right and it's hard to take away that right once given.

I put other because I steamed into hell no without reading the OP thinking it meant enforced racial diversity, but it's not, and I can't take my vote away, only switch it, and I don't have an opinion on which is best.

The one which I always say America needs is ranked voting for the presidency to open up the running to others outside of the red and blue.

The voter needs to be educated, working a job (or equivalent) , paying taxes, older .. otherwise .. they probably lean towards "FREE STUFF" and democracy becomes evil.

So, I prefer the current system.

PR and FPTP regulate how votes are translated into seats, not who is eligible to vote.

Your criteria for voting - which in combination would likely disenfranchise tens of millions of people if introduced in the US, by the way - regulate who is eligible to vote, and not how votes are translated into seats.

As mentioned earlier, PR and FPTP expand democracy.

I think we need to suppress votes, not expand them.

I like how the current system minimizes voters in high tax states like California and New York.

Those states likely have a lot of democracy which is why they have so much misery.

Last edited by TheRobotLives on 20 Aug 2020, 2:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

I hope you never pretend to be libertarian when you're so openly hostile towards democracy.

how would that be implemented? that you can only vote for one of your own label?

i found the idea of olderpeople parties already too (self)interest-specific,
if all parties are some clientprotector services, (what's happened the last decades) there's no general good, or bigger picture or goals

this forcefull relegation into one's corner
would effectively forbid venturing outside one's corner (ghetto-isation)
Sens 1
Politique
La ghettoïsation correspond au fait de distinguer un groupe de personne d'un autre en le mettant à l'écart, à part. On parle généralement de ghettoïsation envers les minorités ou les personnes moins favorisées qui restent cloitrées dans un quartier précis.

"je deteste le communautarisme" rachid t
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communaut ... 3%A9ologie)

Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based upon the belief that a person's social identity and personality are largely molded by community relationships, with a smaller degree of development being placed on individualism.

Some Libertarians believe that just casting a ballot is a criminal act of slavery of another.

I would think most Libertarians believe democracy is evil.

Plenty of people who claim to be libertarian don't seem to actually have any interest in personal liberty for anyone but themselves but I wouldn't consider those people to be in a position to define libertarianism when their ideology just sounds like the better worded equivalent of a toddlers view of the world.