Proper proportions: Time to dump winner take all?

October 1, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

In a recent letter to Harper’s magazine, a U.S. Green Party official made a number of suggestions for reforming American elections. Among them was dumping the “winner-take-all” system of American elections and moving toward some type of proportional government.

I’ve been interested in that idea for a long time. The winner-take-all system seems to me to be counter to true democracy. Let’s say a state has a hotly contested Senate election pitting a liberal Democrat against a conservative Republican. Assume 5 million people vote on Election Day, and the Republican wins by 4,000 votes. Given the number of people who voted, that’s more or less a tie. Yet the Republican gets to go to Washington, and the voters who supported the Democrat get nothing. Nada. No meaningful representation. (Of course it cuts the other way. The 27 percent of Illinois voters who backed Alan Keyes are probably not feeling well represented by Barack Obama.)

In theory, the Republican is supposed to moderate, seek consensus and find ways to keep the liberals happy if he wants to be reelected. Let’s grow up here. We all know what happens. Once in office, he begins tapping special interests to build a war chest for the next election. He counts on that, pandering to his base, the power of incumbency and generous pork-barrel subsidies to pull him through in six years.

Is there a better way? The Carpetbagger often tosses out a question for discussion on Sunday, and at the risk of stealing his thunder, I’d like to open up this topic to discussion today.

Proportional representation sounds great at first glance, but, as the recent experience in Germany proves, even it can lead to gridlocked government. There may be other drawbacks as well: Kooky parties with extreme views may be brought into coalition governments and allowed to become deal makers. Americans may find the system too confusing, with voter turnout dropping even lower.

So here are our questions: Is a proportional system superior? If so, what countries/which models should the United States best emulate? Which models are to be avoided? If proportional government is not better, why not?

Put aside the question of whether it’s ever likely to happen. I doubt it, but let’s say in some alternate universe we had the opportunity to try it if we wanted. Should we? I’d be especially interested in hearing from anyone who has ever actually lived under such a system.

October 1, 2005 at 11:49 am

“Given the number of people who voted, that’s more or less a tie. Yet the Republican gets to go to Washington, and the voters who supported the Democrat get nothing. Nada. No meaningful representation. (Of course it cuts the other way. The 27 percent of Illinois voters who backed Alan Keyes are probably not feeling well represented by Barack Obama.)”

Morbo, I disagree with your conclusion in this scenario. Yes, indeed, the “conservative Republican” is more than likely a Rethug, who won’t give a good shit what is good for most of his constituents, but especially will work hard to shit on the Democratic voters through voter intimidation, denial of a living minimum wage, denial of personal liberties, destruction of Social Security, etc.

On the other hand, Obama WILL — as do almost all Democrats in Congress — try to do what it takes to float ALL of the boats in economic terms, protect personal liberties, rein in the profligate spending, regulate business for the benefit of the consuming public, and in general use the governmental machinery to HELP individuals rather than to shit on them. This actually helps ALL constituants, regardless of their party ID.

The proportional voting strategy that you advocate is akin to the stupid reasons that term limits were imposed: it takes democracy out of the hands of the voters, and makes elected officials less accountable at the voting booths. If a particular party get a portion of representatives regardless of that party’s ability to deliver governmental policies and services that are acceptable to the electorate, then that party has no motivation to change its policies and actions.

MY bottom line is this: “IF you want to live in fear of your government, THEN vote for the Rethugs. On the other hand, IF you want to live like a Republican, THEN you’d better vote like a Democrat.”

Proportional representation does not make sense in state-wide senatorial or congressional districts. The majority vote getter wins the seat which it should be. However, the electoral college winner take all is absolutely bogus. That definitely calls for proportional representation. For every congressional district, whichever presidential candidate wins most votes should get one electoral vote. It one candidate wins the entire state by more than ten percentage points then he should get both the “senate” electoral votes. Otherwise, the “senate” electoral votes should be split. This way, the backward thinking “red” states cannot exercise disproportionate influence on the presidential elections. I strongly feel that if a detailed statistical analysis of past elections is conducted, this will show that the winner of the popular vote will almost always be the winner.

I agree in part with AL, but at a gut level, all or nothing voting does not give enough voice to enough people in democracy.

In 2002, more people (American voters) voted for Democratic Senate candidates than Republican Senate candidates. On election day, Republicans won more seats. Democrats had votes and voters, but Republicans had power.

If a proportion system would change this, it should be on the table.

I’m really glad, Morbo, that you raised this issue and I share your enthusiasm for exploring these possibilities.

So I’ve been sitting here thinking through what you and others have posted here and have come to realize that the only response I can give is horribly boring: the first hurdle we have to clear is just getting people to vote and to engage in the existing political process. That probably has to occur before we take on proportionality which I tend to favor.

But just thinking about the work we have to do before regaining even a semblance of representational government is daunting. Whatever reforms we decide on, we’ll still need a much higher percentage of voters at each election and a much greater commitment to community and government than most of us now give to our pets and entertainment.

As a practical matter, I can’t see this ever
happening in this country. Would it not take
a Constitutional amendment? Why would
the ruling parties even consider it? I’m just
not seeing that this is plausible.

Any political system has to find a way to reconcile the diversity of opinion into choices, and it is not simply a matter of finding a clever mathematical formula for populating a legislature with people, who reflect the diversity of views in the population. The institutional structure forms a framework, within which people are forced to compromise and adjust their own views — not just rank order them on a ballot — and to form political identities, to form and join alliances and coalitions, to build institutions.

Modifying the rules can be a useful strategem for breaking up a pernicious pattern, such as white supremacy voting in the South, which has been based on “at large” districts in cities, and single-party politics, and the like. But, any set of rules eventually settles into some kind of game of political identities, coalitions, institutions, etc. The fact of a diversity of opinion doesn’t change, nor does the need to reconcile that diversity into definite (and hopefully, responsible) political choices.

To me, the most important and hopeful reform on the American political horizon is the increase in small donation political fundraising via the internet, and the most threatening is the DeLay, “K-street project” corporate fund-raising machine. That’s a far cry from the abstract theorizing of proportional representation, but could become critically important, and is every bit a critical part of our political institutional structure as first-past-the-post, two-party elections.

Historically, the two parties were not ideologically pure, as they are now. By depriving the Democrats of their lobbying ties with his “K street project” Mr. DeLay may be “purifying” the Democratic Party even further; the alternative of netroots financial support may make Democrats very, very different from their increasingly corrupt Republican counterparts. And, assuming the Republic survives through the next election cycle, that will redeem us.

If you want altruistic representatives, remove the profit motive from public office.

Have an election where the top ten vote getters names are put into a hat and one of them serves. If the person does a good job representing his constituents and the country, then his name gets to go into the hat again. If he does a bad job, he can’t ever run for anything again.

I used the masuline pronouns, but it should be noted that this is a way for more minority and female representation.

Big money would not be interested in backing one horse in a ten horse race.

I must confess that I lack the data to do so but I am opposed to proportional voting. I tnink our system of winner take all election can work and work well but we have to find a way to take the corrupting influence of money out of it. If a way can be found to a way to fund elections and campains without the need for candidates to sell themselves to the highest bidder then they will see a greater need to seek support amoung the voters.

Rather than worry about proportional representation, I think we would all be better off if we had fair districts and no gerrymandering.

Senate races are more competitive than house races because you can’t gerrymander a state.

We should have a law, constitutional amendment if need be, where the legistature picks a mathematical formula before the results of the census are released and then whatever map meets the formula the best is the one used for the next 10 years. Iowa has fair districts and Iowa has a significant portion of the competitive races each year.

I’m a fan of IRV to deal with these kinds of “near-tie” races and to increase the amount of diversity. If the race is soooo close, it’s probably because most voters feel that both candiatates suck donkey balls. Which, usually, they do. Something like IRV can allow more candidates to make a credible run.

But the problem isn’t just “winner-take-all” voting, it’s with our whole “winner-take-all” society! And the Repugs embody this in a huge way. Got rich? Great, you won at Horatio Alger Lotto, so, fuck everyone else. And our media: converging down to three or four companies owning all media. Software? You got Microshaft– winner take all. It’s a disease of combining a “free-market” approach with massive “economies of scale”– the end result is inevitably a near-monopoly. i.e., per Regis McKenna, all free, large, homogenous markets eventually converge on “one gorilla, two chimps, and a bunch of monkeys”.

This is precisely why the genius of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay is so profound. They clearly understood the dangers of “winner-take-all”, and took great pains to avoid it in our Constitution. Our Constitution does the best job of it anyone has ever done. But it was suited for a smaller country. We’re so big now, a more parliamentary-like system is appropriate. And I’d love to see something like IRV make this a more level playing field too.

I’m with Neil Wilson and a formula for drawing up districts. Could it be because I live in one of Tom DeLay’s “re-districts”? That might even encourage turnout. In a strongly Republican district such as mine, Dems hardly bothered until recently (and still have trouble actually voting, thanks to little “last minute inconveniences” that seem to crop up until one reports them to the Secretary of State! And then a new dodge is invented for the following election…!

How do you PR in our system? The House is composed of districts by states based on population and the Senate is two per state. I know you said don’t talk about realistic possibilities but given the built-in adverse votes of more than 1/4 of the states this is fantasy talk. Instant run-off is a lot more possible. And you ould do PR on the state level since they are unitary governments. Germany is a unitary government as far as as the Bundestag is concerned. But our Federal System ties representation to the states.

Here’s a good website that discusses the pros and cons of PR: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/common_criticisms_of_pr.htm
I think it would be an improvement over the current system in that it would give some “little guys” a chance. Why pour everything into the lesser of two evils as in the way the 2004 election was deemed by many. There could be some excellent leadership material hiding out there that we cannot avail ourselves of by using our current system.
But I have to say, Dan, I like your names in a hat idea about the best of any I’ve heard!

Israel has a nationwide system of proportional representation. The result is an increasing factionalization of the electorate. Any loopy headed religious zealot who can smile for the camera and play effective fear mongerer enough to snap up 2% of the electorate can now form his own party and get votes in the Knesset.

The result of that is that the two mainstream parties regularly get only about 30% of the vote and then have to go begging favors from the religious kooks to actually form a government. The zealots form coalitions with whoever will cave in to them on their pet issues–usually getting medieval on Palenstinians and sometimes even Arab Israelis.

Italy, with less extreme political issues before it, also uses proportional representation, with the result that they have ridiculously frequent changes in government, an overly powerful bureaucracy, and the occasional porn star or Mussolini grandchild still getting elected to office. Proportional representation doesn’t ensure that the voters are represented; it ensures that the electorate is fragmented and inflexible. Our winner take all system gives power to the political center, while PR gives power to the fringes.

–Bucky
a Brown Bag Blog

Moving the Presidential election to a propotional affair would change the states that candidates campaign in, which would in turn change some of the issues. But the larger states would see the most visits, and the smaller states, with the lowest number of possible voters and electoral votes will see nothing.

TX, CA, FL, and NY would see the largest number of visits. Swing states would mean little.

As an aside, if EV’s were distributed proportional, Kerry would have recieved 258, and Bush 275. Still enough for a Bush victory, although closer than the 286-252 spread that actually occurred. Either way, the Kerry voters still would get screwed.

In accord with some of the previous commenters’ cautionary notes and alternative suggestions, I think some form of Instant Runoff Voting should be #1 because it gives the most bang for the buck. I mean that in the sense measuring benefits vs. degree of radicality and risk.

IRV is good because it would help the center and penalize purely negative/smear campaigning. It’s cheap because it doesn’t change the legislative machinery. I think it would even be pretty comprehensible to the electorate.

The next priority (maybe even #1A) is nonpartisan redistricting, for all the reasons Neil Wilson noted. Again, this one’s cheap — we’ve already got working precedent (Iowa).

Per Bucky’s points about fragmentation and disproportionate power of minor swing parties in a coalition, Proportional Representation is no panacea. It’s relatively radical. Those factors make it expensive in my calculus. Let’s do the really cool, cheap stuff, and then come back and see if we have to shoot the moon.

Ireland has a pretty good PR system– the single transferable vote. The idea is to turn x percent of the vote into x percent of the seats, and it works pretty well. It works like this: every constituency is given a number of seats, which, in Ireland, is between 3-5. Then you come up with a quota based on number of seats and registered voters. People vote 1-2-3 down the lista as they choose. Note that they are voting for individuals, not a party. Also note that there could easily be more than one representative from the same party on the ticket (so a “big” party might aim for 3 out of the 4 available seats– this becomes important later on). Votes are tallied. If you get more than the quota, you are elected. Then the surplus votes (the amount by which you exceed the quota) are transferred to other candidates based on #2 preference. Add up again, and repeat. If nobody reaches the quota, you eliminate the person at the bottom of the list and redistribute his/her votes. Keep going like this until all seats are taken. For a start, this makes for great TV as the person who topped the poll, but who did not make the quota, may not end up getting elected if everybody gangs up on him/her. This is why parties field multiple candidates: a popular member can pull in somebody else if people give second preferences to theother party members. Alternatively, different parties can form a pact, asking their supporters to give the other party #2 votes, But of course, you vote in the order you like. I’m a big fan of this system!

Tony.

The chances of this happening are not even low. It is a nonstarter. Much like other ideas of the Green Party, which takes pride in being right, not in actually persuading a majority of the voting public and in winning.

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