US political blogger Matthew Yglesias has suggested single transferable vote as ” one solution to polarization” in the US Congress.
I would note that his specific suggestion that New York City could form a single 13-seat district might not be the best way to sell STV. But perhaps one should not quibble with such details, important though they are, at this point.
I did not look at many of the comments (55 at last check), but I did notice that the first comment advocates expanding the size of the House (as an alternative, but why pick just one of these?), and another makes the all-too-common mistake of conflating the increased district magnitude of PR with “at large” plurality (with reference to such a provision in the Puerto Rican legislature).
And at least one of the comments mentions the looming referendum on STV in British Columbia.
Don’t be too hard on the commenters. Some professional journalists – not amateur comboxers – have argued, in print, that Iraq should use single-seaters because these are – wait for it – more favourable to dispersed minorities like Iraq’s liberals/ democrats than a single nation-wide constituency is.
See, eg, the Wall Street Journal, Larry Kaplan, and Larry Diamond. OK, you expect the WSJ – home of John Fund – to have odd ideas about how PR works, but The New Republic?! Hendrik Hertzberg, call your old office!
Arguing for districts (single- or multi-seat) for Juan Cole’s reason – because these guarantee the Sunnis per capita communal representation even if they sulk and sit out the elections – now, that would make sense.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 01 May 2009 @ 00:28
New York City is actually entitled to just under 12 congressmen, remember the size of a Congressional district is going to something like 720,000 and the city’s population is just over 8 million.
There is an interesting point here. You could implement proportional representation for the House of Representatives without amending the constitution. But no matter which version was used, the multimember districts would have to be based on states, since congressmen are apportioned to the states first.
There are 12 states that have only one or two congressmen apportioned to them that would have to stick with single member districts in this situation. There are another 26 states with between 3 and 10 congressmen, and these select something like a third of the House. The thresholds for these states would be at least 10%, probably too high for a party list system (you would get really distorted votes to seats results). These states might as well use STV.
In the larger states there are no regional or metropolitan area wide governments, with the large southern California counties the possible exception. There are no real natural divisions for multimember districts. I’ll bet if STV was implemented some large state would actually try for a twenty-plus statewide district unless the legislation specified an upper limit to the districts. You would see a 12 member New York City district because people are just too used to thinking in those terms.
If the US were to use proportional representation, STV would be a better technical fit for the US federal system, with its large discrepancies in state populations, than the party list system. And minimum and maximum sizes for the STV districts would have to be provided for. Given the American political culture, there would inevitably be attempts to tullymander.
Seed planted by Ed — 01 May 2009 @ 16:05
The legislative council of New South Wales has 42 members with 21 MLCs elected every 4 years. The state is a single STV electorate for that election. It has not caused any severe problems, apart from the tablecloth sized ballot paper.
Seed planted by Alan — 02 May 2009 @ 01:42
The U.S House should be increased in size along with a change in electoral system. 435 members doesn’t represent 300 million anymore like it use.
If the Wyoming rule is used, then Wyoming is the only state that would have 1 congress member using a majority system, but all the other small states can STV electing 2 members, and the rule can be establish. States that have more than 3 seats, must use multiple districts of 3, 4, and 5. The U.S Congress would increase to 669 members. Is that true?
New York City can be broken up into Three 4 seat districts if it were given 12 members. Probably get more representation if Congress is increase.
NY would probably get 20 seats. Just use 4 5 seat district or whatever fits using communities of interest. Each of the boroughs can be a district within reason and 10% deviation.
However, any system of PR in the U.S needs to be tried at the state level to see if it will work before it can tried at the Federal Level.
The Senate can use the Majoritarian Alternative like Australia uses in it’s lower house. So we basically followed Australian method reversed.
[Links within F&V added by MSS]
Seed planted by Suaprazzodi — 02 May 2009 @ 02:53
Does NSW allow above-the-line voting, and if so do most voters use that option? Does NSW elect dozens of other offices at the same time, as US voting jurisdictions tend to do?
Seed planted by MSS — 03 May 2009 @ 16:00
> “Does NSW allow above-the-line voting[?]”
Yes – in fact, I think NSW had ticket-voting a few years before the Feds adopted it.
> “and if so do most voters use that option?”
Yes, it’s about 95% for the Senate and all mainland State upper houses with ticket-voting. The exceptions are (a) Tasmanians electing their federal Senators, where I believe it’s only 80-85%, due to use of rotated ballots for State elections; and (b) on occasions, ACT Senate elections – Canberran Territory elections also have rotated ballots and with only 2 Senate seats vacant, the addition of “above the line” squares tends to make voting marginally more, rather than less, confusing.
Tasmania is the only State where a Senate election since 1948 (STV-PR introduced) has come close to electing a party’s candidates out of the order they appear on the Senate ticket. There was some talk in 1980 this might happen in Qld, after Premier Bjelke-Petersen (who was opposed to working mothers in other contexts) shoehorned his wife Flo into #1 spot on the Nationals’ ticket.
Note that whereas Senate elections require all candidates to be numbered for a valid vote, NSW only requires 15 preferences for 21 seats. (Originally 10 preferences for 15 seats). Of course, this is still a complex task, and the habits formed by Senate ticket-voting carry over to State elections even when…
> “Does NSW elect dozens of other offices at the same time, as US voting jurisdictions tend to do?”
… Federal and State elections are always (by Federal Act) held on different days. Under State law, State and local elections are also always on different days. So a NSW voter gets a large, Senate-like “bedsheet ballot” with 100 candidates for 21 Legislative Council seats, and a short ballot with half a dozen candidates for one Legislative Assembly seat (1 preference suffices). Occasionally – 1978 and 1991, from memory – a State referendum as well, on one or two propositions, all initiated by the State lower house (ie, the Cabinet).
Since I lived in Queensland and the ACT before moving to Canberra, it wasn’t until my late 30s that I voted for the first time in a State Upper House election.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 03 May 2009 @ 18:29
NSW does have above the line voting but it is different from the federal version. You get to express preferences among the party tickets. The federal ballot-paper lets you put in an X in the box for one party. The NSW ballot allows you to number the boxes for different parties as you please.
I do not have any hard numbers on how many NSW electors vote for more than one preference among the party lists, but the raw figure of how many NSW electors vote above the line does not mean the same thing it means in a federal election.
While I am not aware of a change in the ticket order there are several cases like former Premier of Tasmania Doug Lowe whose claim on the party leadership was greatly strengthened by his ability to draw 2 quotas in his own right.
The US does have significant long-ballot problems. Those could be minimised by above the line voting, better ballot design and better public information. In Scotland they found there were significant difficulties asking electors to vote by MPP for the Scottish Parliament and STV for local councils.
I’ve always thought that is an excellent argument for STV because neither MMP nor list systems can be used for electing single chief executives.
Seed planted by Alan — 04 May 2009 @ 06:47