I think the number of representatives per election district is a really interesting mathematical/social problem in democracy, and I’m interested in what this audience has to say.
The problem has never been a lack of solutions; we already know what to do. Ideas are cheap, easy, plentiful. Ideas for ‘better’ political systems are just bike shedding.
We don’t need more ideas, we need the political will to try one. And that is the real problem.
Interesting, I wonder how many invisible third parties exist at the state or regional level that would be represented in a better system.
That being said, this state government seems rather large for Minnesota, a state with a population of six million people. 67 senators and 134 representatives, and that's within the clunky three-branch system of government copied from the US Federal Government. Those numbers are bigger than California's which has a population that is five times larger.
I would be in favor of anything that improves the current political system, including a shot at this policy. On a meta-level, I would even be in favor of new political processes that are WORSE, simply because the adoption of such a policy could prove to people that we CAN change our processes, and then we could (try) to continue to amend our process until we find one that works.
My personal favorite approach at the national level would be Ranked Choice [1], as that would preserve the (IMO important) single decision maker in the executive branch, while removing the incentive to vote for someone you hate just because they aren't as bad as the Other Guy. Interested to hear if HN knows of other/better ways to accomplish the same
FPTP (First-Past-The-Post) pushes toward a two party system. When you switch to RC (Ranked Choice aka. Ranked Ballot or Ranked Voting) or even PR, that push is relaxed and you are likely to start seeing more parties.
The problem with Ranked Choice with more than two parties is that the centrist parties tend to win more often because they are more likely to be the second choice of people whose first choice is a left or right leaning party. That can be a problem if they get 100% of the power when they win.
PR is better because how much power each party has depends on what percentage of the votes they get in the first round (there not being subsequent rounds), so it is unlikely they will get 100% of the power and everyone's vote counts because it increases the power of the party they voted for.
With Ranked Choice, you may end up getting your second or third choice instead and your first choice then has little to no power.
Most of the democracies in the world today use PR (at least 2/3rds) instead of FPTP (about 1/3rd). Ranked Choice is less common.
I'm not sure of the degree to which the two party system is a problem for state legislatures. It's an obvious problem at the federal level, but you do still stand a chance of knowing your local legislator to the state. When the constituents and representatives are just abstractions to each other, of course a party comes in to act as a middle layer.
But I do like the idea of list systems. Geographic districts are an artifact of slow communications, which don't exist any more. My neighbors and I have fewer overlapping interests than they did in the past.
My pet theory is that everything is fine the way it is. For example, looking at the first table, if those 260 democrat voters voted for what they wanted instead of against what they didn't want, they might get split up into, say, 160 democrat and 100 agrarian. The outcome is still the same (republican wins) so it doesn't hurt anything, but it tells the democrat party that to win those voters back next time, they should take on some of the agrarian policies that those voters want. If they win on that, then voters get what they want just with a different brand name (democrat instead of agrarian).
My concept is that the whole idea of two-parties-bad appeals to people who are more interested in parties than policies. I don't think it matters what the name of the party is if they have the same policies.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 38.6 ms ] threadWe don’t need more ideas, we need the political will to try one. And that is the real problem.
That being said, this state government seems rather large for Minnesota, a state with a population of six million people. 67 senators and 134 representatives, and that's within the clunky three-branch system of government copied from the US Federal Government. Those numbers are bigger than California's which has a population that is five times larger.
This post is an interesting mathematical exercise, but RCV actually has the potential to succeed.
My personal favorite approach at the national level would be Ranked Choice [1], as that would preserve the (IMO important) single decision maker in the executive branch, while removing the incentive to vote for someone you hate just because they aren't as bad as the Other Guy. Interested to hear if HN knows of other/better ways to accomplish the same
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked-choice_voting_in_the_Un...
The problem with Ranked Choice with more than two parties is that the centrist parties tend to win more often because they are more likely to be the second choice of people whose first choice is a left or right leaning party. That can be a problem if they get 100% of the power when they win.
PR is better because how much power each party has depends on what percentage of the votes they get in the first round (there not being subsequent rounds), so it is unlikely they will get 100% of the power and everyone's vote counts because it increases the power of the party they voted for.
With Ranked Choice, you may end up getting your second or third choice instead and your first choice then has little to no power.
Most of the democracies in the world today use PR (at least 2/3rds) instead of FPTP (about 1/3rd). Ranked Choice is less common.
But I do like the idea of list systems. Geographic districts are an artifact of slow communications, which don't exist any more. My neighbors and I have fewer overlapping interests than they did in the past.
My concept is that the whole idea of two-parties-bad appeals to people who are more interested in parties than policies. I don't think it matters what the name of the party is if they have the same policies.