Can we have both a National Popular Vote and an Electoral College at the Same Time?

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Wednesday February 09, 2011 · 2:56 PM PST

2011/02/09 · 14:56

Yes, we can!
There are choice C's in the debate between the status quo and a National Popular Vote(NPV)!

If we follow the "regressive" countries of France and Finland to make our top election into a two stage election then we could spare ourselves the cost of a second national election by having it be at a far more representative Electoral College.

I address the charge that the idea in my last diary is a pie-in-the-sky and simplify it's presentation at a new blog-entry over at A New Kind of Party.

Poll

5 votes Show Results

So?

5 votes Vote Now!

So?

Ours is not to reason why, ours is to stick to our talking points till we die!

1 vote

Tell me more, tell me more!!!

1 vote

Let's go Fly a Kite!

2 votes

Can't we just get along?

1 vote

Is the Electoral College a Nightmare Beyond Redemption?

SElectionR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday February 08, 2011 · 10:12 AM PST

2011/02/08 · 10:12

I believe that the writers of the US Consitution had their hearts in the right place. Democracy does tend to work best when fewer people, like less than 2000, are involved. This has been observed since antiquity. And when you concentrate so much power in the presidency, it has great potential to result in really ugly partisan campaigns. (IMO, 2012's campaign could get very ugly with very manipulative and uninformative campaigns in swing-states and lots of frustration in the rest of the states. ) So even if the writers of the US Constitution meant well, they didn't necessarily have the right tools at the time to accomplish their purposes and they tried out ideas, like having the second place candidate be the Vice President, that obviously were not well thought out.

But does that mean we should scrap the electoral college altogether?
I don't think so. It could be revamped. I described and illustrated my thoughts on this at my main blog, A New Kind of Third Party.

Poll

87 votes Show Results

What should we do about the electoral college system?

87 votes Vote Now!

What should we do about the electoral college system?

nothing.

28 votes

essentially scrap it with a National Popular Vote.

44 votes

allocate the electors at the state level among the candidates with a form of proportional representation.

5 votes

The above idea deserves more consideration and debate.

4 votes

Move to Canada.

5 votes

Try to swap votes with others in competitive states to surmount the dysfunctions of the electoral college system.

1 vote

Choosing an Electoral System!

SElectionR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday January 12, 2011 · 8:25 PM PST

2011/01/12 · 20:25

I've been asked to explain and justify some of the claims I've made in my advocacy for Strategic Election Reform or the use of 3-seated State Assembly elections.

Here's a summary of a source that describes the results of comparative analysis of electoral rules across countries.

Choosing an Electoral System takes its title from a larger work that was edited by Princeton scholar Arend Lijphart.

See my reader's guide and thoughts below...

Poll

7 votes Show Results

How much of the above was new for you?

7 votes Vote Now!

How much of the above was new for you?

Lots!

1 vote

Some.

2 votes

none of it.

2 votes

Snore!

2 votes

Redistricting, Gerrymandering and Electoral Reform II

SElectionR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday January 10, 2011 · 6:49 PM PST

2011/01/10 · 18:49

This follows an earlier diary where I argued that 3-seated state assembly elections would reduce gerrymandering without requiring an "independent" redistricting commission. The idea is to have state-districts with one state senator and three state representatives each and to elect the reps in one election, as was done in IL from 1870-1980 and as Barack Obama tried to bring back in 2001.

There, my nemesis Prof Haley suggested a party cd still gerrymander the districts so that their party would win two reps seats in many of them. But it's a Catch-22, cuz what helps a party in a 3-seated election hurts it in a 1-seated state senate elections. So, while X might make it so they cd likely win two reps seats in more districts, it would also make them lose senate seats in more districts, costing them the state senate.

This is yet another reason why 3-seated elections wd make our democracy more responsive to us Kossacks!

SElectionR

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Wednesday January 05, 2011 · 4:59 PM PST

2011/01/05 · 16:59

I was asked to clarify why 3-seated Hare Largest Remainder state assembly elections*(below) would tie the US to the mast to ensure that we do a better job in the protection of ethnic/economic/ideological minority rights than we have done historically.

dlw: It is easier to win the third contested seat with a lower percent of the vote with a 3-seated Hare LR than other 3-seated rules (like the Cumulative Voting rule used in IL(1870-1980), where 1/4th of the votes are needed to win a seat). You could win a seat with 10% of the vote if the top candidate got only 43%. 10% is small enough that a group of only 3-5% of the voters would have a much higher chance of being the swing voters who decide who wins the third seat. And then, because there are multiple minority groups with 3-5% of the vote and it's not certain which would be decisive, all of them would get more attention to their key reasonable** issues by the major parties. For the candidates who win the third seat would get to decide which major party would be in power in the state assembly!***
dlw

Poll

12 votes Show Results

What Would Martin Luther King Jr Do Today?

12 votes Vote Now!

What Would Martin Luther King Jr Do Today?

Post regularly at Daily Kos.

0 votes

Strongly consider moving to Canada.

3 votes

Complain about Hip-Hop music.

4 votes

Lead another March on Washington DC!

1 vote

Support the use of 3-seated Hare LR state assembly elections in as many US states as possible as soon as possible!

1 vote

All of the Above!

3 votes

Redistricting, Gerrymandering and Electoral Reform!

SElectionR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday January 04, 2011 · 3:55 PM PST

2011/01/04 · 15:55

Got an email a while back from former NYC mayor Ed Koch titled, "The word on everybody's lips: Redistricting." With the decline in the number of congressional seats, his organization, he and New York Uprising are advocating for a nonpartisan independent commission to redistrict New York.

I am skeptical of how independent such a commission can be, with so much at stake. It is unfortunate that they don't take a little bit of the load off by advocating the use of 3-seated elections for state representatives. This uses the same districts for state senators and state representatives, which reduces the total amount of (re)districting. And, if we used a 3-seated Hare Largest Remainder proportional representation election rule then a typical outcome would be that the top 3 candidates win one seat each and that would reduce gerrymandering and change the dynamics of our politics for the better, regardless of whether the commission is truly independent.

see the email from Koch below.
dlw

SElectionR

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Monday January 03, 2011 · 11:37 AM PST

2011/01/03 · 11:37

Local Third (LT) parties are a way to capture the mojo of the tea-party movement that helped the Republicans to win so many seats in the last election.

LT parties would be third parties that specialize in contesting local winnable elections(like 3(or 1)-seated state assembly elections or 3(or 1)-seated city council elections). They do not attempt to rival the two major parties or contest statewide or presidential elections. Instead, they vote strategically in them as a part of their ongoing commitment to Gandhi/MLKjr-like issue-advocacy. IOW, this is a new kind of party, one that doesn't try to rival the two major parties or capture the political center. Instead, they would collectively work to make our system give more voice to more people on more issues!

Poll

8 votes Show Results

LT parties

8 votes Vote Now!

LT parties

are what the US's democracy needs.

4 votes

are an intriguing idea, but still a matter of speculation.

2 votes

clearly would improve on the tea-party movement and maybe could subvert their subservience to the Republican party.

1 vote

are like the saints, it'd be nice if they were there, but you don't expect to bump into any of them anytime in the future.

0 votes

(as described above) are utopic, not unlike much of USAmerican political idealism and thereby might also help to elevate our political practice some...

1 vote

The Zen of Politics and My Hope for the New Year!

SElectionR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 31, 2010 · 11:51 AM PST

2010/12/31 · 11:51

I think it's apparent I'm a little bit off the ideological beaten path here at Daily Kos. I'm a liberal libertarian or a communitarian, which translates in practice to a dynamic centrism. What is a dynamic centrist? I believe that there are always (at least) two sides to every political conflict. In a healthy democracy, both sides are equally good and bad and simply need to be reconciled. In an unhealthy "democracy"/kleptocracy then one of the sides is clearly more corrupted by power than the other. Right now that side is most associated with the Republican party.

But to make things right(or left), we need to focus less on getting the other side into power and more on making the system healthy again. This is why I've been relentlessly posting about Strategic Election Reform(SER) at Daily Kos.

SElectionR

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Monday December 27, 2010 · 9:17 PM PST

2010/12/27 · 21:17

with Enhydra Lutris in the comment-section of my previous post.

He asks a lot of hard questions and I think I give good answers... it is a wee bit repetitive, but I think my last reply to him is worth reposting below... It's titled, "No democracy is pure"

dlw

SElectionR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 26, 2010 · 1:11 PM PST

2010/12/26 · 13:11

We had one state, Illnois, with 3-seated state assembly elections from 1870-1980. A three-seated election is where three seats get filled by one election. Here's an article that describes the why and how that they managed to adopt a multi-seated election rule. It took years of activism and a wide dissatisfaction with the status quo to make the change possible.

I believe the same is true for today. I believe that we should advocate for an upgrade to the cumulative voting election rule used in Illinois in multiple states and aim to succeed in at least one in the next six years. And if we pitch the idea in continuity with what was used in Illinois then we can take advantage of how Barack Obama wanted to bring back the use of 3-seated cumulative voting rule in 2001.

This simple reform would go a long ways to making our system work better on each and every possible front. It would do this because it would handicap the rivalry between the two major parties and enable local third parties to bring up neglected issues and check the influence of $peech on both major parties.

SElectionR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 19, 2010 · 3:16 PM PST

2010/12/19 · 15:16

Maybe Kos has some strings with the big guy to get this going, because boy do we need it! I don't care if it's Instant Runoff Voting(IRV) or Approval Voting or an improved version of a "top two primary" or the use of 3-seated state assembly elections (not unlike what Senator Barack Obama wanted to bring back to Illinois in 2001). What matters most is that we switch our brains from a rule-taker to a rule-maker mentality and diversify our electoral rules! It'd be best to focus on state and local elections first, but those elections can positively effect our national elections and so every bit helps.

I may not get my wish this year for Christmas, but I expect to see a lot happen in the US in terms of electoral reform in the coming six years.
dlw

Poll

16 votes Show Results

Can I Ask for You to Commit to Making Electoral Reform One of Your "Top Two" issues for 2011?

16 votes Vote Now!

Can I Ask for You to Commit to Making Electoral Reform One of Your "Top Two" issues for 2011?

Yes, yes, thank you, I seeeeee the light and am excited about getting my friends and families talking about this in the coming weeks/months/year(s)!

3 votes

Yes, it'll be the second of my top two issues and I'll give more scrutiny to it in the coming New Year!

0 votes

Sorry, it won't make "top two", but I do think it's up there, especially for progressive activists.

3 votes

All electoral reform is an abominable offense against American Exceptionalism and I will fight it until the day that I die.

3 votes

My interest is piqued but I'm not willing to go out on a limb in favor of it quite yet.

1 vote

Snore!

6 votes

I was wrong about Instant Runoff Voting(IRV)!

SElectionR

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday December 18, 2010 · 12:53 PM PST

2010/12/18 · 12:53

In one of my first posts at DailyKos, I reposted an entry from my main blog, A New Kind of Third Party, that was titled, "The Problem(s) with Instant Runoff Voting". In it, I said I didn't think it would be a good idea to use IRV for bigger elections because of the centralization of vote-counting and its' increased potential for corruption. Fortunately, Rob Richie pointed out today that all that is required is the centralization of vote-counting results and I concur. Unfortunately, it seems I was too hasty in my assessment of IRV, possibly because I wanted to create a problem that my proposed alternative form of IRV would then solve.

Poll

77 votes Show Results

Do you know what IRV is?

77 votes Vote Now!

Do you know what IRV is?

I do now.

0 votes

I did and support its use where ever possible.

59 votes

I did and remain skeptical about its' benefits.

15 votes

I fall asleep and drool on my keyboard whenever I try to read about electoral refor.................................................................................................!

2 votes

pie

1 vote

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Can we have both a National Popular Vote and an Electoral College at the Same Time?

Is the Electoral College a Nightmare Beyond Redemption?

Choosing an Electoral System!

Redistricting, Gerrymandering and Electoral Reform II

Minorities 'R US!

Redistricting, Gerrymandering and Electoral Reform!

LT Parties Anyone???

The Zen of Politics and My Hope for the New Year!

Check out my Three-seated election debate-fest.

1 (State) with 3 (Seated State Assembly Elections) in (the next) 6 (Years)!

All I Want For Christmas is Electoral Reform!

I was wrong about Instant Runoff Voting(IRV)!