So Election Day is getting close, and although it is vital that we keep our eyes on the prize, I thought it might be a fun little intellectual exercise to propose a major hypothetical change to our election system, and see what all of you think of it. Bear with me on this, because it takes awhile to explain (or you can just skip down to read the actual proposal).
Many people here at dKos have expressed a desire to see an end to the two-party duopoly. A variety of very good reasons were given for this, most being some variation of either "the current system does not adequately express the views of many Americans" or "it leads to a low turnover rate and breeds corruption." While I won't evaluate the validity of such claims here, they obviously aren't inherently unreasonable.
Unfortunately, our basic electoral system pretty much precludes the possibility of a multi-party system lasting for an extended period of time. But perhaps it doesn't have to be that way.
The reason we have an electoral duopoly is explained by
Duverger's Law. In a nutshell, Duverger's Law states that in nations that use a "plurality" system of voting - where the candidate with the most votes wins the election regardless of whether they get a majority (which is the law in most states) - statistics and strategic voting naturally lead to a 2-party system. Conversely, systems of proportional representation lend themselves to muliparty systems, since a party can gain representation
This whole theory assumes that you don't mix proportional representation with an American-style plurality system.
But what if we did?
Here's some basic civics you already know. Our Constitution provides that seats are apportioned to each state based on their population, and the states then divide the seats within it. The number of such seats is capped at 435 by law. Third parties are rarely able to gather the resources necessary to compete in any of these seats in any given year, since the states choose to apportion the seats by district rather than by proportional representation. So third parties rarely are competitive in any individual Congressional elections, despite the fact that third parties often account for around 5% of the nationwide vote in Congressional elections, and a bit more in Presidential elections.
Clearly, there is a demand among some voters for a third party, but the system is set up in a way that prevents any such third party from gaining representation in Congress.
In order to change this, we'd have to amend the Constitution. That amendment would have to include some form of proportional representation in order for third parties to really have a fighting chance of getting seats. And in order for there to apportion these seats fairly, such seats would have to be apportioned out based on the nationwide vote.
Without further ado, here's THE PROPOSAL:
- Keep the number of House seats at 435.
- Keep the 335 of those seats as census-apportioned districts like the ones we have now.
- (The big one) Make the remaining 100 National At-Large seats, which will be filled by a nationwide ballot system (similar to the way seats are divided in the Israeli Knesset).
The way this would work is actually rather simple. At every 2-year election, voters would have an extra ballot line asking which party they want to support for the At-Large Congressional seats. Each voter would cast a vote for a political party rather than a specific candidate. All the nationwide votes on this question are then tallied up, and the 100 seats are apportioned to each party on the basis of the percentage of the votes they received.
There obviously would have to be a few ground rules:
- There would have to be some cutoff percentage below which a party does not receive any at-large seats. The most logical choice is 1% (if you don't get at least 1/100 of the votes, you shouldn't get 1/100 of the seats).
- There would need to be some screening process for determining which political parties deserve placement on the ballot, which should be uniform across the country. Perhaps the party would have to have qualified for the ballot in at least 30 states during the most recent presidential election...I'm DEFINITELY open to suggestions on that, though.
- Each qualifying party would need to submit a list of 100 ranked candidates. If a party only gets 1 seat, only the top candidate on the list goes to Congress. If a party gets 2 seats, only the top two go to Congress, etc. There would have to be some sort of nominating process to determine which candidates, but that's a detail I'm also open to suggestions on.
The benefits of this are, I hope, obvious:
- Voters could vote for individual candidates they like in local/state races, and still express their general political views through their vote for the At-Large seats.
- Some of the members of the House would be answerable to the entire country rather than just the narrow interests of a single district.
- It would increase the turnover rate substantially, and seriously cut the number of "safe" Congressional seats.
- House representation would become more attuned to major changes in voter opinion
- It would reduce the ability to gerrymander districts, and also soften the impact of gerrmandering that does happen.
- Most importantly, it would provide a voice in Congress for people who do not support either of the major parties.
And it could do all this without sacrificing the positive functions that are served by having members of the House who serve smaller districts and tend to local needs.
The downside? Well, it would force us to abandon the Electoral College as it exists now. But I think that's a good thing - perhaps those 100 at-large seats could also be converted into at-large Electoral College votes. Or better yet, scrap the whole EC system and replace it with pure popular vote.
So there's the idea. It's a major overhaul, but I figure it's some fun food for thought with Election Day fast approaching.