In a recent election digest diary, I posted the following comment:
You know what I'd like to see? NO map. (2+ / 0-)
Instead, have every state elect its representatives at-large, statewide, using Cambridge-style preference voting. Bam, no more gerrymandering, no more minority underrepresentation, no more seats held through local patronage power.
I experienced this style of voting firsthand when I spent a year in Cambridge, Mass., and voted in the elections for the city council and school board. I liked several aspects of it a great deal -- in particular, the way it allows coalitions to form out of people who aren't necessarily aware that they have anything in common.
We all know about the problems with drawing Congressional district maps. We know they're highly susceptible to partisan manipulation. We know that ensuring fair representation, not just for ethnic minorities but for geographically scattered groups with common interests, can be difficult. We know that they tend to be drawn in a way that protects incumbents from challenges.
I can't imagine that we could do any worse by having each state's congressional delegation chosen in a single, statewide election, with all representatives serving at-large, using a single transferable vote system.
The idea got some pushback. Some complained that the election would be dominated by the largest city or by the party that spent more. Some disliked the idea of being represented by someone who lived far away in another part of the state.
But I personally would rather be represented by someone who stands for what I believe than by someone who simply happens to live within 25 miles of me. For instance, I live in the 5th District of Illinois; my representative is Mike Quigley, who's cast some absolutely, jaw-droppingly appalling votes recently, including two in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Before Quigley, my rep was Rahm Emanuel. Before Emanuel, Rod Blagojevich. Meanwhile, just five miles away, the 9th District has been represented all this time by Jan Schakowsky. What I wouldn't give to be represented by Schakowsky instead of this clown parade I've had to put up with. And that went double for the brief period of time when I lived in northwest Illinois and was represented by Don "Dumb 'n' Folksy" Manzullo. I might have been 100 miles away from Evanston, but Schakowsky was still my representative in spirit.
Well, if we elected all our representatives at large, she would represent me, along with everyone else in the state who helped elect her to office. And because she is such the overwhelming favorite candidate among progressives like me, she would have no trouble getting elected under a single transferable vote system.
As for the technical objections -- as well as confusion regarding how such a system would work -- I decided the best way to explain how the system works was to illustrate it by means of a mock Cambridge-style election. And thus, the election for the High and Mighty Daily Kos Ruling Council was born.
Here, now, are the results.
THE COUNTING
Altogether, 37 ballots (including my own) were cast. That sets the winning threshold, or "quota," at 37 / (9 + 1) = 3.7 votes. This is the figure that a candidate must exceed in order to take one of the nine seats on the High and Mighty Daily Kos Ruling Council.
Here's the distribution of No. 1 (first-choice) votes in the first round of voting:
Meteor Blades 5
LieparDestin 4
Antitheist 4
nuclear winter solstice 3
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2
Denise Oliver Velez 2
Hunter 2
JoanMar 2
kos 2
a2nite 1
CaliSista 1
Frank Vyan Walton 1
Greg Dworkin 1
Mokurai 1
pierre9045 1
polar wholphin 1
Shaun King 1
teacherken (write-in) 1
terrypinder 1
Since Meteor Blades, LieparDestin and Antitheist all exceeded the quota of 3.7 on the very first balloting, they are immediately elected to the High and Mighty Daily Kos Ruling Council, and their surplus votes are distributed.
What do I mean by "surplus votes"? Since each needs only 3.7 votes, that means Meteor Blades has 5 − 3.7 = 1.3 more votes than he needs, and LieparDestin and Antitheist each have 0.3 more than they need.
In the system used by the city of Cambridge, fractional votes are not counted, so Meteor Blades would have 1 surplus vote, and LieparDestin and Antitheist would have none. That means one of Meteor Blades' winning ballots, chosen at random, would be transferred to the next candidate in line.
However, there are different ways to distribute surplus votes, and because of the very small number of votes cast in this experiment, I'm going to use the Gregory Method, which transfers a fraction of each ballot.
For instance, of Meteor Blades' five No. 1 ballots, two listed David Harris Gershon, two listed Denise Oliver Velez, and one listed LieparDestin as their second choices. Meteor Blades needs only 3.7 votes, and 3.7 / 5 = 0.74. Therefore he keeps 74 percent of each of his ballots and passes 26 percent of each to the next candidate down. :-) So Denise Oliver Velez now has an additional 0.52 vote, David Harris Gershon has 0.52, but LieparDestin doesn't need any more votes, nor does Antitheist, the No. 3 candidate on that particular ballot, and so that 0.26 vote goes to the No. 4 candidate, AnotherMassachusettsLiberal.
Simlarly, LieparDestin and Antitheist each keep 3.7 / 4 = 0.925 of each vote and pass on 0.075 to the next eligible candidate. The totals are now:
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3
Denise Oliver Velez 2.52
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2.41
Hunter 2
JoanMar 2
kos 2
Shaun King 1.15
a2nite 1.075
CaliSista 1
Frank Vyan Walton 1
Greg Dworkin 1
Mokurai 1
pierre9045 1
polar wholphin 1
teacherken (write-in) 1
terrypinder 1
David Harris Gershon 0.67
Laura Clawson 0.075
At this point, we ruthlessly eliminate every candidate who's failed to receive a minimal number of votes. In Cambridge, it's 50; here, it's zero. Henceforth, only candidates on the list above remain eligible.
Redistributing votes boosted some candidates, but not enough to put anyone else over 3.7. So now we begin at the bottom, eliminating Laura Clawson and giving her 0.075 vote to the next eligible candidate, JoanMar. (It would have been Joan McCarter, but she was disqualified in the purge.)
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3
Denise Oliver Velez 2.52
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2.41
JoanMar 2.075
Hunter 2
kos 2
Shaun King 1.15
a2nite 1.075
CaliSista 1
Frank Vyan Walton 1
Greg Dworkin 1
Mokurai 1
pierre9045 1
polar wholphin 1
teacherken (write-in) 1
terrypinder 1
David Harris Gershon 0.67
Next, David Harris Gershon's brief moment of viability comes to an end. One of his fractional ballots goes to nuclear winter solstice, one goes to Hunter, one goes to AnotherMassachusettsLiberal (bypassing the eliminated Joan McCarter), and one goes to Frank Vyan Walton.
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3.26
Denise Oliver Velez 2.52
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2.485
Hunter 2.26
JoanMar 2.075
kos 2
Shaun King 1.15
a2nite 1.075
Frank Vyan Walton 1.075
CaliSista 1
Greg Dworkin 1
Mokurai 1
pierre9045 1
polar wholphin 1
teacherken (write-in) 1
terrypinder 1
Now we have a whole group of candidates tied for last place, and the customary procedure is to choose one at random to eliminate. I'm going to eliminate teacherken's write-in ballot first, however, since every candidate on that ballot was a write-in, so that ballot simply vanishes. (I told you write-ins didn't fare well in Cambridge-style voting.) Perhaps this should have been considered an invalid ballot to begin with, and the quota set to 3.6 rather than 3.7. But screwy shit like this happens in real elections, so the simulation has to account for it.
Choosing at random from our other six candidates with only one vote apiece, Greg Dworkin is selected for elimination; his ballot is transferred to terrypinder, who now has two votes and is spared from consideration for elimination. The next victim is CaliSista; her ballot is transferred to Denise Oliver Velez. polar wholphin is randomly chosen for elimination next, giving another ballot to nuclear winter solstice -- for a total of 4.26, enough to win election.
Since only 3.7 votes are needed, nuclear winter solstice keeps 3.7 / 4.26 = 0.869 of each vote. However, only one of her ballots, plus the fractional ballot she inherited from David Harris Gershon, includes any other eligible candidate to give the surplus to. One contains no other preference, one contains only a preference for a disqualified candidate, and one contains only candidates who've already won. So her surplus is distributed a little more generously: Denise Oliver Velez, who received a full ballot, gets 79 percent of the surplus, or 0.444 vote, and terrypinder, who received a fraction of a ballot, gets the other 0.116.
And that surplus transfer is enough to elect Denise Oliver Velez as well, giving her a total of 3.964 votes. Her surplus, in turn, is distributed to Hunter (0.15), terrypinder (0.067) and pierre (0.017).
The standings after round 8:
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3.7 elected
Denise Oliver Velez 3.7 elected
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2.485
Hunter 2.41
terrypinder 2.183
JoanMar 2.075
kos 2
Shaun King 1.15
a2nite 1.075
Frank Vyan Walton 1.075
pierre9045 1.017
Mokurai 1
Because of that teensy fraction pierre9045 picked up, Mokurai is now in last place. His ballot is transferred to kos, who now has 3.
pierre9045 is on the bottom again (it was fun while it lasted). His full vote is transferred to terrypinder; his fractional vote, from a ballot whose only remaining candidate was Trix, disappears.
The standings after round 10:
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3.7 elected
Denise Oliver Velez 3.7 elected
terrypinder 3.183
kos 3
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2.485
Hunter 2.41
JoanMar 2.075
Shaun King 1.15
a2nite 1.075
Frank Vyan Walton 1.075
It's time to flip another coin, and a2nite loses the toss. After skipping over Armando, Denise Oliver Velez and several disqualified names from the So Ready for Hillary, I'll Fight You slate, her full vote is finally transferred to No. 8 choice JoanMar, while her fractional vote, whose ballot also mostly comprises disqualified candidates, goes to No. 10 choice Hunter.
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3.7 elected
Denise Oliver Velez 3.7 elected
terrypinder 3.183
JoanMar 3.075
kos 3
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2.485
Hunter 2.485
Shaun King 1.15
Frank Vyan Walton 1.075
And now we have to eliminate Frank Vyan Walton, whose full vote goes to Shaun King and whose fractional vote goes to Hunter.
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3.7 elected
Denise Oliver Velez 3.7 elected
terrypinder 3.183
JoanMar 3.075
kos 3
Hunter 2.56
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2.485
Shaun King 2.15
Unfortunately, even picking up another full vote wasn't enough to pull Shaun King off the bottom of the standings. Neither of the ballots he got fractional votes from contains any other eligible candidate, so they disappear, as does one of his full votes. His other full vote goes to terrypinder, putting him over the quota with 4.183.
Despite his large surplus, terrypinder is winning late in the game, and several of his ballots have nowhere else to go. Of his 0.483 surplus, Hunter gets a fraction of one ballot and a fraction of a fraction of another one, and AnotherMassachusettsLiberal gets a fraction of a fraction of one, but that's it.
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3.7 elected
Denise Oliver Velez 3.7 elected
terrypinder 3.7 elected
JoanMar 3.075
kos 3
Hunter 2.996
AnotherMassachusettsLiberal 2.532
And now we must bid adieu to AnotherMassachusettsLiberal. We're getting toward the bottom of the barrel now, and only two ballots have any eligible candidate left on them. Both of those ballots go to Hunter, which heaves him mightily past the quota. His 4.996 votes give him a surplus of 1.296 to redistribute between JoanMar and kos. Amazingly, only one of his 12 ballots and ballot-fragments contains either of those names. JoanMar gets the entire 0.067 value of that vote.
Meteor Blades 3.7 elected
LieparDestin 3.7 elected
Antitheist 3.7 elected
nuclear winter solstice 3.7 elected
Denise Oliver Velez 3.7 elected
terrypinder 3.7 elected
Hunter 3.7 elected
JoanMar 3.075
kos 3
Now here's an awkward situation: We're down to nine candidates, but two of them are still short of the quota. This is unquestionably a situation created by the very low ratio of voters to candidates and by the small number of ballots cast overall, one of which was effectively spoiled (and which, if counted, would have given one more candidate a victory quota). A real election would not end this way.
ANALYSIS
First, I want to state up front that the results of this experiment could have turned out quite differently: because of the small number of votes cast, the large number of candidates with just one No. 1 vote and the low quota required to win, the results are highly susceptible to chance. If terrypinder had been eliminated when he had only one vote, for instance, the election might have turned out significantly differently, because lots of people voted for terrypinder, although he was only one person's first choice. (This is why, in Cambridge, candidates don't campaign for your vote -- they campaign for your No. 1 vote. Being the first choice of lots of voters protects you against early elimination.) Bigger numbers add a lot more stability to this system of voting.
That being said, let's look at who got elected.
Meteor Blades cruised to an easy win, of course. Not only is he an extremely popular writer, he was far and away the best-known of the users who announced their own candidacies. Antitheist took the challenge seriously (in a silly way) and ran a lively and creative campaign. And LieparDestin, I assume, is the candidate to whom Sanders partisans rallied in the absence of a "Feel the Bern" slate.
One might have expected the Black Kos or Front Page All-Star slate to run away with the election based on sheer visibility. They both won representation -- in reasonable proportions -- in the form of Denise Oliver Velez and terrypinder for Black Kos, Meteor Blades and Hunter for the front page. If we grant the last two seats to JoanMar and kos on the basis of surviving into the final nine, they further bolster the performance of those slates.
But did those slates dominate the election? Hardly. Antitheist, an independent, beat the quota outright, and nuclear winter solstice also made it after an early strong showing. If terrypinder had been eliminated, it would have strengthened polar wholphin. Also, the results show that being a celebrity (such as Shaun King) is no guarantee of election.
I'd ask those who voted to let us know in the comments whether they feel well represented by the candidates who made the cut, and whether there were any surprises in terms of how particular candidates performed.
CONCLUSION
Finally, let's return to the whole purpose of this experiment and imagine how an election like this might play out in selecting a state congressional delegation. I chose nine as the number of seats on the High and Mighty Ruling Council because it's the average number of seats in a state congressional delegation. But I live in Illinois, and we have twice that many seats: 18. What would I expect from a single transferable vote election?
I would expect that the African-American population would vault at least one and maybe two candidates directly to victory, possibly electing a third in coalition with other liberal forces in the state. I'd expect a Tea Party candidate in flannel from downstate and a Tea Party candidate in a suit from DuPage County. I'd expect a candidate with a strong working-class persona, boosted not just by votes from the city but by votes from struggling industrial cities including Rockford, Peoria, Galesburg, Sterling and Decatur. I'd expect not one but two successful Latino candidates, one from the city and one from the suburbs, and neither of them would be Luís Gutiérrez. I'd expect Jan Schakowsky to cruise to an easy win, possibly accompanied by a second progressive with the help of votes from university students and professors in Champaign–Urbana and Bloomington–Normal, whose votes right now are swamped by thsoe of their rural neighbors. I'd expect the remaining candidates to have to campaign hard and honestly to win hearts and minds across suburban and exurban Chicagoland, and not to be able to count on a predictable partisan percentage with a small margin of error as assurance of victory, but rather to have to appeal to a wide variety of voters and make an honest effort to earn their votes.
Best of all, Cambridge-style voting would destroy the Cook County Democratic machine at the congressional level. Not only would there be no primary election, but rather one big general free-for-all in November, the old system of stomping through wards, leaning on voters and sneakily removing the opponent's yard signs, simply can't be practiced on a statewide level. Michael Madigan on the Southwest Side can't buttonhole a voter in Champaign and convince him that Dan Lipinski is anything but a useless moron. Simply put, the hacks couldn't win enough votes to get elected. They might get No. 1 votes from loyal and obedient machine voters in their immediate neighborhood, but no one else would even include those parasites on their ballot. They'd get eliminated early, and good riddance to them.
In the 2014 congressional elections, 3.5 million Illinois voted in congressional races. Both parties would have to seek out a better class of candidate in order to win support from 184,000 voters across the state. (Lipinski, incidentally, was elected with just 117,000 votes; Quigley, with 116,000; Tammy Duckworth, with 84,000; Gutiérrez, with only 80,000.)
Thanks to all the folks who voted in this mock election: kalliope, coyote66, Gwennedd, Mokurai, ypochris, DValkure, ItsaMathJoke, occupystephanie, OLinda, mlleelizabeth, pierre9045, greenbird, aggieric, Antitheist, slothlax, watercarrier4diogenes, Glen the Plumber, Prof Haley, Emigrant Aid Society, CwV, CenPhx, dconrad, unapologeticliberal777, LibrErica, Tom Anderson, flowerfarmer, CaliSista, bleeding blue, Besame, Had Enough Right Wing BS, moose67, polar wholphin, dakrle, Quabbin and Shockwave.
And now I've gotta go do my laundry, which I meant to start five hours ago . . . around the time I started writing this diary.