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
*3 state-assembly seats would get filled by just one election, using the state senator districts. There'd be one candidate per party and one vote per voter, but there'd be three winners. The most likely outcome is that the top three candidates, in terms of the percent of the vote received, would win one seat each. If the top candidate beats the third place candidate by more than one-third of the total vote then (s)he'd win two seats for her/his party and get to pick a partner to hold the second seat. These rules match the percent of seats won with the percent of votes received by all of the competing parties.
**The major party that panders strongly to the unreasonable issues of an extremist minority group, like the KKK or theocons, would lose voters from its base of supporters. Only minority groups that emulate MLKjr or Gandhi in how they frame their issues would get major party candidates to give positive attention to them.
***The two major parties would likely use their greater voter bases and institutional supports to split the first two seats. In my idea, the two parties would first choose their leaders every two years and then the newly elected state reps would determine by a plurality vote which one is in power. Then, the leader of the party in power would get extra controls to make sure things got done, even though his party only controls 1/3rd plus of the state assembly seats. This would mean that there'd be no absolute guarantee that the party with greater state-wide support would be in power. But that is the price we must pay to tie ourselves to the mast to defend the rights of minority groups. We cannot have an absolute tyranny of the majority! And..., if say the Democratic party were stronger in a state then they'd still be more likely to be in power in the state assembly. They would be more likely to win two of the three seats in more elections. A state that prefers the Democratic party would also be more likely to elect more lefty third party reps, who would tend to help the Democratic party get into power more often than not... Thus, majority rule would still tend to prevail!
dlw