My own preference would be to eliminate congressional/legislative districts entirely.
Vote for the party of one's choice. The percentage of party votes determine the number of seats "won" by the party. For example there are 100 seats in the legislature. The GOP gets 1/3 of the votes and roughly 33 seats. The Democrats get 1/3 of the votes and 33 seats. Libertarians get 1/6 of the votes and 17 seats and Greens get 1/6 of the votes and 16 seats. The actual vote percentage and seats allocated to a party would be more precise than the example. Then it is up to each party to determine the geographical and demographical distribution of the seats.
Who becomes a representative is determined by the party at a party conference after the election and those mechanisms would be entirely up to the parties and paid for by the parties.
Governor, traditional state offices, US Senate seats would be elected by state wide votes under the winner takes all model.
The President would be elected by popular vote and the electoral college (which has never worked the way Hamilton thought it would) abolished. Simultaneously there needs to be a reevaluation of Presidential powers compelling Congress to cease deferring "difficult things" to the executive.
The federal judicial system and SCOTUS needs to replace the executive appointment and advise and consent role of the Senate with a permanent independent judicial appointment system. Mandatory retirement for any judge at 75. The Supreme Court should be composed of one judge from each judicial circuit. The senior (in terms of service within the federal judiciary) justice would be the de facto Chief Justice.
Looks to me like a constitutional convention is in order. Perhaps constitutional conventions should be called every 25 years?
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) has been slowly but surely adding more states to its signatory list. It still needs roughly another 60+ EC votes to get over the line.
In the long run, proportional or preferential voting needs to replace the current first-past-the-post system which is a relic of a previous century.
My preference is to start with the Wyoming rule to expand the house, maybe even expand the house to be significantly larger than the Wyoming Rule would require.
Then, when we give each state their allotted number of representatives, just tell them that they are required to draw all their districts using 3-to-5 winners per district, some form of STV, and that as many districts as possible must be 5 winners per district, with only the 'remainders' not divisible by 10 permitted to be size 3 or size 4. and obviously, number of winners per district must be proportional to the population of the district. Although some mild non-proportionality might be allowed if it meant respecting county or city boundaries.
States with only 1 or 2 allotted representatives would have either 1-man or 2-man districts, respectively.
Also, if we expand the house to be large enough, the perturbation effect of the senate on the electoral college mostly disappears.
Australia had the advantage that it was only constituted as a Federation in 1900, after a vibrant nineteenth-century discussion of various forms of voting systems. It does have a built in gerrymander, like the US. The Senate is a state house and states with small populations get the same representation as those with large populations. Whether this is a problem or not is debatable, and since the House or Representatives electorates are managed by an independent Electoral Commission tasked with keeping the number of electors reasonably close to equal, the imbalance at the level of the Senate, which is a house of review, is probably a good mechanism for giving minority groups some say. The electorates are mostly single member, but the voting is preferential, which is a great improvement on first past the post. It tends to result in a two-party system, but gives small parties a lot of power, through their capacity to direct preferences. It results in more stability than multi-member electorates, which tend to result in unstable coalitions. One other element of the Australian landscape is compulsory attendance at the polling booth. This was only brought in after Federation, but is, I believe, the most important protection for a democracy. It means that voting has to be made easy. It means that the most disengaged and dispossessed have to pay attention to politics a occasionally, and the state has to ensure that they can cast a vote. Universal registration and compulsory attendance at the polling booth, with easy postal voting (or even on-line) is the easiest and most efficient way to repair democracy.
Though, of course, in the end, the US is more of a constitutional, elective monarchy than a democratic republic.
Clearly, the electoral college is NOT representative of the electorate. However, one must anticipate and expect considerable pushback from Republicans. If they cannot cheat or manipulate the system to their favor, logically they will not support any type of change.
Wonderful discussion!
My own preference would be to eliminate congressional/legislative districts entirely.
Vote for the party of one's choice. The percentage of party votes determine the number of seats "won" by the party. For example there are 100 seats in the legislature. The GOP gets 1/3 of the votes and roughly 33 seats. The Democrats get 1/3 of the votes and 33 seats. Libertarians get 1/6 of the votes and 17 seats and Greens get 1/6 of the votes and 16 seats. The actual vote percentage and seats allocated to a party would be more precise than the example. Then it is up to each party to determine the geographical and demographical distribution of the seats.
Who becomes a representative is determined by the party at a party conference after the election and those mechanisms would be entirely up to the parties and paid for by the parties.
Governor, traditional state offices, US Senate seats would be elected by state wide votes under the winner takes all model.
The President would be elected by popular vote and the electoral college (which has never worked the way Hamilton thought it would) abolished. Simultaneously there needs to be a reevaluation of Presidential powers compelling Congress to cease deferring "difficult things" to the executive.
The federal judicial system and SCOTUS needs to replace the executive appointment and advise and consent role of the Senate with a permanent independent judicial appointment system. Mandatory retirement for any judge at 75. The Supreme Court should be composed of one judge from each judicial circuit. The senior (in terms of service within the federal judiciary) justice would be the de facto Chief Justice.
Looks to me like a constitutional convention is in order. Perhaps constitutional conventions should be called every 25 years?
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) has been slowly but surely adding more states to its signatory list. It still needs roughly another 60+ EC votes to get over the line.
In the long run, proportional or preferential voting needs to replace the current first-past-the-post system which is a relic of a previous century.
Get money out of politics. Without that, nothing gets done — including monied interests’ march to fascism made possible by their elected puppets.
Only biodiversity should be allowed to vote. Pretty sure you are all Pleistocene mega-fauna poop denialists which is much worse than totalitarianism.
This is a really weird comment. Please try your hardest to stay on topic here.
My preference is to start with the Wyoming rule to expand the house, maybe even expand the house to be significantly larger than the Wyoming Rule would require.
Then, when we give each state their allotted number of representatives, just tell them that they are required to draw all their districts using 3-to-5 winners per district, some form of STV, and that as many districts as possible must be 5 winners per district, with only the 'remainders' not divisible by 10 permitted to be size 3 or size 4. and obviously, number of winners per district must be proportional to the population of the district. Although some mild non-proportionality might be allowed if it meant respecting county or city boundaries.
States with only 1 or 2 allotted representatives would have either 1-man or 2-man districts, respectively.
Also, if we expand the house to be large enough, the perturbation effect of the senate on the electoral college mostly disappears.
Australia had the advantage that it was only constituted as a Federation in 1900, after a vibrant nineteenth-century discussion of various forms of voting systems. It does have a built in gerrymander, like the US. The Senate is a state house and states with small populations get the same representation as those with large populations. Whether this is a problem or not is debatable, and since the House or Representatives electorates are managed by an independent Electoral Commission tasked with keeping the number of electors reasonably close to equal, the imbalance at the level of the Senate, which is a house of review, is probably a good mechanism for giving minority groups some say. The electorates are mostly single member, but the voting is preferential, which is a great improvement on first past the post. It tends to result in a two-party system, but gives small parties a lot of power, through their capacity to direct preferences. It results in more stability than multi-member electorates, which tend to result in unstable coalitions. One other element of the Australian landscape is compulsory attendance at the polling booth. This was only brought in after Federation, but is, I believe, the most important protection for a democracy. It means that voting has to be made easy. It means that the most disengaged and dispossessed have to pay attention to politics a occasionally, and the state has to ensure that they can cast a vote. Universal registration and compulsory attendance at the polling booth, with easy postal voting (or even on-line) is the easiest and most efficient way to repair democracy.
Though, of course, in the end, the US is more of a constitutional, elective monarchy than a democratic republic.
Clearly, the electoral college is NOT representative of the electorate. However, one must anticipate and expect considerable pushback from Republicans. If they cannot cheat or manipulate the system to their favor, logically they will not support any type of change.
Proportional representation is the way to go. It has clear advantages over first-past-the-post voting systems.
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/what-are-voting-systems/proportional-representation/
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/proportional-representation-explained/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/proportional-representation