51st state?

[Scott5114]

Because I feel that an ideal representative democracy–which we should aspire to be, or else what's the point in having an America to begin with–would count each citizen's vote equally and identically. (This is a core belief that I am not interested in changing, and also a legal principle that the Supreme Court has affirmed in cases such as Reynolds v. Sims, among others.) Malapportionment by even 1 person, then, would inherently be a violation of that ideal. Obviously, for practical reasons, that ideal cannot realistically be achieved exactly, due to the fact that decimal values of representatives can't happen under the Constitution, if nothing else.

A proposed House with 1000 representatives is intended as a concession to the reality that a House with perfect apportionment would be considered too large to be workable by a number of people. Personally, if something like 10,291 representatives (a number I have seen quoted as ideal, but which I have not verified the math on) is necessary for perfect apportionment, I say give us 10,291 representatives and damn the other consequences; the new problems are worth solving as they come up in order to obtain perfect apportionment. However, I know that this is not an opinion most people share, so I threw the number 1000 out there as an example of how we could get a lot closer to perfect apportionment than we are now without making the House 23 times the size as it is now.

I acknowledge that it is very strange to see instances of compromise as part of the political process, but I sometimes like to be different One should not make perfect the enemy of the good, after all.

[hotdogPi]

10,291 may be ideal now, but I assume that number would change after each census.

There's also this option:



This method of drawing districts is mathematically defined, so there is no gerrymandering. (This uses 2000 census data, but the method would be the same.)

[Scott5114]

Of course, this ignores state lines, which is impractical because voters in different states will have different stands on federal issues, based on how they interact with state-level policy. As an example which comes to mind, look at the district which spans California, western Arizona, and far southern Nevada. While voters in this region might well be culturally and politically similar, their positions on, e.g. the 2017 tax law might be vastly different due to the way the law changes federal deductions due to state and local taxes, and the differences in state-level tax policies among the three states. The rep for that district would have a hell of a time figuring out the wishes of their constituents and what would ultimately be the best for their district as a whole.

[kalvado]

10,291 may be ideal now, but I assume that number would change after each census.

There's also this option:



This method of drawing districts is mathematically defined, so there is no gerrymandering. (This uses 2000 census data, but the method would be the same.)

Reminds me...
We have a university campus built across city lines. In fact, there are at least 2 minicipalities, and at least 3 fire departments serving certain dorm complex.For voting, students have to go down to room number - and in certain cases down to bed location within the room, to make sure they can vote in correct district... Mathematically correct - but not to meaningful..

[kalvado]

Because I feel that an ideal representative democracy–which we should aspire to be, or else what's the point in having an America to begin with–would count each citizen's vote equally and identically. (This is a core belief that I am not interested in changing, and also a legal principle that the Supreme Court has affirmed in cases such as Reynolds v. Sims, among others.) Malapportionment by even 1 person, then, would inherently be a violation of that ideal. Obviously, for practical reasons, that ideal cannot realistically be achieved exactly, due to the fact that decimal values of representatives can't happen under the Constitution, if nothing else.

A proposed House with 1000 representatives is intended as a concession to the reality that a House with perfect apportionment would be considered too large to be workable by a number of people. Personally, if something like 10,291 representatives (a number I have seen quoted as ideal, but which I have not verified the math on) is necessary for perfect apportionment, I say give us 10,291 representatives and damn the other consequences; the new problems are worth solving as they come up in order to obtain perfect apportionment. However, I know that this is not an opinion most people share, so I threw the number 1000 out there as an example of how we could get a lot closer to perfect apportionment than we are now without making the House 23 times the size as it is now.

I acknowledge that it is very strange to see instances of compromise as part of the political process, but I sometimes like to be different One should not make perfect the enemy of the good, after all.

OK, at least this is a clear position I can argue with.
And my answer would be - you're trying to find an exact mathematical solution to a political problem - which may not have an exact mathematical solution to begin with. And you're proposing a formal solution, which does not address core problems.

Mathematically, you're trying to find a greatest common divisor  for a set of 50 numbers. And in most cases such GCD is unity, in other words direct democracy is the only way to achieve strictly equal representation. Which is impractical for many reasons, and that is why representative democracy exists. SO you have to accept some tolerance to make things work - and we can start negotiations on what is that tolerance. your number 10294 means one per 30k representation (number coming from early US history)- and would still result in up to 2% under/overrepresentation if districting restricted by state lines. Currently we have maximum of 25% overrepresentation for RI, and 40% underrepresentation for MT; down to +/-10% if you remove 10 most outlying seats. SO do you think 2% is OK?

But most people believe that representative democracy has bigger problems than some vote inequality - which has to mostly level out at the end of the day with "yes" or "now" votes being split about equally to over- and under-representing representatives. "Winner takes it all" is be a bigger concern.

[freebrickproductions]

"Winner takes it all" is be a bigger concern.

Here's my personal solution that keeps the Electoral College but gets rid of the winner takes all system: Proportional EC Votes
Basically, rather than each state being "winner takes all", the candidates only get the portion of the popular vote that they won in each state. However, any partial/split votes would go to the loosing candidate. For example, if State A had 10 EC Votes, and Candidate B got 53% of the vote, Candidate C got 45% of the vote, and Candidate D got 8% of the vote, then Candidate B would get 5 of State A's electoral votes, Candidate C would get 4 of State A's electoral votes, and Candidate D would get 1 of State A's electoral votes. This system would allow for more people's voices in states that normally swing one way to be hear more easily (like California or Alabama), since it seems like one of the major problems people have with the Electoral College now is that most people aren't really too interested in voting because they live in a state that's either solidly red or solidly blue. It could also lead to more aggressive campaigning across the US as a whole since even the smaller states could help decide an election. Of course, we'd also have to get rid of the "first past the post" system and let whoever gets the most EC votes be the president.

Of course, other changes that I'd make would be to make Election Day a national holiday (and have any non-essential organizations shut-down) so people can more easily go and vote, make it so that everyone who's a US citizen is automatically registered as soon as they turn 18, while also making voting a requirement (with the penalties for not doing so being not able to take advantage of various federal programs, like Student Aid or Medicare).

[inkyatari]

also making voting a requirement (with the penalties for not doing so being not able to take advantage of various federal programs, like Student Aid or Medicare).

No. No no nonononono

The first thing you'd have to do is to make all ballot access rules standard nationwide so that people actually have choices.  You would also have to make write in votes simpler.  In illinois, you have to pay a $25 fee in each electoral district in which you'd like to be on the ballot.  National or statewide races make this prohibitively expensive.

The act of not voting is a vote.  In most elections these days, I do not vote in most races on the ballot, and once I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the choices that were handed to me. Not voting, IMHO is a first amendment protected form of protest.

As far as standardizing ballot access nationwide, good luck with that.  First, I don't expect most states would be up for that, and then my fear is that instead of crappy ballot access laws that throw horrible hurdles up for third parties on the state and local levels, the two party duopoly could implement those nationwide.

I should post my experience with the Illinois Libertarian Party during their ballot access drive a few years ago.  It is because of my experiences, plus having heard of similar stories by friends in the Illinois Green party that I pledged to never vote for an establishment party ever again.

[kalvado]

"Winner takes it all" is be a bigger concern.

Here's my personal solution that keeps the Electoral College but gets rid of the winner takes all system: Proportional EC Votes
Basically, rather than each state being "winner takes all", the candidates only get the portion of the popular vote that they won in each state. However, any partial/split votes would go to the loosing candidate. For example, if State A had 10 EC Votes, and Candidate B got 53% of the vote, Candidate C got 45% of the vote, and Candidate D got 8% of the vote, then Candidate B would get 5 of State A's electoral votes, Candidate C would get 4 of State A's electoral votes, and Candidate D would get 1 of State A's electoral votes. This system would allow for more people's voices in states that normally swing one way to be hear more easily (like California or Alabama), since it seems like one of the major problems people have with the Electoral College now is that most people aren't really too interested in voting because they live in a state that's either solidly red or solidly blue. It could also lead to more aggressive campaigning across the US as a whole since even the smaller states could help decide an election. Of course, we'd also have to get rid of the "first past the post" system and let whoever gets the most EC votes be the president.

Of course, other changes that I'd make would be to make Election Day a national holiday (and have any non-essential organizations shut-down) so people can more easily go and vote, make it so that everyone who's a US citizen is automatically registered as soon as they turn 18, while also making voting a requirement (with the penalties for not doing so being not able to take advantage of various federal programs, like Student Aid or Medicare).

EC is one thing; 435 is similar- but another...

[PHLBOS]

Here's my personal solution that keeps the Electoral College but gets rid of the winner takes all system: Proportional EC Votes

IIRC, two states presently do such: Maine & Nebraska(?).

The act of not voting is a vote.  In most elections these days, I do not vote in most races on the ballot, and once I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the choices that were handed to me. Not voting, IMHO is a first amendment protected form of protest.

I'm assuming that you're referring to one that actually shows up at the polls to cast their vote... even if they leave every spot on the ballot blank when they turn it in.  Is that correct?  If so, I agree with you 100%.  Official non-votes do get counted in the overall totals.  In contrast, one not bothering to go to the polls at all to cast their non-vote(s) does not (and IMHO should not) count.

Not sure about other states, but every voting machine in PA has an option where one can cast a proverbial None of the Above vote; it's actually worded I choose not to vote for any listed candidate.  It's usually located at the lower-right portion of the touch-screen ballot.

[1995hoo]

Here's my personal solution that keeps the Electoral College but gets rid of the winner takes all system: Proportional EC Votes

IIRC, two states presently do such: Maine & Nebraska(?).

....

They don't quite use "proportional" votes. Rather, each of those two states awards electoral votes by congressional district and then awards the remaining two electoral votes (the ones that correspond to their Senate seats) to whichever candidate wins statewide. I'll use Maine as an example. The state has two congressional districts, so four electoral votes. In 2016, Clinton won Maine's first congressional district by about 15%, Trump won Maine's second congressional district by about 10%, and Clinton won the statewide vote by about 3%. Clinton therefore got three electoral votes from Maine and Trump got one. It's not a proportional system because it's winner-take-all in each district (and statewide as to the other two electoral votes). If it were proportional, the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld presumably would have received an electoral vote because they got 5% of the statewide vote in Maine in 2016.

Nebraska does it the same way–they split their electoral vote in 2008 (four for McCain, one for Obama).

....

The act of not voting is a vote.  In most elections these days, I do not vote in most races on the ballot, and once I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the choices that were handed to me. Not voting, IMHO is a first amendment protected form of protest.

I'm assuming that you're referring to one that actually shows up at the polls to cast their vote... even if they leave every spot on the ballot blank when they turn it in.  Is that correct?  If so, I agree with you 100%.  Official non-votes do get counted in the overall totals.  In contrast, one not bothering to go to the polls at all to cast their non-vote(s) does not (and IMHO should not) count.

Not sure about other states, but every voting machine in PA has an option where one can cast a proverbial None of the Above vote; it's actually worded I choose not to vote for any listed candidate.  It's usually located at the lower-right portion of the touch-screen ballot.

The issue of voting in only some elections, or not voting, can be relevant when state law requires a candidate to receive a majority of votes to be elected. "Non-votes" have caused issues and controversy in the past. See Gutierrez v. Ada, 528 U.S. 250 (2000). (I was involved in drafting an amicus brief in that case; the Supreme Court's opinion cites several of the cases we cited and none of the cases cited by the party our client was supporting.) The case involved the gubernatorial election in Guam, where a statute provides that in order to win, a candidate must obtain a majority of votes cast in that election; if none does, a runoff election is required. One gubernatorial candidate received a majority of votes cast in the governor's race in 1998 but did not receive a majority of votes on all ballots cast in the entire general election–that is, some people left the gubernatorial section blank. The losing candidate sought a writ of mandamus ordering a runoff election; both the federal district court in Guam and the Ninth Circuit agreed that "a majority of votes cast in any election" meant a majority of all ballots cast in the general election, even ballots with no vote at all for governor (there was no "None of the Above" option). The Supreme Court unanimously reversed, finding that the statute's plain meaning, especially when wording in various parts of the statute were compared, meant the candidate has to obtain a majority of the votes cast in the gubernatorial race.

[abefroman329]

also making voting a requirement (with the penalties for not doing so being not able to take advantage of various federal programs, like Student Aid or Medicare).

No. No no nonononono

The first thing you'd have to do is to make all ballot access rules standard nationwide so that people actually have choices.  You would also have to make write in votes simpler.  In illinois, you have to pay a $25 fee in each electoral district in which you'd like to be on the ballot.  National or statewide races make this prohibitively expensive.

The act of not voting is a vote.  In most elections these days, I do not vote in most races on the ballot, and once I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the choices that were handed to me. Not voting, IMHO is a first amendment protected form of protest.

As far as standardizing ballot access nationwide, good luck with that.  First, I don't expect most states would be up for that, and then my fear is that instead of crappy ballot access laws that throw horrible hurdles up for third parties on the state and local levels, the two party duopoly could implement those nationwide.

I should post my experience with the Illinois Libertarian Party during their ballot access drive a few years ago.  It is because of my experiences, plus having heard of similar stories by friends in the Illinois Green party that I pledged to never vote for an establishment party ever again.

I fully support efforts to get more third parties on the ballot, and participating in debates, particularly at the national level.  I won't vote for any of them, but I think they should have a forum.

[vdeane]

However, any partial/split votes would go to the loosing candidate.

This would create a strange incentive where it would be better to lose a close race than to win it.  Imagine presidential candidates campaigning against themselves in Florida (or any small state like Wyoming, where the majority of the electoral votes would almost always go to the loser because the winner would need to win by a landslide).

In contrast, one not bothering to go to the polls at all to cast their non-vote(s) does not (and IMHO should not) count.

Agreed.  I was always taught "if you don't vote, don't complain" (as in, not voting is equivalent to voting for whoever wins).  Thus I've never understood the point of boycotting elections or why one would use a boycott as a reason to ignore the vote.

Evidently most people disagree with this, because I can think of a couple high profile votes where boycotts were considered reasons for deeming the results illegitimate and either ignoring them or condemning the implementation.

[inkyatari]

Agreed.  I was always taught "if you don't vote, don't complain" (as in, not voting is equivalent to voting for whoever wins). 

That, too, is BS.  What if I'm not given someone who I can, in a clear conscience vote FOR? In that case I have more right to complain than someone who does vote.
It just encourages the "lesser of two evils" mentality.  I don't vote for the lesser of two evils. I blame that attitude for where we are today.

[NWI_Irish96]

Agreed.  I was always taught "if you don't vote, don't complain" (as in, not voting is equivalent to voting for whoever wins). 

That, too, is BS.  What if I'm not given someone who I can, in a clear conscience vote FOR? In that case I have more right to complain than someone who does vote.
It just encourages the "lesser of two evils" mentality.  I don't vote for the lesser of two evils. I blame that attitude for where we are today.

Nearly every major office has more than two candidates.

[vdeane]

Around here, all ballots have a write-in option for every race, so people usually just write in Bugs Bunny or something if they don't have anyone they like in the race.  Of course, we're in NY, which usually has a plethora of third parties on the ballot (some of which are just cross listings of the major party candidates, some of which are not) for major offices.

[inkyatari]

Agreed.  I was always taught "if you don't vote, don't complain" (as in, not voting is equivalent to voting for whoever wins). 

That, too, is BS.  What if I'm not given someone who I can, in a clear conscience vote FOR? In that case I have more right to complain than someone who does vote.
It just encourages the "lesser of two evils" mentality.  I don't vote for the lesser of two evils. I blame that attitude for where we are today.

Nearly every major office has more than two candidates.

Still, it's possible that I don't like any of the candidates.

[1995hoo]

Around here, all ballots have a write-in option for every race, so people usually just write in Bugs Bunny or something if they don't have anyone they like in the race.  Of course, we're in NY, which usually has a plethora of third parties on the ballot (some of which are just cross listings of the major party candidates, some of which are not) for major offices.

Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said he wrote in his father for president in 2016 because he refused to vote for Trump, would never vote for Clinton, and didn't want to vote for one of the third-party candidates. (Hogan's father, who died in 2017, was a former congressman from Maryland.)

But in terms of the idea of "requiring people to vote," I think that might require a constitutional amendment because I'm fairly confident that under all existing jurisprudence, a statute requiring you to vote would almost certainly run up against First Amendment issues.

[inkyatari]

Around here, all ballots have a write-in option for every race, so people usually just write in Bugs Bunny or something if they don't have anyone they like in the race.  Of course, we're in NY, which usually has a plethora of third parties on the ballot (some of which are just cross listings of the major party candidates, some of which are not) for major offices.

New York, from what I understand, has less restrictive ballot access laws than Illinois does.  Until this last summer, to run for an upticket office, a political party had to run someone in each of the major races, otherwise no spot on the ballot for those who really DO want to run. Fortunately the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the Full Slate law. We still have to get an ungodly amount of signatures to get on the ballot than the entrenched parties do.

In Illinois, if you want to write in someone, a candidate must declare themselves as a write in candidate, and pay the $25 fee to each electoral district that they will be running in.  Otherwise, you can only select what's on the ballot.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

I would like Puerto Rico to become a state eventually. I would also like to see all the pacific territories and Hawaii become one state called the Pacific Union (or PU).

How about the U.S. Virgin Islands they should be considered for 51st state status.

Such a small populous on the islands.

[GaryV]

They don't quite use "proportional" votes. Rather, each of those two states awards electoral votes by congressional district and then awards the remaining two electoral votes (the ones that correspond to their Senate seats) to whichever candidate wins statewide. I'll use Maine as an example. The state has two congressional districts, so four electoral votes. In 2016, Clinton won Maine's first congressional district by about 15%, Trump won Maine's second congressional district by about 10%, and Clinton won the statewide vote by about 3%. Clinton therefore got three electoral votes from Maine and Trump got one. It's not a proportional system because it's winner-take-all in each district (and statewide as to the other two electoral votes). If it were proportional, the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld presumably would have received an electoral vote because they got 5% of the statewide vote in Maine in 2016.

Under what mathematical system does 5% of 4 round to 1?

[1995hoo]

They don't quite use "proportional" votes. Rather, each of those two states awards electoral votes by congressional district and then awards the remaining two electoral votes (the ones that correspond to their Senate seats) to whichever candidate wins statewide. I'll use Maine as an example. The state has two congressional districts, so four electoral votes. In 2016, Clinton won Maine's first congressional district by about 15%, Trump won Maine's second congressional district by about 10%, and Clinton won the statewide vote by about 3%. Clinton therefore got three electoral votes from Maine and Trump got one. It's not a proportional system because it's winner-take-all in each district (and statewide as to the other two electoral votes). If it were proportional, the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld presumably would have received an electoral vote because they got 5% of the statewide vote in Maine in 2016.

Under what mathematical system does 5% of 4 round to 1?

The prior post discussing proportional allocation said something about if there were a split vote it would go to the losing candidate. I was assuming that hypothetical system applied for purposes of this discussion.

[nexus73]

Parliamentary democracy would allow for more political parties to be involved.  Governing coalitions have to be formed so when there is no meeting of the minds, the parliament is dissolved, the prime minister steps aside and a short election campaign is conducted with the hope that the next batch in office can git 'er done.  Italy was famous/infamous for changing governments rapidly but they still managed to function as a nation.  The president then becomes Head Of State unless there is a constitutional monarch in the mix but it is upon the prime minister/chancellor to handle the affairs of governing along with whatever coalition they piece together.

Rick

[Scott5114]

Another fun thing about parliamentary democracies is that if they cannot pass a budget, there's none of this government shutdown or continuing resolution business–the parliament is instantly dissolved, new elections are held, and the process repeats until the electorate finds someone who can pass a budget.

Do keep in mind, though, that a parliamentary democracy alone doesn't guarantee the relevance of third parties. It does help quite a bit, but any first-past-the-post system will favor a two-party state. You need something else like preference voting or proportional representation to really give third parties any meaningful power.

It doesn't help that the US system was designed for a country with no political parties and they later had to be shoehorned into the system when they developed. See, for example, the complete mess that was the 1796 election.

Because I feel that an ideal representative democracy–which we should aspire to be, or else what's the point in having an America to begin with–would count each citizen's vote equally and identically. (This is a core belief that I am not interested in changing, and also a legal principle that the Supreme Court has affirmed in cases such as Reynolds v. Sims, among others.) Malapportionment by even 1 person, then, would inherently be a violation of that ideal. Obviously, for practical reasons, that ideal cannot realistically be achieved exactly, due to the fact that decimal values of representatives can't happen under the Constitution, if nothing else.

A proposed House with 1000 representatives is intended as a concession to the reality that a House with perfect apportionment would be considered too large to be workable by a number of people. Personally, if something like 10,291 representatives (a number I have seen quoted as ideal, but which I have not verified the math on) is necessary for perfect apportionment, I say give us 10,291 representatives and damn the other consequences; the new problems are worth solving as they come up in order to obtain perfect apportionment. However, I know that this is not an opinion most people share, so I threw the number 1000 out there as an example of how we could get a lot closer to perfect apportionment than we are now without making the House 23 times the size as it is now.

I acknowledge that it is very strange to see instances of compromise as part of the political process, but I sometimes like to be different One should not make perfect the enemy of the good, after all.

OK, at least this is a clear position I can argue with.
And my answer would be - you're trying to find an exact mathematical solution to a political problem - which may not have an exact mathematical solution to begin with. And you're proposing a formal solution, which does not address core problems.

Mathematically, you're trying to find a greatest common divisor  for a set of 50 numbers. And in most cases such GCD is unity, in other words direct democracy is the only way to achieve strictly equal representation. Which is impractical for many reasons, and that is why representative democracy exists. SO you have to accept some tolerance to make things work - and we can start negotiations on what is that tolerance. your number 10294 means one per 30k representation (number coming from early US history)- and would still result in up to 2% under/overrepresentation if districting restricted by state lines. Currently we have maximum of 25% overrepresentation for RI, and 40% underrepresentation for MT; down to +/-10% if you remove 10 most outlying seats. SO do you think 2% is OK?

But most people believe that representative democracy has bigger problems than some vote inequality - which has to mostly level out at the end of the day with "yes" or "now" votes being split about equally to over- and under-representing representatives. "Winner takes it all" is be a bigger concern.

Yes, I'd say that 2% malapportionment is a lot better than 40%. As I said before, 0% would be ideal, but that may be mathematically impossible, and practical concerns do place a big damper on what can be done realistically. But I'd support anything that would get the number closer to 0%.

I agree that first-past-the-post causes a lot of really stupid side-effects that are probably more important to solve (such as making third parties nearly irrelevant, as discussed above).

[hotdogPi]

Do keep in mind, though, that a parliamentary democracy alone doesn't guarantee the relevance of third parties. It does help quite a bit, but any first-past-the-post system will favor a two-party state. You need something else like preference voting or proportional representation to really give third parties any meaningful power.

rangevoting.org (note: the website is heavy on mathematics)

[kalvado]

Yes, I'd say that 2% malapportionment is a lot better than 40%. As I said before, 0% would be ideal, but that may be mathematically impossible, and practical concerns do place a big damper on what can be done realistically. But I'd support anything that would get the number closer to 0%.

I agree that first-past-the-post causes a lot of really stupid side-effects that are probably more important to solve (such as making third parties nearly irrelevant, as discussed above).

Traditional way to negotiate that - if 2% is OK, then what about 5%?
ANd you were talking about 0.5% in CA as a show stopper before..

But here is a bigger example of non-representation:
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?