My take on the election...

[elfs]

I am not happy that the Democrats have taken the House, and will probably take the Senate. I am happy that we have a divided government where each party is deeply suspicious and resentful of the other. I would rather there be bloodletting and recrimination on Capitol Hill than that there be more laws passed. I just wish we had more than a simple two-party system where each party basically runs to corruption and then the other party takes over by portraying themselves as "what those guys should have been before they became corrupt." Lather, rinse, repeat.

Comments

[fallenpegasus]

Fuck that. That would mean the voters pick parties instead of candidates.

I like being able to vote for candidates who give their parties heartburn, and I like the fact that a pol can tell his party, his party whip, and his party leadership counsil to kiss his ass.

Under a PR system, ALL the power is held by the kingmakers and the whips. That's not something worth emulating.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it is a mistake to have a two-party system, particularly a two-party system in which their ideologies differ, but their political philosophy is the same: acquire and hold power, using money gained by whoring oneself to monied interests.

I think we can do better. I think we need to do better.

We could hybridize what we have now with a proportional system... one election determines the number of seats each party has, and another selects candidates. That should allow you to elect heartburn-inducing candidates with a penchant for gluteal osculation, while still biasing the system against a two-party stranglehold.

[(Anonymous)]

That's not quite how it works... see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Germany#Election_system

Federal Republic of Germany

Election system

Germany elects on federal level a legislature. The parliament has two chambers. The Federal Diet (Bundestag) nominally has 598 members, elected for a four year term, 299 members elected in single-seat constituencies according to first-past-the-post, while a further 299 members are allocated from statewide party lists to achieve a proportional distribution in the legislature, conducted according to a system of proportional representation called the additional member system. Voters vote once for a constituency representative, and a second time for a party, and the lists are used to make the party balances match the distribution of second votes. In the current parliament there are 16 overhang seats, giving a total of 614. This is caused by larger parties winning additional single-member districts above the totals determined by their proportional party vote.

Germany has a multi-party system, with two strong parties and some other third parties that are electorally successful.

Elections are conducted every 4 years, with the exact date of the election chosen by the outgoing government. The Bundestag can be dismissed and a new election called before the four year period has ended, but this usually only occurs in the case of a government losing its majority.

German nationals over the age of 18 are eligible to vote, including most Germans resident outside Germany, and eligibility for candidacy is essentially the same as eligibility to vote.

The Federal Council (Bundesrat) has 69 members representing the governments of the states.

Proportional Representation: What I'm Thinking

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Well now, if people were only voting for parties, and The national Parties were picking all of the candidates, then yes, that would suck. And Verily!

But that's not how a proportional representation system works.

Voters do select a candidate. Now, how the parties choose who to run could still be some form of primary election. (How it works in Germany, I don't remember exactly, but they do something different.) In fact, how many votes a party's candidate for a seat wins is what goes into the computation for how many seats the party gets. In Germany, the major parties actually have several, "candidates-at-large," who would fill the extra seats if that party wins big. (Again, how the candidates-at-large are chosen is an open question. It could be by some sort of primary election. It could be by a caucaus system. And again, in the specific case of Germany, I don't recall. Sorry.)


A good example would be election to a state assembly (what we have here in New York). Each county would have a certain number of seats representing it, based on the size of its population. (We're keeping that part of our current system, and throwing out gerrymandering.) Let's say Dutchess County has 5 seats. The Republicans field 5 candidates. The Democrats field 4. Since certain parts of Dutchess County always vote solid-Republican, there's no point in doing 5.

Let's say that it's a fairly close election in some parts of the county, and that under the current winner-takes-all system, 1 Republican wins by a respectable margin, 3 more Republican squeak by at just above 50%, and 1 Democrat wins by a wide margin. When the actual per-party totals are looked at, the Republican party did about 58%, and the Democrats did 42%. So, under the winner-take-all system, 20% of Dutchess County aren't being represented. A proportional representation system would have as the winners the top-3 Republican candidates and the top-2 Democrat candidates.

Now, in the same hypothetical election, across the river in Ulster County, running for their 4 seats, are 2 Republican candidates, 4 Democrats and one Green Party candidate. All 4 Democrats win a plurality of the votes, and would have all 4 seats under our current winner-takes-all system. On a party-by-party basis, however, the Democrats did 70%, the Republicans did 21%, and the Green party did 9%. Let's suppose that the "magic line" for getting into the assembly is at 10%. So, the Green party was close, but no cigar. This means 3 of the four seats go to the Democrats, and 1 seat goes to the top Republican vote-getter. This way, the Ulster County Republian voters (few though they are), still have a voice.

If we were to take this example to the national level, and parallel the system in Germany, the state elections would set the base number of candidates for each party in a particular county (or counties, in sparsely-populated areas). The local determines the national, instead of vice-versa.

And, just to be thorough: in my example, sparsely-populated counties could just have one seat (instead of being lumped together with other counties). In that case, the election isn't proportional.

(I'm a physicist by training, so my thinking always takes a mathematical direction. So, Fallenpegasus, if you're thinking, "Now waitasec! How would you handle «xyz»?!?!" just come up with a mathematically-based answer, and it's probably what I'd say. :wink:)




Phew! You really put me to work explaining myself. :)