Which governmental system better represents the electorate?

Just reading--very interesting thread.

dlowan
If my first choice or preference does not make it [get elected]than assign my vote to the second choice. I understand.

The problem--and the very reason for the electoral college--occurs when the majority in the smaller, or less populous states disagree with the majority in the larger, more populous states. The more populous states would always win. And whether you see it or not, what is best for areas of high population density is very often not what is best for areas that are sparsely populated. The electoral college attempts to ensure that people who live in less populous states have a voice in the process. You argue that with the electoral college, sometimes your vote doesn't count. Without it, their votes would never count.

Ever wonder why we have a Senate where each state gets two senators? A: Same reason. More populous states have great influence in the house. The Senate exists to balance that power. (Senators historically represented the interests of the state, and representatives the interests of the people, which is why senators were not popularly elected until later in our history... but that's fodder for another discussion.

Scrat
The problem is however,if it can be termed a problem, the small states electoral vote is more heavily weighted {in relation to population} than the large states. Further, the fear of tyranny of the big states can IMO turn into tyranny by the small ones. That is no more evident than in the senate. A state with less people than a four block area in any large city carries as much weight as a state twenty times as populous. The states in the western US wield undue power in relation to their population.

Scrat
Scrat, we have 2 senators for each state because that is what it took to get the smaller states to approve the Constitution.

BumbleBeeBoogie

Now finally an interesting political thread!!! Although there is little hope things would change in the U.S. towards a more representative (or proportional) system. There cannot be hope even, for the U.S. is too darned big for proportional representation and possibly even for a mixed system. With already miserably low electoral turnout and people complaining election system is too complicated, with the house election every two years and presidential election and local and whatnot. Besides, the 2 party system tends to be more stable, more able to push through the agenda of the winning party (usually), which in a country of this size is crucial. Not that I like it. Not one bit. I far prefer proportional representation, even though the coalition governments tend to spend 70% of their time on inter-party bickering and only 30% on ruling.
What's wrong with loose party discipline? Not much in majority system (U.S. especially). There the MP is expected to represent his constituency directly and fight for its interests even if it contradicted his party interests. As Senator Pothole. But in a proportional system it is a problem. There voters don't elect particular candidates, they vote for a party. The party has a list of its own cadidates and a certain number, depending on the percentage gained in the national election, will make it into the parliament. It may be the first ten, the first twenty, you simply do not know. If you vote for a party and not for a person, it is expected that the MPs representing that party will abide by its principles and agenda, because it is to the party that they owe their legitimacy, not directly to the voter, if you see the difference. Which in turn may be seen as one of the shortcomings of the proportional representation - it is a more delegative representation in this sense. Once you submit your vote, you have less direct access to an MP, it is hard to find out which district or region they are there for. They get one assigned, but the relationship is more vague and less binding. MP in the proportional system is guided more by principles and ideas of the party than by the direct needs of the constituents. Good side of this - it is easier to push 'big issues', that parties agree on, through. Thus change, meaning quite radical change in social or political system is more possible in a proportional system. But again, that is only workable in small countries.

I quite like the Dutch system. Full PR (proportional representation). You get 0,67% of the vote, you get 1 seat in parliament.

It's true it does not allow for revolutionary changes in government policy: because the biggest party never gets over 35% of the vote, you always need two, and sometimes three parties to build a government, so compromise is foreordained. I don't mind that too much ;-).

It's also true you get many parties in parliament, but the number has actually been surprisingly stable. Since 1977 it's never been more than 12 and never less than 7. Of whom always several are quantites negligeables, though some are pretty consistent quantites negligeables. The State Reformed Party, for example, an orthodox protestant party, has been in parliament since 1922; and ever since 1925 it has gained either two or three seats in parliament (so that's consistently 1-2% of the vote). I kind of enjoy that kind of political folklore.

The German system is cool, too, in the sense that the eventual representation in parliament pretty much reflects PR, while at the same time there's a specific representative for each district as well. The price the Germans had to pay for this perfect outcome is a very complicated system.

Half (or so) of the seats are elected by district, so you can always "call your MP". The other half (or so) are then assigned to top off the number of seats won in the district system in such a way as to make the full total a reflection of the result in percentages.

I.e: say, parliament has 200 seats (which it hasnt, in Germany, its got more, but its some unpractical number, so lets say 200). 100 are voted in by district. The SPD won 54 of them, CDU/CSU 45, and the Greens 1. Of the overall vote, however, the SPD got 40%, the CDU/CSU 40%, the Greens 10% and the FDP 10%, so they should, according to PR, get a total of 80, 80, 20 and 20 seats. So what happens when the second set of 100 seats is divided is that the SPD gets 26 of them, the CDU/CSU 35, the Greens 19 and the FDP 20. End result: each district its own MP, yet the total division of seats an absolute reflection of the vote. Perfect.

Except there's two anomalies. One: they got a 5% barrier. Any party under 5% gets zilch. Except for the seats they might have won in individual districts. Because this happens: the former Communist PDS, for example, though failing the 5% barrier, was the biggest party in two East-Berlin districts in the last elections. And if a party gets at least three of those "direct mandates", it does qualify for a 'top-off' share of 'the second 100' again, after all. (Told ya it was a complicated system.)

Two: so-called "ueberhangmandate". Say, if, in the example above, the SPD had gained all of 90 of the 100 districts - this was possible because, though it only gained 40% of the vote, the other parties were so splintered they never got close. Then it would have won more seats in the district system alone, already, than it would be entitled to get, according to PR, of the overall number. These "extra", bonus seats are "ueberhangmandate", and can gain the winning party a little extra leverage. It happens quite a lot because, like I said, in reality German parliament doesnt have 200 seats - its got, like, 632 or something.

;-)

Oddly enough, the German parliament does not have a fixed number of seats. It changes on one or two seat per legialature. The number accomodates to the party percentages.

Two additional alternatives get too little credit, I think. I was struck by dlowans post, for one. If one would have to have a district system, this seems a reasonable way to compensate for some of the problems: a first and second vote of preference.

Second: in Russia, they have an additional option on the ballot. You can vote, if you want, Unity or Union of Rightists or Communist - but you can also vote "against all the above". That provides for a pretty good check on the politicians, I think.

At the moment, politicians, especially in two-party systems, can safely ignore the perpetually disillusioned, those who have lost all hope in the existing parties, because they're not going to go vote in any case. In America, half the population doesnt vote. In part, I'm sure, cause they're simply satisfied; but in part, I know, because they dont recognize themselves back in the choices they're offered. In multi-party systems, politicians need to at least keep one eye on such voters, because they might just suddenly all come out for a new populist politician from the far left or far right. In two-party systems, pfff, whatever, no worry, just ignore 'em.

That's wrong, to my mind. With an "against all" option, if you actually leave the correspondent number of seats in parliament empty, you get the best of both worlds. The disgruntled can get to voice their systemic criticism and they won't have to turn to some extremist anti-politician either - and the resulting empty seats, that will make it harder for a party to acquire a parliamentary majority after all, will force the incumbents to go back and listen better to these people.

In Russia, in 1993 4,2% voted "against all". In 1995, 2,8% did so.

That would be those "ueberhangmandate" I mentioned.

This is specious, for precisely the reason that the Senate as composed was originally accepted, reluctantly, by the smaller states. The entire process of the constitutional convention was to reconcile regional interests, and majoritarian tyranny was much on the minds of and in the writings of James Madison and George Wythe. Jefferson read law under the tutelege of Wythe, and Wythe's private writings reveal that much of what Jefferson wrote was Wythe's philosophy writ larger and more floridly. The notion that "popularism" serves the best interest of the nation assumes that the interests of "the people" at large are largely coincident. These interest are certainly not common throughout the population, and the both the Senate and the Electoral College protect us from majoritarian tyranny, just as the House protects the fiscal interests of the nation from minority manipulation, and the Courts ostensibly protect us from minority conspiracy. The Virginia Plan, which was the only plan on the table at the beginning of the convention, was an obvious ploy to not only destroy the equality of representation which it was said had paralyzed the Contintental Congress (the effectiveness of which was more surely destroyed by the inability to tax and to regularte commerce), but to sink the power of the executive by means of the plural executive it proposed. William Paterson of New Jersey was the author of the "New Jersey Plan"--the riposte of the small states to the majoritarian tyranny embodied in the Virginia plan. Men like John Dickinson of Delaware (the author of the "Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer," tracts which were crucial to the political awakening of Americans in the crises of the 1760's), Robert Morris and James Wilson of Pennsylvania, Elbridge Gerry and Rufus King of Massachusetts--all of these men recognized that no acceptable document could be produced if the "large states" (then, Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania) rode roughshod over the small states (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticutt, Rhode Island--the Carolinas and Georgia more or less followed Virginia's lead, although John Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina made protection of the institution of slavery their crusade).

The ideas of Madison, Wythe and James Wilson were crucial to the compromises which allowed the writing of an acceptable document--and the United States constitution is a unique document because of their dedication to the idea that sound political theory existed, and could be made to work in concert with the pragmatic reconciliaiton of seemingly unreconcilable differences. The convention adjuourned from July 26 until August 6 to allow a "committee of detail" to cobble together the compromises and to reconcile the Virginia and New Jersey plans, and present a draft document with which the delegates could work further. This document was little altered in the final draft, and was the work of a committee head by John Rutledge (to reassure the firebrand Charles Cotesworth Pinckney that his precious "peculiar institution" would be protected), and that writing was done by Edmund Randolph of Virginia and James Wilson of Pennsylvania. Once the compromises which had been worked out in mid-July to reassure the small states had been accepted, all of the old alignments dissolved, and the separate states, and even individual delegates voted on proposals along the lines of regional or personal prediliction. The "Great Compromise" was at the heart of the constitution, and made possible the formation of the new government. As it was envisioned, the electors for the electoral college to choose the President would be chosen by direct election by the people, and this is about the only fault one might ascribe to the modern system, that this is no longer done. Given the "winner take all" nature of voting by states in the College in the modern era, minority tyranny within each state is negated. To argue that western states, for example, in the Senate and Electoral college exercise undue influence is to subscribe to the obviously bankrupt notion that the interests of the majority are monolithic and will not essentially harm the minority. I don't like the outcome of the election in 2000, and believe that the Florida vote was rigged after the fact. I am greatly alarmed that the Judicial branch had any hand in an executive election. Nevertheless, i recognize that small population states may well have been protected from majoritarian tyranny by that outcome. The convention, in the words of Madison, suffered "more heartburn" over the subject of the election of the executive than any other issue upon which they decided. Many of the small state delegates favored a plan by which any disputed election would be decided by the Senate--but George Mason and James Wilson both argued that this would create an "aristocracy worse than any monarchy"--Roger Sherman of Connecticutt cut the Gordian knot with the proposal that the House resolve any deadlocked executive election, each state casting one vote--neatly combining both "popularism" and minority protection, and, coming from a leader in the former coalition of small states, was accepted without to much grumbling. The final document has often been said to be the work of James Wilson and George Mason, who sat on the "committee of style," but it is almost exclusively the work of Gouveneur Morris, who showed a find editorial style.

To tamper with the Senate or the Electoral College would be to relegate the states to the status of little better than glorified counties, or, in the rather ill-chosen words of James Madison, "only Great Corporations, having the power to make by-laws." Eliminating these bodies would effectively disenfranchise all the states other than California, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas. Think you'd like to live in a nation governed by our fine fellow citizens of those, and only of those states? I wouldn't.

I'll stay away from the whole Senate/EC debate, but this line struck me as surely a bit of rhetorical overkill. Counties usually do not have much self-government going on - they get to decide about the new drainage system or the fate of the local radio station, perhaps. Whereas, to name but one example, in post-devolution UK Scotland and Wales have their own parliaments and governments, with extensive legislative rights.

The extent to which tackling Senate and EC would have you be "governed by our fine fellow citizens [of] California, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas [..] and only of those states" all depends on how states' rights are defined. You can choose for the national government / parliament to reflect the actual popular political preferences, while safeguarding the people of Wyoming from being told how to live through keeping considerable legislative rights devolved to state level.

Ah Sentana! I missed your writings. Glad to see you around again.

That's a wonderful historical review of the reasonings for the EC and the Senate structure.

Yes, Nimh, but i was responding to the contention that the Senate, as well, is an institution giving undue influence to states with low population density. The direction of argument was against the contention that both the Senate and the Electoral College represent undue influence by the states. And, given that premise against which to argue, i stand by my assertion that the eliminination of the Senate would relegate the states to a status little better than glorified counties. Please note the quote of James Madison, who suggested during the constitutional convention that the the states were "only Great Corporations." The eventual extension of the argument from popularism would be the elimination of all soveriegn powers within the states--your comment about Scotland and Wales does not relate to this argument, in that neither of their Parliaments has any voice in the discussion of sovereignty issues in the British Parliament. The power of the Senate to "advise and consent" in the choice of executive nominees to departmental or judicial appointments, and in the ratification of treaties gives the states power which has never been exercised by any corporate body other than the British Parliament since the 1715 Act of Union.

To some extent this is true but the debate here (in teh US) is between having the EC or going to a direct popular vote without changing anything else. Add to that the increase in Federal level intervention in pretty much every issue over the last 100 years and the loss of the EC would leave the small states extremely vulnerable. We already have states like CA and NY using the Federal government to control water suppliles in their neighboring states or accept their garbage in landfills.

The way our Congress now funds their election campaigns makes it just as much of a concern as the office of the President. Congressional Reps go to other states to raise money to run for seats back in their home state. Whose interests are they guarding when they cast their votes in the Congress? The people they are supposed to represent of the people who fund their campaigns?

This is an example of the extent to which the European conception of a republic is one in which power flows outward from a center, which surrenders "pieces" of sovereignty for pragmatic reasons. Our republic is based on the principle that all power derives from the consent of the governed, "in Congress assembled." Not only was the constitution a series of compromises necessitated by desire to more closely unify the then existing states, but a document in which Madison, Wythe, Wilson and Mason used that dynamic as a means of preventing majoritarian tyranny. This concept is not simply crucial to the political philosophy they hoped to embody in the document, it is the core.

Setanta
I was not suggesting a change of either make up of the senate or a change to the electoral college. Was simply stating the facts as the are or aty least as I see them. What was done to protect the small states from tyranny of the large can turn into just the opposite?

<nods>

Yes, I can see the historical significance and the value of the fundamental difference there - one that would, on an existential level, have made the US a voluntary union at core, whereas in other countries devolution actually has to restore some sense of 'voluntariness' about its unity. (In which it seems to work wonders, btw, considering the electoral losses of the Scottish and Welsh nationalists now that devolution is a fact.)

(In a way the discussion is even vaguely, though only very partially, reminiscent of the current debate about how the EU is to be governed. The two main sources of authority there now are the European Commission, which is accountable to the European Parliament, and the European council of government leaders. Some say the former authority is theoretically more democratic, since the European Parliament is freely elected. But seats in that parliament are assigned roughly according to a country's population size, and thus small countries have only a small voice in it. These therefore tend to want to keep the latter authority strong, for it is made up of a government leader for each country, with parity between the countries. I've wanted to post a thread about this dilemma for a while.)

In any case, I don't think au's initial question was about the College, Senate etc, but about two- vs multi-party systems and (by extension) district systems vs PR.



Another very important issue, I think. The implications of campaign financing practices (perhaps also in transnational comparison) definitely deserve a thread of their own!

I would certainly agree with that Au, and i believe that the framers saw the Judiciary as the means by which the majority is protected form "minoritarian tyranny." As well, the original intent was that the great powers of the executive would help to protect the interests of the majority from minority tyranny. Two problems plague our modern use of the constitution (an incredibly elastic document)--the modern political party was not then conceived of (faction, the term used in the late 18th century, referred only to a self-interested minority), and the great powers of the Presidency were written by delegates who looked each day at the President's table (the President of the convention, that is) and saw George Washington sitting there. He was the only delegate who sat on a higher level than any of the others, and no one had any doubt as to who would first hold the office of President of the United States, should the constitution be ratified. In a strange twist, this man's great virtue may have lead to them to grant too much power to the office--i can think of no individual in our history--or anywhere in history for that matter--who rose to such prominence, while remaining an absolutely trustworthy man. Washington is the one exception to the rule that power corrupts who serves by comparison to prove that rule. Ah, what to do, what to do . . .

Setanta: "Disenfranchise"
Setanta, your passionate argument in favor of retaining the electoral College was very appealing, even though I believe it may have outlived it's validity in our system.

As an aside, and I apologize for deviating from the subject at hand, but you stated "Eliminating these bodies would effectively DISENFRANCHISE all the states other than California, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas."

When I wrote my first response to this post, I wanted to use the word "disenfranchise," which is my customary usage. To be sure I was spelling it correctly, I consulted my dictionary and couldn't find any word "disenfranchise." However, I did find "disfranchise" and that was the word I used in my post. I was astonished to discover that the word I had used all my life was apparently incorrect. I guess I was making the same mistake as some who say "irregardless" when the correct word is "regardless."

I'm so disappointed that "disenfranchise" is not a word. I like it so much better than "disfranchise."

-----BumbleBeeBoogie