Reforms to our democracy that you'd like to see

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

32 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Bumping this thread, because I listened to a really convincing podcast this morning during a 300-mile drive back to Austin. A podcast that I likely wouldn't have taken the time to listen to except for the fact that my radio pleasures were mostly limited to "bro" and "red dirt" country.

Prior to listening to it, I was a bit skeptical of the argument for ranked voter preference elections. Now, I'm convinced that if widely implemented, it could solve a significant amount of our electoral problems in the US.

I realize that it's a lot to ask casual political posters to take an hour out of their time to listen to a podcast, but I urge any of you, right or left, to scrape that time together.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/tweak-vote

There's definitely no reason to investigate an updated electoral college system, as long as the popular vote of concentrated cities doesn't negate peoples votes who live in less populated areas.  You ought to be able to give a paragraph synopsis of the concept presented.

[bolverk 29694]

Just now, Onboard 2.0 said:

There's definitely no reason to investigate an updated electoral college system, as long as the popular vote of concentrated cities doesn't negate peoples votes who live in less populated areas.  You ought to be able to give a paragraph synopsis of the concept presented.

 

The link has little to do with the electoral college system (directly).

The first half of the podcast makes the argument that our electoral system is akin to a 1985 laptop. It was stunning stuff when it first came out in the 1780s-90s but has since been eclipsed by other, more modern, voting systems. It then goes on to interview candidates from Irish MP elections from 2016 and that country's process of selecting representatives for each district wherein the top three are eventually chosen for each district. Their selection is based on individual voters selecting their preferred representatives by ranking them in order. It then goes into detail about the process by which candidates are whittled down to the eventual three reps.

The basic argument is that it makes for elections where every citizen has a voice and is guaranteed to have their preference be taken into account as opposed to our single-member districts where the outcomes are often lopsided, which alienates a large portion of the population. They also make a convincing argument that it has the potential to force politicians to work toward consensus and moderation (during the election cycle itself) by giving examples of where ranked choice has been implemented in localities around the US.

For more detail, I suggest you listen to the podcast.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Thanks, I gathered it wasn't electoral college specific, just that it was a system to replace the electoral system in some fashion.  I don't want NYC, LA and Chicago deciding who our presidents are.  Somehow a weighted system needs to level value of the votes of the rural/suburban and urban voters.

[bolverk 29694]

1 hour ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Thanks, I gathered it wasn't electoral college specific, just that it was a system to replace the electoral system in some fashion.  I don't want NYC, LA and Chicago deciding who our presidents are.  Somehow a weighted system needs to level value of the votes of the rural/suburban and urban voters.

It really doesn't have much of anything to do with rural/suburban or the electoral college. It's only that each district would get three reps and each is selected according to rank choice. Nothing more, nothing less. At least that's how it works in Ireland. As applied to the US, the districts could still have a single rep, but that rep would be selected according to a rank choice system as has been recently applied for the first time to the congressional districts in Maine in these past last elections.

I do, however, like the idea of selecting more than one rep per district, coupled with the addition of a greater number of representatives overall as outlined in the OP of this thread.

[Biff Tannen 45692]

Forget it, he's rolling.  I don't need a podcast to tell me that a ranked voting system is more representative of what the people (yes ALL of them) actually want.  I just needed it explained to me once and it makes too much fucking sense, so of course we won't do it.

[DanRydell 799]

Thanks, I gathered it wasn't electoral college specific, just that it was a system to replace the electoral system in some fashion.  I don't want NYC, LA and Chicago deciding who our presidents are.  Somehow a weighted system needs to level value of the votes of the rural/suburban and urban voters.

 

NYC deciding who our presidents are makes a fuck ton more sense than Cincinnati deciding who our presidents are.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 minutes ago, DanRydell said:

 

NYC deciding who our presidents are makes a fuck ton more sense than Cincinnati deciding who our presidents are.

No, no it doesn't.  Next topic please before my head explodes form the hubris of this kind of comment.

[Nivek 16946]

i don’t think a free society should force its citizens to serve in the military or civil service unless their is a national emergency.  

Service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?

[G650 14263]

18 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Thanks, I gathered it wasn't electoral college specific, just that it was a system to replace the electoral system in some fashion.  I don't want NYC, LA and Chicago deciding who our presidents are.  Somehow a weighted system needs to level value of the votes of the rural/suburban and urban voters.

Wait, you don't want all people to have an equal voice?

The whole three fifths thing didn't really work out.

[Dutchrudder 11141]

15 hours ago, DanRydell said:

 

NYC deciding who our presidents are makes a fuck ton more sense than Cincinnati deciding who our presidents are.

How about they both have a portion of the determination equal to their voting population? 

[Brisketexan 105161]

19 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Thanks, I gathered it wasn't electoral college specific, just that it was a system to replace the electoral system in some fashion.  I don't want NYC, LA and Chicago deciding who our presidents are.  Somehow a weighted system needs to level value of the votes of the rural/suburban and urban voters.

NYC, LA, and Chicago shouldn't decide who our presidents are.

The number of votes received should decide who our president is.  If more of those votes reside in NYC than in Lickskillet, Wyoming, then more votes will come from NYC.  But each VOTER is an individual American, with one vote, which should be given equal weight as the vote of any other American.  Any individual voter's choice should be able to cancel out another individual voter's choice.  If a voter in Lickskillet votes R, and a voter in NYC votes D, then that's great -- they EACH voted, and they cancel each other out.

Your preferred world is such that a voter in Lickskillet can cancel out SEVERAL voters in NYC.  If the majority of American voters lived in rural counties, would it be fair if votes coming from people in cities were more heavily weighted, so that folks in Lickskillet couldn't decide who our president is, perhaps against the wishes of folks in NYC?

We already have a "weighted" system -- it's the compromise that gave us the Senate.  Wyoming has two senators, just like California does.  580,000 people (of course, not all of them voters) get to control TWO votes in the Senate.  California, with SIXTY EIGHT TIMES as many people....also gets to control just two votes in the Senate.  The fact that we've translated that weight to a SECOND branch of the government is problematic.  If the sanctity of the vote matters, and every voter having a voice matters, so much so that we need multiple laws to make sure that some illegal voter doesn't cancel out the sacred vote of a legal voter....then why are we so comfortable giving a voter in Lickskillet SIXTY EIGHT TIMES the voting power of a voter in Sacramento? 

And why shouldn't more dense areas with more voters exercise power commensurate with the number of voters?  Those people ALREADY voted, economically -- they voted by moving to where the jobs are.  Why should someone whose parents moved from Lickskillet to NYC to take good jobs be penalized by having his vote count for just a fraction of what his cousin Cletus's vote does (Cletus stayed behind, and works a shit job back home)?  Put em side by side, and they're each American voters.  Doesn't matter where they live, their votes should have equal weight.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Brisketexan

[Lurch 5931]

Onboard doesn’t give one flying fuck about rural voters. They just happen to vote predominantly for his team.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 minutes ago, Lurch said:

Onboard doesn’t give one flying fuck about rural voters. They just happen to vote predominantly for his team.

Hey fuck you, as usual know nothing of which you speak.

[wildcat09 29355]

I can't believe it's nearly 2019 and some people still need an explanation of why one person one vote is good.

[Celery Man 20970]

Total hubris to expect representation