Tycho's hairbrained schemes
Seeing as how I seem to have killed off discussion in the recent threads, I figured I'd throw out this idea that I'd been thinking about lately to see if I could get some discussion moving again.
Basically I was thinking about the american election system, and how the winner-take-all nature of it leads to a number of (what I consider to be) problems:
1. third party candidates are viewed as un-viable, or worse, helping someone else get elected
2. candidates tend to focus on faults of opponents, rather than their own good qualities. Thus elections are seen more as a need to vote against someone than vote for someone.
3. people voting for a losing candidate feel they're not being represented because the winner doesn't represent their views
4. ability to draw the boundaries of voting regions often goes to politicians (who won elections), who use it to benefit their party's future voting situations (gerrymandering)
5. the either/or situation leads to polarization of political views, rather than a more natural spectrum (ie, the two party system that is a product of the winner-take-all system leads people to think of all issues as two sided, with an "us" side and a "them" side, rather than thinking of a range of possibilities).
As a potential remedy for these problems, I was thinking of ways to change the election process, to achieve something where it wasn't a winner-takes-all system. What I've come up with is this:
Voting regions/districts/whatever would still have local representatives as we currently do (ie, congressmen). However, each representative wouldn't just have 1 vote in congress. Rather, they would each have a number of votes equal to the number of people who voted for them. In addition, everyone who ran in an election would also have votes (probably there would actually be a threshold, set fairly low, say 1% of the total vote cast, needed to gain votes in congress, but that's a fairly minor detail). Thus, whether someone wins the election or not, they still get to vote in congress, and they have votes equal to the number of people who voted for them. Those who won elections would actually be the congressmen who get to draft laws, sit on committees, etc., but nearly everyone who runs will get some amount of say when votes are called. Those who don't win the elections don't get paid, don't get benefits, etc., but their vote still counts. In many cases it may be that those in congress (the winners of the elections) would have enough votes between them that it wouldn't be necessary for the non-winners to cast their votes, but when congress is closely divided on an issue, the non-winners' votes would be important.
The advantages I see in this system are:
1. Since a vote is never "wasted," third party candidates become as viable as anyone else; no matter who you vote for, they'll be representing you afterwords, win or lose.
2. There will be much less incentive for candidates to focus on the faults of their opponents because you can't "vote against" anyone. The opponent you don't like will still get to have a bunch of votes regardless of who you vote for, even if they lose, so your only incentive is to vote for someone you actually support.
3. Whether your candidate wins or loses, they're still able to cast votes on your behalf, and represent your views. This should reduce the feeling that "no one is representing us" that some voters feel.
4. Gerrymandering will be less an issue, since winning a particular region becomes much less important. A candidate who wins by a landslide in their district will have more votes in congress, so politicians won't have incentive to concentrate opposing voters in one district.
5. With all candidates eventually casting votes, a much wider spectrum of views is represented, and the system is not naturally binary.
At a basic level, the idea is to keep a "one man, one vote" pure democracy system, but without everyone having to cast their one vote for each item. Essentially, you give your one vote to your representative, and let them use it. Even if they don't win, they've still got your vote to cast. You don't lose your vote if your candidate doesn't win the election.
The downsides to the system that I can see are:
1. it's more complicated
2. potential for non-winners to just think "ah, forget it" and not cast their votes (not a huge problem, per se, since that's what you get for voting for a slacker, and politicians are currently not obligated to vote now either).
3. potential for "less serious" candidates to get votes (but they only get a significant amount of votes if a significant number of people vote for them, and people who want to vote for a gimmick candidate have no one to blame but themselves).
4. densely populated areas get more representation (which might not be a bad thing, though people in rural areas may consider it to be)
5. Representatives would be non-equal, some controlling far more votes than others. Would power end up concentrated in the hands a few a super-popular reps? (We could reduce problem this if districts have maximum population, and if you can only vote for someone who lives in your district)
I'm also not sure if this system would be more or less susceptible to corruption. There'd be more people to bribe, many of them requiring much less money to bribe, but in order to have a large effect you'd need to bribe lots more people, increasing your chances of getting caught, and probably increasing the total cost (to the briber).
What do you guys think? Have I missed other drawbacks? Would the benefits I'm predicting actually occur? Would it actually be any better than our current system? Are there any ways to make it better?