I don't buy the argument that "the system is fundamentally broken" because the political divisions of our times are some how uniquely worse than at any other point in US history. If you go read books like "A People's History of the United States" or other historical accounts that go beyond the typical 8th grade / high school US history you will find a lot of examples of when things were as bad as they are today or arguably much worse. The whole rural vs urban interests clash isn't even a new phenomenon that goes back to the beginning of the United States.<p>That's not to say that the system of government could never be improved but if your argument starts out with a premise that doesn't really seem true I question whether the whole idea isn't a little half baked.
My horse in the race did not win. It wasn't HRC. However the feeling I get is a lot of her voters are in disbelief she lost and can't understand the opponent having won. It feels as if they felt entitled to a result that didn't pan out. If HRC had won, we would not be seeing these calls for reform gain attention.<p>That said, gerrymandering has two effects, one negative, one positive. On the negative side, there is little competition, on the positive side, the vast majority are happy with the result. Moreso than that of a 51:49 split.<p>If you ask me competition is healthy, if I look at the previous election, people don't like close elections.
I guess this is mainly about Ranked Choice voting. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting</a><p>"The Fair Representation Act (HR 3057) gives voters of all backgrounds and all political stripes the power to elect House Members who reflect their views and will work constructively with others in Congress."<p>What incentive is there to "work constructively with others" in this system?
Doesn't the Constitution afford the states the prerogative to decide how to allocate their representatives? Would a federal law imposing this structure be constitutional?
This would make some progress towards fixing one of the biggest problems with our winner takes all electoral system.<p>No way this actually passes, though, since it's against the interests of most congresscritters - whose seats in their own gerrymandered districts are safe, even if it puts their party at a disadvantage.
Looks like this implements multi-member districts elected via STV, similar to the system used in Republic of Ireland to elect members of the Dáil.<p>Overall I think this is better than single member districts with plurality voting, but IMHO there are simpler reforms that offer better mathematical properties.<p>MMP [1] (used in Germany, New Zealand) ensures proportional representation and still allows for small geographic-based districts. The overhang allocation mitigates the incentive for gerrymandering. A minor but significant enhancement would be to use approval voting instance of plurality to elect the single winner district MPs.<p>RRV [2] (not implemented anywhere I'm aware of) is similar to STV in that it uses multi-member districts, but uses a simpler range ballot (think amazon 1-5 'star' ratings for candidates) rather than a ranked ballot.<p>The Center for Election Science [3] has some very good resources on this general topic. Electoral reform is a terribly important issue that is very difficult to make progress on. My hope is that we start to see some reforms at the state and local levels that can provide indication that these reforms are legitimate and are not being done to game the vote.<p>Speaking of, "Gaming the Vote" [4] is a really good book on this subject.<p>I think reforms like HR 3057 are well intended but I think it's too early to attempt this at the federal level. Voters in the US have very little context for electoral reform and it's an issue that tends to (perhaps legitimately) cause people to be suspicious.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...</a>
[2] <a href="http://rangevoting.org/RRV.html" rel="nofollow">http://rangevoting.org/RRV.html</a>
[3] <a href="https://www.electology.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.electology.org/</a>
[4] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K154R0/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K154R0/</a>
The problem definition is so wrong, the solution does not bring any real improvement. There are many problems with the government system, but the election part is not the root cause of the problems and it will solve almost nothing.
As people learned how democracy works and they are already manipulating it, what good will do minor patching? How it makes it better for a system where incompetent people vote for everyone else, where the vote of someone that have certain beliefs will eventually make it mandatory by law to do things that I don't want, that others can decide by vote how I can and should live my life? Solve this, don't waste time and energy on distractions.
I don't think the problem is districts. Governance in the US works through compromise. The hyper-partisan environment is caused by bases pushing representatives apart and not allowing for understanding. To make matters worse, a tiny percentage of voters are educated on the issues in a meaningful way. They are educated in soundbites though which exacerbates the issue. A representative democracy can't function with the representatives being accosted at every turn (either democrat or republican).
I think this is a good solution. It is going to take a while for people to accept it though. It's been clear to me that most Americans think our version of democracy is the only possible version of democracy, and that anything else would lead to tyranny. Or that our Constitution is perfect and we're just using it wrong. People hate our government, so it's strange that they love the document that makes it the way it is. I think we should change the Constitution or write a new one, but I know that's hard, so this FRA is probably more practical than my solution.<p>I hope people will soon recognize that they're not going to get major change in the way government operates just by changing the people who get elected. We need to change HOW people get elected.
Ranked choice voting is still fundamentally flawed [1]. Voters will be incentivized to vote strategically in this system rather than according to their preference, just as they do now.<p>[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...</a>
Has "ranked choice voting" been extensively studied in game theory? Is it the consensus that RCV is the voting system with the least number of drawbacks?