US election system. Is the US really a democracy, or a duocracy?

[TheSHiFT]

Originally Posted by NivexQ

So you would rather representatives be based on states than districts?

No. However, I would make sweeping changes to the entire system. The following is just an idea, definitely has some flaws and could use some tweaks. But I believe it would be far superior to the current US system:

1. Double the amount of members for both the House and Senate.

This serves multiple purposes. Currently a Rep represents about 710,000 people, while a Senator represents about 3 mil (this varies depending on state). Doubling the size would cut those ratios in half, giving voice to more Americans.

It would dilute an individual congressman's power. This would also hurt the influence of special interests, as they would have to pay more to lobby more votes. Businesses have gotten up to a 22,000% rate of return before, Id think they could handle it. http://tinyurl.com/6qcr6sy

It is also necessary for the next step.

2. All new seats will be filled using the Mixed-Member Proportional Representation Method
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_m...representation

No additional districts are drawn, so a state with 4 districts would have 8 representatives. Everyone gets 2 votes, one for whoever is in the race for their district's seat, the other for a party. 4 seats go to whoever wins the respective district's seat. The other 4 seats are given out proportionally based on the party's vote. For example:

Red Party gets 48%, Blue Party gets 29%, and Yellow Party gets 23%. The remaining 4 seats would go 2 to the Red Party, 1 to the Blue Party, and 1 to the Yellow party. Since this is the most accurate way to reflect how the public voted.

Switching to the will help break the two party system, as a citizen will be able to vote for the party they want, rather than against the one they hate (known as strategic voting).

3. District elections will use a Plurality with Elimination Method
http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/voting/methodof.htm

This is a preferential ballot, were citizens rank who they vote for in order of preference. This also helps against strategic voting. For example:

An election result:
48% Red Party
40% Blue Party
12% Yellow Party

Under the current system, the Red Party candidate would win the seat despite having more people vote against them (though some states do require a run-off election). However, if a preferential ballot were used and the vast majority of Yellow Party members ranked the Blue Party (the one they have some agreement with) over the Red Party (the one they most hate), the Yellow votes would be transferred (due to the elimination round) to the Blue Party candidate, winning him/her the election by 52%-48%.

4. Heavily Regulate Gerrymandering

Districts must, by law, be drawn to represent the voting public as closely as possible. When this is not possible, math will be used and the algorithm made public.

5. Remove party affiliation from ballots

That is only the candidate's name appears on the ballot with out any mention of the party they belong to. If a citizen is too lazy to know their candidate's name, why the fuck are they voting? Certain rules may have to apply w/ people who recently changed their names, or if 2 candidate's have the exact same name.

If anyone wouldn't mind reading this and punching holes in it, that would be great.

[Baneblade]

And where would you put these 550 extra politicians?

[Vecha]

Originally Posted by Sobekeus

And where would you put these 550 extra politicians?

And what will their salaries be?

[TheSHiFT]

Ah yes, the cost. I, like many people, just ignore when my car needs maintenance. Anyway, Ill try to nail down a ballpark figure...

Currently Congress members get paid 174k/year. But this is just pay! What about healthcare ect. and their staff's compensation? Lets triple it to make sure that is covered in this hypothetical (I am not advocating to increase their pay). Giving us 535 x 174k x 3 = 279,270,000$.

We also need to add office space and an expansion to the capital building. Going off the average skyscraper price of ~800m, I would guess that half that would be sufficient. So that is 400m. But I didn't include the staff (cleaning/IT/security), upgrades or supplies. Lets add on another 100 m.

Total cost: ~$797m first year, then ~$379m every year after.

That is, I believe, being very generous. To put that in perspective the War on Drugs costs 10b+ per year, the 2008 bank bail outs were 800b+, and the 2012 budget is ~3.75t. The 2008 Obama campaign spent nearly $800m alone.

This is pennies to revamp the voting system to more accurately reflect public will. I should also note that points 3, 4, and 5 above are pretty much cost-free. 3 would save a small amount of money for states that have to preform run-off elections.

[RawketLawnchair]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

Every election year we find out about Republican and Democrat fuckery. And every election year we vote for Republicans and Democrats. We live in a fucking Idiotcracy. Trust us many of us know it, but when you are surrounded by zombies, you try not to attract attention.

Pretty much this.

I'm sick of people telling me that if I don't vote, I'm basically letting the dems or repubs win, which in itself is a false statement. I don't vote because the vote I want to give doesn't matter. I want to vote independent every year, but because of the propaganda machine that is U.S. News, Independents never make it to the top.

So, these days, I just keep my opinion to myself unless someone is actually interested in debating instead of arguing.