[EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse

[Greg Nisbet]

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 6:17 PM, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 1:41 AM, Greg Nisbet <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The United States uses FPTP, surprise surprise. However how bad would
> FPTP
> > really be if you remove some of the stupidity?
> >
> > 1) Primaries
> >
> > Especially the presidential primaries. Why Iowa and New Hampshire I ask
> you?
> > The Republican winner-takes-state primaries are especially bad. The will
> of
> > the people is distorted. And the winners of primaries get legal
> protection.
>
> This shouldn't be an issue at all.  Parties should be allowed to pick
> whoever they want, however they want.
>
> I think, if you are going to have plurality, then it's probably better
> to have them than not.


Thanks for bringing this up, it is a perfectly valid criticism. I don't
disagree with this point, but it technically isn't in conflict with what I
said. First of all I argue two things, I didn't state them initially.

1) Primaries are anti-utilitarian.
2) The Government enforcing any way for parties to operate is bad.

It's sort of catch-22 I know. But think of it this way, we allow people to
conduct elections based on FPTP. None of us advocated banning private FPTP
elections. However, that does not stop us from criticizing their choice of
method.

The second point I don't agee with because Median Voter would suggest that
candidates would be more centrist on average if primaries didn't exist. I
like moderates better than Democrats or Republicans and I think they are
better for the country...

>
>
> > 2) Sore loser laws
> >
> > If you lose a primary, you can't even run in some areas. The state will
> > attempt to prevent you from stealing votes away from your party.
>
> Yeah, that is bad, candidates should be allowed to run if they want.


If you let anyone who wants to be on the ballot be on the ballot, how bad
would that really be?

>
>
> > 3) Really bad ballot access laws.
> >
> > If people can't even run... it doesn't matter what voting method you are
> > using.
>
> Agreed.  Apparently, a federal law that allowed anyone with 2000
> signature automatic ballot access to any given race would be unlikely
> to result in more than 10 or so on any given ballot.  Would anyone
> bother to collect 100k signatures in order to put 50 names on the
> ballot?
>

I think an average voter would not get confused by large numbers of
candidates. If they were organizes reasonably, the voter strictly benefits
because they could always voter against unknown candidates as a matter of
principle. Most do, so I don't see what people are whining about.

>
> Also, there are some criminal laws linked to this, so collecting
> signatures could put you at risk.
>
> > 4) The Electoral College
> >
> > Someone explain to me how this makes sense. We elect a group of 538
> people
> > who will then elect one person. Umm... why elect these people? They
> aren't
> > doing anything complicated, they are just signing their name and the name
> of
> > a candidate. Electing Congress makes sense, how else would you handle the
> > loads of legislation that they create every so often?
>
> It is a good idea.  But it seems like it was broken from the start.
> The Electoral College should meet and then make its decision.



I have to disagree with you on that one. I do not see it doing anything
useful. It either corrects the people's will (in which case it is
paternalistic and evil) or it does nothing making it a giant waste of
resources.

>
>
> This is compounded by the fact that all states have switched to winner
> takes all methods of selecting the electors, so it is double broken.
>
> > 5) The Senate
> >
> > States aren't represented by their population. This means rural bias etc.
> > How can their opinion be regarded as representing America's?
>
> Well, in theory, the US is a federation, not a democracy.  In any
> case, that requires 100% of the States to agree for it to be changed.
>

Umm federation and democracy are not mutually exclusive. Anyway, my opinion
might be biased because I live in California, the state most screwed over by
the system. I do not buy the whole prevent tyrannical regions from taking
over nonsense b/c preventing tyranny is a civil rights issue not a voting
system issue. Attempting to design some system to subvert the will of the
voters "for their own good" is not to be trusted.

>
> OTOH, if you want to be evil, you could strip the Senate of all its
> power, that would 'only' require 75% of the States.
>

> 6) The House
>
> Whose bright idea was it to let the states decide how to redistrict
> themselves? Seriously.

The same people who let legislatures redistrict for themselves.
>
> In fact, I think that having the States do the redistricting is better
> than allowing Congress do it.  If the States were independently
> controlled, then there is less of a conflict of interest.
>

Not exactly. You just have mini conflicts of interest that don't all line up
in one direction instead of one big one.



>
> However, the 2 party system is entrenched, so the State legislatures
> aren't independent.


yep exactly. This might arguably be better.

>
>
> > 7) Gerrymandering
> >
> > In addition to (6) and gerrymandering at the local level, the state
> > boundaries themselves were gerrymandered. It was mostly due to slavery,
> but
> > the vestiges of these funky decisions still remain. There are also a ton
> of
> > low-population states between California and the Mississippi River, whose
> > brilliant idea was that?
>
> I think that once off gerrymandering isn't as bad as gerrymandering
> after the census.
>
> It isn't self reinforcing.  As time passes, things change.  With
> Congressional boundaries, they are re-adjusted as things change to
> cancel it out.  You can't readjust State boundaries.


I know you can't that is my point. Various issues of the past have messed
with state boundaries and that has side-effets in the present.

>
>
> > 8) Two Parties
> >
> > This might be a consequence of FPTP, but seriously. The Libertarian
> Party,
> > the third largest, is still TINY by comparison to the Democrats and
> > Republicans. It is no wonder we have so many independents in this
> country.
> > Many people dislike both parties but have no idea what to do. The UK and
> > Canada seem to manage more parties.
>
> There is a need for 3rd parties to concentrate their efforts on
> specific areas.  The problem is that the 2 parties use their power to
> reinforce the 2 party system.
>


yep they do.

>
> Also, each level of government is held by the 2 parties, so it is hard
> to break it

.


also completely correct.

>
>
> Anyway, maybe the Libertarians should pick a state and focus all their
> national effort on getting a Libertarian elected to the House of
> Representatives in that State.  Once they achieve that, they can move
> on to getting a second one elected from the State.  Ofc, their seat
> would likely be gerrymandered away since their Representative wouldn't
> be a member of one of the two parties.


We probably should organize ourselves. That's a good idea.

>
>
> Maybe the reason that 3rd parties are more viable in the UK and Canada
> is that there is more independence in setting the boundaries.  This
> means that they can't be gerrymandered out of existence if they manage
> to get one seat.


That certainly sounds reasonable.

>
>
> > 9) Elections on Tuesday
> >
> > why not make election day a holiday? or hold it on weekends?
>
> I thought they were held over multiple days with 'early voting', or
> was that changed?


I think you need to prove you have some 'valid reason' to vote early.
Anyway, I know there are some restrictions that make it inconvenient
otherwise who would show up at the polls?
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