[EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse

[Raph Frank]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 8:13 PM, Jonathan Lundell <jlundell at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Oct 18, 2008, at 11:26 AM, Raph Frank wrote:
> I'm still not getting it. Perhaps I'm not following the mechanism you're
> suggesting.

I meant if they actually managed PR, but yeah, it is hard to come up
with a specific compact that doesn't have defection incentives.

> I do agree that there are cases where a proportional EC with free-agent
> electors could have a better (in the sense of more democratic) result than
> FPTP--say in 1992, where FPTP elects Clinton, but a PR EC elects Bush1 by
> combining Bush and Perot electors, or in 2000 Nader+Gore electors defeat
> Bush2 (absent SCOTUS interference, anyway).

Yeah, that is what I was thinking of, it allows a majority to be
formed if the plurality winner doesn't have a majority.

It also allows support to shift over time.

> It's hard to imagine the mechanism, though, especially since without
> universal (by state) participation, any significant state not playing would
> have a strong edge (unless, I suppose, the compact states agreed to
> compensate...wheels within wheels).

One option would be to assign 80% of the seats in each compact State
by PR based on say PR-STV.

The remaining seats would be assigned using d'Hondt over the whole
compact, by party, but would include seats obtained by the parties in
non-compact States.  This would mean that if a party loses out due to
States existing outside the compact, there is a pool of seats
available to rebalance things.  Also, it would cancel out the effects
of non-compact States, only votes within the compact would actually
matter.

Ofc, the non-compact States might decide not to say who won until the
last minute, so it still has problems.

>
> The advantage of NPV is that it's simple and doable, even without the
> consent of small states currently over-represented in the College. Does that
> offset the distinct downside of entrenching FPTP plurality? Maybe so, unless
> the alternative is business as usual.

Yeah, that is pretty reasonable.  If PR isn't possible, my next
favourite would be that the NPV used approval voting (or at least
allowed states to decide to use approval).