[EM] language/framing quibble

[Raph Frank]

On 9/9/08, Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net> wrote:
>  I suspect we are seeing the process differently.  In my view, candidates
> can only stand for election in a single district and the only candidates the
> electorate will consider are those seeking election from their district:
> "I'm Honest Joe, and I'm seeking election from the July 3rd/July 8th
> district."

The problem is that a random sample has the same properties as the
population itself once the sample size gets large and 1000+ is
normally more than enough.

The only difference is that it allows a group of voters to focus on
2-3 main candidates, instead of everyone having to look at all the
candidates.  If voters vote by party, then a party with 51% of the
support will almost certainly win most of the seats.

>
>  OK, we'll need a less cumbersome district naming convention, but that's the
> idea.

Maybe just district 77.  However, maybe it might be better to be more
informative, like
district July three eight.  No point in losing potential voters because

>  I agree that, as you say, it is a 'pure majority system' but it is a
> majority of 1/73rd of a diverse cross-section of an electorate of 4,000,000.
>  In such an situation, there would be no 'safe' seats.

For a given party all seats will either by safe or all of them will be
unsafe.  If you pick 1/73 of a population, then they will almost
certainly vote the same way as the population itself.

It would be like the legislature being elected one district at a time,
with everyone voting on each appointment.