[EM] Smith, FPP fails Minimal Defense and Clone-Winner

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Raph Frank wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 9:41 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
> <km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:
>> Having just a single from each state may be /too/ centrist, but to pick two
>> senators from each using a proportional ordering might work - as long as it
>> doesn't introduce partisan division.
> 
> You would probably end up getting the centre of each of the 2 parties
> if you did that, so it defeats the idea of finding centerists to
> cancel out the 2 party system.
> 
> You could split states into districts, if you wanted more than 1
> senator elected at the same time.
> 
> Ofc, districting runs in gerrymandering problems.

I've thought about this, and it makes sense. Any argument I could use 
against having a division inside states could also be used to argue 
against a division among states (e.g. why have one from each state? why 
not one from a block of states? Thus you should have one from a region 
of each state if you have more than one).

Districting runs into gerrymandering. I think the solution there is to 
let some independent body do the redistricting -- it works in Canada. 
That raises the question of why such hasn't been done already, but I 
think the parties are just too strong. The initial cancelling-out done 
by Condorcet might be enough to pull the system away from that kind of 
entrenchment.

More exotic systems might be possible - for instance, some sort of 
supermajority requirement for councils of two, or a weighted kind of PR 
that pulls the centrists towards the center, or something, but that 
lacks the simplicity of the ideas above.