User:Araucaria: Difference between revisions

My current favorite Condorcet completion method is [[Definite Majority Choice]].

You can contact me at ''araucaria dot araucana at gmail dot com''.

The current US legislative process moves at the same leisurely pace it did in the mid-19th century.

* Riders are attached with no warning and bills are not always voted on by all members.

* There is no reliable way to determine accountability. This harkens back to the days of "smoke-filled rooms".

* Career politicians are relying on lobbyists to write legislation.

* The only way to debate is on the floor of the House.

We need a method of legislation that would works quickly and transparently, whatever the size of the legislative body, be it 50, 500 or 50000. The rules need to be open and non-partisan. And the system of making those rules needs to be protected by checks and balances.

=== Better Representation ===

==== The House of Representatives is not representative ====

The US House of Representatives has been frozen at 435 members for nearly 100 years. That's one member for every 640,000 people. The Founders originally thought there would be one member for every [http://www.thirty-thousand.org 30 to 50 thousand] people. The number of representatives should be [http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PT_articles/Growth_in_U_S__Population_Calls_for_Larger_House_of_Representatives.htm increased to at least 600]. This would also decrease the over-representation of small states and under-representation of large states in the Electoral College.

==== Proportional Representation ====

Local representation is best implemented using [[Proportional_representation|Proportional]] or [http://www.fairvote.org/pr/ Full Representation], with at least 5 members per district. The best way to do this is with [[Single_transferable_vote]] (STV).

Proportional Representation (PR) proponents tend to think that if STV is good for multi-winner elections, it will be good for single-winner elections also, in the form known as [[Instant-runoff_voting|Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)]]. But [[Instant-runoff_voting#Flaws_of_IRV|it isn't]].

The best [[voting system]] for single-winner elections (e.g. senator, governor, president) is [[Condorcet_method|Condorcet]], also known as Instant Round Robin or Pairwise Voting. It uses a ranked ballot, just like IRV, but is counted differently.

* Unlike IRV, it doesn't require recounting ballots after each elimination.

* Unlike IRV, all ranked preferences are accounted for, not just those for the eliminated candidates.

=== See also ===

* [http://accuratedemocracy.com/voting_rules.htm AccurateDemocracy.com]

* [http://radicalcentrism.org/reengineer_legislature.html An imagined conversation between James Madison and Arnold Schwarzeneggar]