written from Madison, Upper Rock, Wisconsin (find your bioregion/watershed and health/toxics information)

Toward a Bioregional State:

Bioregional Letter #14

Majority Rule only by proportional representation with majoritarian allotment,
instead of by 'majority rule' voting.

Here's why simply having majority rule voting leads only
to unoptimal 'largest minority rule' outcomes.

Here's how to force parties to appeal to 100% of the electorate,
instead of winning only by counting on marginalizing some of the electorate.

>ANDERSON:
>There is no better place to start than that peculiar institution, the
>Electoral College. The Electoral College fails to provide for majority rule
>and political equality.

Who said that these go together anyway? The danger is that majority rule can install a great deal of political inequality on minorities.

ANDERSON: The Electoral College divides us on regional lines,

how? Actually, majority voting that you recommend would divide more on regional lines, because less and less states rural would be important, and urban states would regionally be the ones with the bias. This makes a wider bias, since economic development is far from equally distributed. The political way that they votes are tallied should balance against this unequal distribution of urban development instead of enhance it.

>ANDERSON: undercuts accountability,

Nice buzzword phrase. How?

ANDERSON: dampens voter participation,

how?

ANDERSON: and can trump the
>national popular vote.

which is presently only an informal tally anyway. Though point taken.

>ANDERSON:
>But small states should not be too quick to celebrate. Because of
>winner-take-all rules, big states swing far more electoral votes and gain
>far more attention if races are close there. This year, competitive small
>states did get attention from the campaigns, as both parties realized that
>the election could be decided by a mere handful of electoral votes. But in
>most elections, even the competitive small states are overlooked as the
>candidates focus on competitive large states.

. . .which is the election bias that you would see expanded if there was a majority vote for the President with IRV.

>ANDERSON: The fissures in the Electoral College map have the potential to further
>divide our nation.

Oh please, turn down the John Phillips Sousa for crying out loud. And lets talk. This piece is very shallow analysis and wonderfully printable polemic obviously. The issue is how unrepresentative parties gatekeep the political discourse, and this has nothing to do with any 'nation' that I can see. Any 'nation' is divided--get over it. What is at issue is whether these divisions are equitably represented. IRV would only solidify unrepresentative Democratic and Republican parties that even in this vaguely contentious election collectively pooled less than 50% of the eligible voters into the polling booth because they both are basically the same party. IRV may expand third party presence, though it would solidify Democratic and Republican parties in a 'second choice democracy' that maintains the dismal less-than-50% turnout. IRV presumes that parties compete. Dr. Anderson, what if they fail to compete? What if they use IRV as a license to stop competing entirely in the first round, and wait to coup votes on the second round, yielding even lower plurality wins in the first round as the 'winner'?

As I have said before, the Electoral College with proportional representation with a majoritarian allotment, would up the ante to 100% of the electorate being important, and make sure that third parties will have a federal voice in contentious elections against the Democrats and the Republican gatekeeping of issues. IRV lets the Democrats and the Republican continue to gatekeep the issues, and it would make third party voting only a cosmetic choice without any power sponged up by the Democrats and the Republicans. It will only rarify their election appeals. Since they are assured in the second round of IRV to win by default, they can appeal to less and less people and still win under IRV.

Furthermore, the Electoral College with proportional representation with a majoritarian allotment would preserve a sense of making it useful for a party to strategize to get over 50% of the voters, without preserving that it has to be a Democratic or the Republican party that gets the second choice votes--which is what IRV by itself would assure. In other words IRV lets Democratic and Republican parties try even less than they do to appeal to the majority and continue to get second round votes. Why would they bother? This makes the American political candidacies of these two parties even more unrepresentative than they are, if one considers that within the present framework only around 25% of the population comes to be the lowest crucial block required.

The lowest crucial block required should be at least 50%. Instead it is only 25% in a two party context without IRV. With IRV, this lowest crucial block could be even lower than 25% of the voters and still that candidate could win.

As a strategy for change, I am for IRV. However, IRV can be useful as I and others have mentioned as a way to ratchet open more party choice for other more important and more long-term changes (to demote the gerrymandered, uncompetitive, secure clientelistic districts are perhaps the underlying difficulty, as Dr. Anderson mentions).

However, IRV by itself can set up even more unrepresentative outcomes of what parties get into power because most analysis fails to analyze the informal party interaction incentives--as Dr. Anderson's piece fails to do. Removing the Electoral College basically assures that the Democratic and Republican parties shall be the only parties on the federal level. Having a proportionally representative Electoral College with a majoritarian allotment potential means that state by state, parties compete for 100% of the voters, and it means that there is a competitive party context between majoritarian parties and third/fourth parties on the federal level.

Regards,

Mark Whitaker
University of Wisconsin-Madison

link to a map of the present congressional districts of the United States

link to a map of the majoritarian districts of Wisconsin, compared to the bioregions of Wisconsin

link to www.fairvote.org, where you can see the irregular majoritarian districts. Choose 'redistricting.' This site discusses the degree to which they are uncompetitive as well, with 60+ Congressional representatives and senators 'returning' to Congress without having been challenged when they 'ran' for election. There were over 90 of them in 1996. For a sense of scale, there are only 535 members of Congress total (435 House; 100 Senate). The size of the Congress is adjusted occassionally. The House of Representatives has been at 435 since 1910. Additionally, incumbency as a phenomenon is over 90% in the United States as well. There is very little 'running' for office in the United States. Why is this so? Some of this was explained above. See the other pages for more.

other pages on the bioregional state, keep reading them in order (recommended) or

bioregional letters list

last updated: January 27, 2002 1:15 AM