Came up with a proportional election system today

[FUCK THE POLICE]

This is like maybe my best idea ever.



OK, the core system is range voting. Except you have N seats to fill in this election (3, 5, 100, whatever). Everybody scores all candidates from 1-100, 1-5, 0-9, whatever. Then take all the ballots, and sort them into N groups based on the similarity of their scores (using some kind of cluster analysis algorithm). Then take the range winner within each of those groups.

That's it. Actually, this is probably the simplest proportional representation system that doesn't rely on party lists. Main issue is finding the ideal cluster algorithm to judge the similarity of ballots and put them into groups, but that's a problem that can be solved. Just like the founders didn't really have any idea how to ideally apportion seats among the states when they wrote the constitution, and left it an open question.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

I would like to thank Adderall for this idea.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

There are other proportional versions of range voting like Reweighted Range Voting, which is kind of sort of based on STV. Like most PR methods before it, it relied on reducing the weight of people's ballot as more people they had selected were successfully elected. It had a huge problem, though, in that it punishes minority parties that are similiar to majority parties... let's say there's a district with five seats that uses this method, a person who prefers the Green/Libertarian party rates all five Green/Libertarian party members 10, and then gives a 7 to whatever Democrats/Republican he liked. The Democrats/Republicans would be massively more likely to be elected in the first round than the Greens/Libertarians party, and it would downweight their ballots when they were elected (by 7/10th the value of people who rated the Democrats/Republicans first, but it's still a hefty hit). In most cases such parties would get much less than a proportionate share of the seats. So the Green voter would have to choose between not rating any Democrats/Republicans, only rating Greens/Libertarians, and risking more of their ideological enemies getting elected if there aren't enough Greens/Libertarians to win one of the five seats, or rating Democrats/Republicans as well and disengenously contributing mostly to their election.

With this sorting system, that's taken care of. People who rated Greens all highly will probably be sorted into their own group of 1/5 of voters on the left end of the spectrum, probably with left-leaning Democrats. If there are enough Greens, they'll be a majority in that group and a Green will get elected. If there aren't, that group will just elected a left-leaning Democrat.

[countryboy]

This is like maybe my best idea ever.



OK, the core system is range voting. Except you have N seats to fill in this election (3, 5, 100, whatever). Everybody scores all candidates from 1-100, 1-5, 0-9, whatever. Then take all the ballots, and sort them into N groups based on the similarity of their scores (using some kind of cluster analysis algorithm). Then take the range winner within each of those groups.

That's it. Actually, this is probably the simplest proportional representation system that doesn't rely on party lists. Main issue is finding the ideal cluster algorithm to judge the similarity of ballots and put them into groups, but that's a problem that can be solved. Just like the founders didn't really have any idea how to ideally apportion seats among the states when they wrote the constitution, and left it an open question.

Don't be retarded.

[midcan5]

The video was fascinating but kinda repetitive don't you think?

and

[Jack]

What if it was a "One Man, One Vote' deal? And the person with the most votes wins?

[FUCK THE POLICE]

What if it was a "One Man, One Vote' deal? And the person with the most votes wins?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-...ing#Criticisms

Criticisms

Tactical voting

To a greater extent than many others, the first-past-the-post method encourages tactical voting. Voters have an incentive to vote for a candidate whom they predict is more likely to win, in preference to their preferred candidate who may be unlikely to win and for whom a vote could be considered as wasted.

The position is sometimes summarised, in an extreme form, as "all votes for anyone other than the runner-up are votes for the winner."[citation needed] This is because votes for these other candidates deny potential support from the second-placed candidate, who might otherwise have won. Following the extremely close 2000 U.S. presidential election, some supporters of Democratic candidate Al Gore believed that one reason he lost to Republican George W. Bush is because a portion of the electorate (2.7%) voted for Ralph Nader of the Green Party, and exit polls indicated that more of them would have preferred Gore (45%) to Bush (27%).[12] This election was ultimately determined by the results from Florida, where Bush prevailed over Gore by a margin of only 537 votes (0.009%), which was far exceeded by the 97488 (1.635%) votes for Nader.

In Puerto Rico, there has been a tendency for Independentista voters to support Populares candidates. This phenomenon is responsible for some Popular victories, even though the Estadistas have the most voters on the island, and is so widely recognised that Puerto Ricans sometimes call the Independentistas who vote for the Populares "melons", because that fruit is green on the outside but red on the inside (in reference to the party colors).

Because voters have to predict in advance who the top two candidates will be, results can be significantly distorted:

Some voters will vote based on their view of how others will vote as well, changing their originally intended vote;
Substantial power is given to the media, because some voters will believe its assertions as to who the leading contenders are likely to be. Even voters who distrust the media will know that others do believe the media, and therefore those candidates who receive the most media attention will probably be the most popular;

A new candidate with no track record, who might otherwise be supported by the majority of voters, may be considered unlikely to be one of the top two, and thus lose votes to tactical voting;
The method may promote votes against as opposed to votes for. For example, in the UK, entire campaigns have been organised with the aim of voting against the Conservative Party by voting either Labour or Liberal Democrat, depending on which is seen as best placed to win in each locality. Such behaviour is difficult to measure objectively.
Proponents of other voting methods in single-member districts argue that these would reduce the need for tactical voting and reduce the spoiler effect. Examples include preferential voting systems, such as instant runoff voting, as well as the two-round system of runoffs and less tested methods such as approval voting and Condorcet methods.

Effect on political parties


A graph showing the difference between the popular vote (inner circle) and the number of seats won by major political parties (outer circle) at the 2015 United Kingdom general election


Duverger's law is an idea in political science which says that constituencies that use first-past-the-post methods will lead to two-party systems, given enough time. Economist Jeffrey Sachs explains:

The main reason for America's majoritarian character is the electoral system for Congress. Members of Congress are elected in single-member districts according to the "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) principle, meaning that the candidate with the plurality of votes is the winner of the congressional seat. The losing party or parties win no representation at all. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two, a principle known in political science as Duverger's Law. Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections.
— from Sachs's The Price of Civilization, 2011[13]

Duverger's law is rarely seen in reality, with most first-past-the-post elections resulting in multiparty legislatures, the United States being the major exception.[14][15] There is a counter-force to Duverger's Law, that while on the national level a plurality system may encourage two parties, in the individual constituencies supermajorities will lead to the vote fracturing.[16]

Wasted votes
Wasted votes are seen as those cast for losing candidates, and for winning candidates in excess of the number required for victory. For example, in the UK general election of 2005, 52% of votes were cast for losing candidates and 18% were excess votes – a total of 70% 'wasted' votes. On this basis a large majority of votes may play no part in determining the outcome. This "winner-takes-all" system may be one of the reasons why "voter participation tends to be lower in countries with FPTP than elsewhere."[17]

Gerrymandering
Because FPTP permits many wasted votes, an election under FPTP is more easily gerrymandered. Through gerrymandering, electoral areas are designed deliberately to unfairly increase the number of seats won by one party, by redrawing the map such that one party has a small number of districts in which it has an overwhelming majority of votes, and a large number of districts where it is at a smaller disadvantage.

Manipulation charges
The presence of spoilers often gives rise to suspicions that manipulation of the slate has taken place. A spoiler may have received incentives to run. A spoiler may also drop out at the last moment, inducing charges that such an act was intended from the beginning.

Smaller parties may reduce the success of the largest similar party
Under first-past-the-post, a small party may draw votes away from a larger party that it is most similar to, and therefore give an advantage to another less similar large party.

Safe seats
First-past-the-post within geographical areas tends to deliver (particularly to larger parties) a significant number of safe seats, where a representative is sheltered from any but the most dramatic change in voting behaviour. In the UK, the Electoral Reform Society estimates that more than half the seats can be considered as safe.[18] It has been claimed that MPs involved in the 2009 expenses scandal were significantly more likely to hold a safe seat.[19][20]

However, other voting systems, notably the party-list system, can also create politicians who are relatively immune from electoral pressure.

Distorted geographical representation
The 'winner-takes-all' nature of FPTP leads to distorted patterns of representation, since party support is commonly correlated with geography. For example, in the UK the Conservative Party represents most of the rural seats, and most of the south of the country, and the Labour Party most of the cities, and most of the north. This means that even popular parties can find themselves without elected politicians in significant parts of the country, leaving their supporters (who may nevertheless be a significant minority) unrepresented.[21]

Impact on party policy and campaigning
It has been suggested that the distortions in geographical representation provide incentives for parties to ignore the interests of areas in which they are too weak to stand much chance of gaining representation, leading to governments that do not govern in the national interest. Further, during election campaigns the campaigning activity of parties tends to focus on 'marginal' seats where there is a prospect of a change in representation, leaving safer areas excluded from participation in an active campaign.[22] Political parties operate 'targeting', directing their activists and policy proposals toward those areas considered to be marginal, where each additional vote has more value.[23][24]

Voting method criteria

Condorcet loser criterion
No[27] The Condorcet loser criterion states that "if a candidate would lose a head-to-head competition against every other candidate, then that candidate must not win the overall election". First-past-the-post does not[27] meet this criterion.

Independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion
No The independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion states that "the election outcome remains the same even if a candidate who cannot win decides to run." First-past-the-post does not meet this criterion.

Independence of clones criterion
No The independence of clones criterion states that "the election outcome remains the same even if an identical candidate who is equally-preferred decides to run." First-past-the-post does not meet this criterion.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

The video was fascinating but kinda repetitive don't you think?

and

That has to be the world's longest way of saying "I'm retarded".

[FUCK THE POLICE]

Don't be retarded.

Your fentanyl wearing off? Just take some more and go back to sleep boomer.

And yes, I am mentally retarded. I have admitted that before. Please, there is no need to remind me of the obvious. I'm well aware of my immense mental deficiencies.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

AV wouldn't even be that beneficial to third parties because it's non-proportional. Here's an election conducted under AV:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austra...election,_2016

Pure chaos, let me tell you. AV is, unlike AV, not bafflingly retarded, but it is not anything like what that tard says it is.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

Anyway I'm going to write up a webapp to put my idea into practice, try to run a few mock elections and simulations in order to see if it actually does produce sensible results or if there's some massive flaw I'm not seeing.

The idea should be generalizable to Condorcet and Borda methods. Perhaps IRV as well, for an alternative to STV. It's a very general idea, just sorting people into constituencies based on similarity, which should be the key concept proportional voting.

It's not generalizable to plurality obviously because there's not enough data points, it would just reduce to SNTV as there's no real way to compare the similarity of voters based on their ballot. You could use it to make a bloc election proportional but I'm not sure why you would combine the two systems when there are better options.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

[Irish Exit]

The only problem with the system we have is that there are too few Congressional seats. In 1920, each member represented roughly 210K people. Today it is over 700K people. We, therefore, should have 1522 or so members of the house in order to keep people from being continually disenfranchised by the oligarchy. The top 1% controlling wealth is nothing. They control the Congress which is far more dangerous.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

The only problem with the system we have is that there are too few Congressional seats. In 1920, each member represented roughly 210K people. Today it is over 700K people. We, therefore, should have 1522 or so members of the house in order to keep people from being continually disenfranchised by the oligarchy. The top 1% controlling wealth is nothing. They control the Congress which is far more dangerous.

Great we can have 1522 Republicans and Democrats instead of 435. Whoopdie-fucking-doo.

[FUCK THE POLICE]

Geographical based representation is retarded... not once in my life have I ever felt represented by the inbred retarded hick representative the surrounding inbred retarded hicks, who I have absolutely nothing in common with, chose to assign to me. Can I just have the option of throwing my vote into the ether?