Hi,
I got my wall o'text up before you did:)
Now, imagine a system in which there are no Congressional Districts, and all the voters in the state vote for all the Congressmen. There are a number of ways that the voting could be done so that, on a single ballot, a voter could indicate his preferences and an order for those preferences. This would open up the potential for small parties to be better represented. The devil is, as always, in the details.
The odds of getting such changes implemented are slim. The very people who are in the best position to initiate the changes are the very people whose careers would be jeopardized. Ah, well, Jefferson was (as usual) right. Much like a carton of milk, the Constitution should have had an expiration date;)
--Pete
I got my wall o'text up before you did:)
Quote:I've thought about ways to make other parties viable in this country and can't figure one out.To solve a problem, you need to understand its causes. Consider: in our political system, in each election there can only be one winner. So, if you had multiple parties, then the biggest (i.e, the one with most members) would win. To compete, two or more of the smaller parties would need to join forces, thus becoming a single, (edit, unintentional truth) <strike>bugger</strike> bigger, party. The final effect is to generate two major parties. The hold outs would, for the most part, have no real effect on the process except when they took away enough votes from the major party closer to their viewpoint to allow the other party to win. This is called 'pissing away your vote'.
Now, imagine a system in which there are no Congressional Districts, and all the voters in the state vote for all the Congressmen. There are a number of ways that the voting could be done so that, on a single ballot, a voter could indicate his preferences and an order for those preferences. This would open up the potential for small parties to be better represented. The devil is, as always, in the details.
The odds of getting such changes implemented are slim. The very people who are in the best position to initiate the changes are the very people whose careers would be jeopardized. Ah, well, Jefferson was (as usual) right. Much like a carton of milk, the Constitution should have had an expiration date;)
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?