Bravo! I teach public choice economics at the University of Virginia, Wise campus. We spend a week thinking about voting and and its foibles. Rank-order, instant-run-off voting is staunchly resisted by both political parties. Why? You and I know why; it's because the primary system keeps power where the politicians want it.
Will any reform overthrow Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy? That is doubtful. Also, reform doesn’t mean we will get good ideas. Libertarianism seems to be the better long-term solution rather than romantic ideas about democracy.
So let me tell you about my Chartertopia legislature.
1. Every district elects the top three winners. They each cast as many votes in the legislature as they won in the election. I call this proxying.
2. Every voter can submit the name of any voter, including themselves. One name is drawn at random, and presuming they agree, they become a fourth legislator, the amateur, who proxies all remaining votes.
ETA: There are no primaries, just this one election.
This has several results.
1. It makes fraud much less tempting, since a close winner-takes-all election can be flipped by stuffing just a few votes. All it will do here is change a few proxies, possibly switch 3rd place and give the amateur a few more votes.
2. It encourages voting even in a heavily partisan district where the minority candidate has almost no chance of winning.
3. Every representative really does represent those who voted for him, and nobody else. The amateur doesn't, and odds are he voted for one of the winners. But at least those who did not vote for one of the winners are represented by a non-professional politician who is beholden to nobody and probably feels a lot freer to ask embarrassing questions in committee hearings.
4. It makes life really hard for pundits, pollsters, and vote-trading legislators.
Consider 100,000 voters divided as follows:
1st, Party A: 50,000
2nd, Party B: 15,100
3rd, Party A: 14,900
Amateur: 20,000 (from many different independents)
Stuffing an additional 201 ballots for 3rd place candidate A merely switches 2nd and 3rd; it barely matters. If the bulk of the amateur's votes came from 14800 votes for another Party B candidate, adding 101 votes would be significant for both parties only if the amateur favored Party B; but that's unlikely, given Party A's majority.
Chartertopia has other changes, but that's a different story.
Let's assume 800000 citizens and 600000 potential voters per house district, 2.5% vote in in primaries, or 15000. 51% of that is 7650.
To me, the real implication is that if you can get a group of like 5000 people in one district to vote as a bloc, then you can control the district. 5000 is less that 7650, but realistically, lots of primary voters are low information and vote at random, so you don't need the full 7650. What is important is that your candidate doesn't arouse fierce opposition, thus raising turnout above 2.5% or driving off low information random primary voters. Or just get 7650 in the group.
There are plenty of churches and other group with strong leadership with 5000 or 7650 in a single small area, who could realistically promise to deliver that number of votes, perhaps proved by a box with 5000/7650 small donor checks of $1 each.
Great explanation and lots of information to back it up. From Canada so our system is different. More competitive and lower cost. We would still benefit from ranked voting. Thanks for your effort!
If the normies don't participate in local party politics, especially in the majority party politics of safe districts, we don't get normies representatives. So swallow hard and register for the party of no choice and pick the least unpalatable, viable primary candidates!
Utah is an interesting case. We now have both a caucus-convention system that reinforces the extreme even more, and a signature path to a primary ballot. In 2024, primary voters overruled the party convention's more MAGA choices in some races. Still, we don't see primary challenges often and off-year elections have very low participation. Frankly, I'm not sure Mitt Romney might not have won re-election if he had stayed in, even against the state party's wishes.
This is a very important and valid post, especially for those of us who are not too near the political science domain of study or deep interest. I will be forwarding it to my email distribution as something we should all be more aware of as our current political reality vs. our nominal grade school educational expectations. [I don't normally get very much feedback from that group, but if they have anything (not too profane) to say, I may report it back here. :-)]
I still am not sure how you got your 2.5% numbers, but I do understand the idea of it being a very dedicated and active small fraction of a relatively small fraction.
Your discussion raises the thought that while there are pros and cons to instituting term limits, perhaps increasing the number of contests that are competitive is one reason to implement them?
[I have some other thoughts on term limits, but will refrain from going OT.]
But its what goes on in the 4 years bw voting in the Congress that actually counts in the end. And when the voting is straight down Party lines we can see its who runs the DNC or the GOP who is driving Policy and voting. Then there is CFR Bilderberg Trilateral Commission Club of Rome etc Multinationals that formulate policy.
Then you have executive orders from the Whitehouse and Bureacrats regulating and mandating.
Obviously, elected Congresspersons have far more power than individual voters, but each elected Congresspersons needs to keep the share of the 1% in their district reasonably happy or they will get primaried.
Congressional legislation is far more powerful than executive orders. What we are seeing now from Trump in terms of executive orders is unprecedented. Yes, bureaucrats have an awful lot of discretion in how they implement Congressional legislation.
So really the Political show is just that a show to keep the talking heads talking and everyone arguing while behind the curtain real decisions are made
My previous (2022) election for House rep shows that. A previously purple disctrict turned high red with reapportionment by the legislature. So the Dem incumbant bowed out knowing they would not win. Then 12 Repub candidates expressed interest, wittled down to 8 real candidates during the primary. My favored candidate got 22% and the winner got 38%, with the rest in the sub-10 range. Now, that winner seems to be a good conservative and a pretty good rep overall, but he could also just end up being a back bencher waiting to move up the power hierachy since he can probably avoid a challenger for the next few elections.
#11 is the reason I favor ranked choice voting. It is the simplest process change that could yield the largest result.
Of course, I think democracy is pretty overrated anyway (for many of the reasons you articulate here) so my preferences on voting systems don't mean much.
As for democracy, it is probably the second-worst form of governance, with all the rest being the worst. Democracy is not about implementing the people’s will. It is to ensure peaceful transition away from bad leaders.
Is that another way of saying "let's keep the (common) people from being bamboozled by a charismatic tyrant"?
Or maybe to allow the people's will to be fully expressed so wiser heads can evaluate it on their behalf and offer reasoning to scuttle it or compromises that partially achieve it? I suspect part of the reason for Trump's election was the disfavor of too many people with the Leftist/ elite program and that the peoples' views were being ignored.
On RCV, there is something about it that does not sit right with me, but I can't quite put my finger on what my issue is. Perhaps it merely depends on the set of candidates on offer for any given election.
If (on a scale of personal preference) my first choice is an 80, the 2nd a 75, and the 3rd a 40; that is rather different than if my first choice is an 80, the 2nd is a 40, and the 3rd is a 15. If the main argument for RCV is to avoid a run off election, I consider that a weak reed to justify it, vs. the possible misallocation of overall or final voter preferences.
If we have "first past the post - winner takes all" rules, then I would prefer the winner show a majority rather than only a plurality. [See my comment on the 2022 election].
Bravo! I teach public choice economics at the University of Virginia, Wise campus. We spend a week thinking about voting and and its foibles. Rank-order, instant-run-off voting is staunchly resisted by both political parties. Why? You and I know why; it's because the primary system keeps power where the politicians want it.
Will any reform overthrow Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy? That is doubtful. Also, reform doesn’t mean we will get good ideas. Libertarianism seems to be the better long-term solution rather than romantic ideas about democracy.
So let me tell you about my Chartertopia legislature.
1. Every district elects the top three winners. They each cast as many votes in the legislature as they won in the election. I call this proxying.
2. Every voter can submit the name of any voter, including themselves. One name is drawn at random, and presuming they agree, they become a fourth legislator, the amateur, who proxies all remaining votes.
ETA: There are no primaries, just this one election.
This has several results.
1. It makes fraud much less tempting, since a close winner-takes-all election can be flipped by stuffing just a few votes. All it will do here is change a few proxies, possibly switch 3rd place and give the amateur a few more votes.
2. It encourages voting even in a heavily partisan district where the minority candidate has almost no chance of winning.
3. Every representative really does represent those who voted for him, and nobody else. The amateur doesn't, and odds are he voted for one of the winners. But at least those who did not vote for one of the winners are represented by a non-professional politician who is beholden to nobody and probably feels a lot freer to ask embarrassing questions in committee hearings.
4. It makes life really hard for pundits, pollsters, and vote-trading legislators.
Consider 100,000 voters divided as follows:
1st, Party A: 50,000
2nd, Party B: 15,100
3rd, Party A: 14,900
Amateur: 20,000 (from many different independents)
Stuffing an additional 201 ballots for 3rd place candidate A merely switches 2nd and 3rd; it barely matters. If the bulk of the amateur's votes came from 14800 votes for another Party B candidate, adding 101 votes would be significant for both parties only if the amateur favored Party B; but that's unlikely, given Party A's majority.
Chartertopia has other changes, but that's a different story.
Let’s keep your comments to a reasonable length. Better yet, write a Substack article and include the link.
Let's assume 800000 citizens and 600000 potential voters per house district, 2.5% vote in in primaries, or 15000. 51% of that is 7650.
To me, the real implication is that if you can get a group of like 5000 people in one district to vote as a bloc, then you can control the district. 5000 is less that 7650, but realistically, lots of primary voters are low information and vote at random, so you don't need the full 7650. What is important is that your candidate doesn't arouse fierce opposition, thus raising turnout above 2.5% or driving off low information random primary voters. Or just get 7650 in the group.
There are plenty of churches and other group with strong leadership with 5000 or 7650 in a single small area, who could realistically promise to deliver that number of votes, perhaps proved by a box with 5000/7650 small donor checks of $1 each.
Great explanation and lots of information to back it up. From Canada so our system is different. More competitive and lower cost. We would still benefit from ranked voting. Thanks for your effort!
Good article!
If the normies don't participate in local party politics, especially in the majority party politics of safe districts, we don't get normies representatives. So swallow hard and register for the party of no choice and pick the least unpalatable, viable primary candidates!
Utah is an interesting case. We now have both a caucus-convention system that reinforces the extreme even more, and a signature path to a primary ballot. In 2024, primary voters overruled the party convention's more MAGA choices in some races. Still, we don't see primary challenges often and off-year elections have very low participation. Frankly, I'm not sure Mitt Romney might not have won re-election if he had stayed in, even against the state party's wishes.
This is a very important and valid post, especially for those of us who are not too near the political science domain of study or deep interest. I will be forwarding it to my email distribution as something we should all be more aware of as our current political reality vs. our nominal grade school educational expectations. [I don't normally get very much feedback from that group, but if they have anything (not too profane) to say, I may report it back here. :-)]
I still am not sure how you got your 2.5% numbers, but I do understand the idea of it being a very dedicated and active small fraction of a relatively small fraction.
Your discussion raises the thought that while there are pros and cons to instituting term limits, perhaps increasing the number of contests that are competitive is one reason to implement them?
[I have some other thoughts on term limits, but will refrain from going OT.]
But its what goes on in the 4 years bw voting in the Congress that actually counts in the end. And when the voting is straight down Party lines we can see its who runs the DNC or the GOP who is driving Policy and voting. Then there is CFR Bilderberg Trilateral Commission Club of Rome etc Multinationals that formulate policy.
Then you have executive orders from the Whitehouse and Bureacrats regulating and mandating.
Obviously, elected Congresspersons have far more power than individual voters, but each elected Congresspersons needs to keep the share of the 1% in their district reasonably happy or they will get primaried.
Congressional legislation is far more powerful than executive orders. What we are seeing now from Trump in terms of executive orders is unprecedented. Yes, bureaucrats have an awful lot of discretion in how they implement Congressional legislation.
So really the Political show is just that a show to keep the talking heads talking and everyone arguing while behind the curtain real decisions are made
No, primaries for the dominant party really matter, particularly when there is an Open seat.
My previous (2022) election for House rep shows that. A previously purple disctrict turned high red with reapportionment by the legislature. So the Dem incumbant bowed out knowing they would not win. Then 12 Repub candidates expressed interest, wittled down to 8 real candidates during the primary. My favored candidate got 22% and the winner got 38%, with the rest in the sub-10 range. Now, that winner seems to be a good conservative and a pretty good rep overall, but he could also just end up being a back bencher waiting to move up the power hierachy since he can probably avoid a challenger for the next few elections.
#11 is the reason I favor ranked choice voting. It is the simplest process change that could yield the largest result.
Of course, I think democracy is pretty overrated anyway (for many of the reasons you articulate here) so my preferences on voting systems don't mean much.
Yes, I also prefer ranked-choice voting:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/to-reform-our-policy-we-must-first
As for democracy, it is probably the second-worst form of governance, with all the rest being the worst. Democracy is not about implementing the people’s will. It is to ensure peaceful transition away from bad leaders.
Is that another way of saying "let's keep the (common) people from being bamboozled by a charismatic tyrant"?
Or maybe to allow the people's will to be fully expressed so wiser heads can evaluate it on their behalf and offer reasoning to scuttle it or compromises that partially achieve it? I suspect part of the reason for Trump's election was the disfavor of too many people with the Leftist/ elite program and that the peoples' views were being ignored.
On RCV, there is something about it that does not sit right with me, but I can't quite put my finger on what my issue is. Perhaps it merely depends on the set of candidates on offer for any given election.
If (on a scale of personal preference) my first choice is an 80, the 2nd a 75, and the 3rd a 40; that is rather different than if my first choice is an 80, the 2nd is a 40, and the 3rd is a 15. If the main argument for RCV is to avoid a run off election, I consider that a weak reed to justify it, vs. the possible misallocation of overall or final voter preferences.
If we have "first past the post - winner takes all" rules, then I would prefer the winner show a majority rather than only a plurality. [See my comment on the 2022 election].