2007-12-25 03:30:05 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Elections
I Agree.
In a recent letter to Harper’s magazine, a U.S. Green Party official made a number of suggestions for reforming American elections. Among them was dumping the “winner-take-all” system of American elections and moving toward some type of proportional government.
I’ve been interested in that idea for a long time. The winner-take-all system seems to me to be counter to true democracy. Let’s say a state has a hotly contested Senate election pitting a liberal Democrat against a conservative Republican. Assume 5 million people vote on Election Day, and the Republican wins by 4,000 votes. Given the number of people who voted, that’s more or less a tie. Yet the Republican gets to go to Washington, and the voters who supported the Democrat get nothing. Nada. No meaningful representation. (Of course it cuts the other way. The 27 percent of Illinois voters who backed Alan Keyes are probably not feeling well represented by Barack Obama.)
Proportional representation does not make sense in state-wide senatorial or congressional districts. The majority vote getter wins the seat which it should be. However, the electoral college winner take all is absolutely bogus. That definitely calls for proportional representation. For every congressional district, whichever presidential candidate wins most votes should get one electoral vote. It one candidate wins the entire state by more than ten percentage points then he should get both the “senate” electoral votes. Otherwise, the “senate” electoral votes should be split. This way, the backward thinking “red” states cannot exercise disproportionate influence on the presidential elections. I strongly feel that if a detailed statistical analysis of past elections is conducted, this will show that the winner of the popular vote will almost always be the winner.
FURTHER REFERENCES:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgnews/Features/opeds/102907_keyssar.html
http://www.eyeon08.com/2007/05/11/rudy-and-winner-take-all-primaries/
2007-12-25 05:26:21 · answer #1 · answered by T E 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The voting systems are the same for both parties. Vote counts are a matter of law, not party.
2007-12-25 11:35:45 · answer #2 · answered by fangtaiyang 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not because of the way the media culture works out today
2007-12-25 13:09:45 · answer #3 · answered by Larry B 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not sure I understand this question....
2007-12-25 11:40:53 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋