At 09:37 AM 2/6/2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Mathematical analyses of this issue that are not informed and >tempered by a good understanding of the issue's history and >political consequences are close to worthless, if not worse than >worthless in that they muddy the issue and are used to justify >one of the most undemocratic aspects of the U.S. political >system and the least representative legislative body of any >major nation (and possibly any nation) in the world.
There are two activities of value here: one is theoretical mathematical analysis and the other is practical, having to do with applications of election methods and, in this case, apportionment issues and their effects. The activities are independent, and it is not correct to claim that the first activity, in particular, is worthless merely because it does not currently impact the second. This list, in general, focuses on theory. If you want more focus on actual political work with Election Methods, the place to look is probably the Range Voting list on yahoogroups, which does not confine itself to Range Voting but is concerned with election and related reform in general. Now, there is no doubt but that the Senate is in some respects "undemocratic." It wasn't intended to be the representative of the "people." It was intended to lend balance, "gravitas," to be an elite institution. I'd suggest that any replacement for the Senate should ideally perform a similar function. As an example of a reform that could move the Senate toward democracy without sacrificing its elite and state-representational character, the state representation for states below a certain population could be reduced to a single Senator. But, still, the Senate is vulnerable to shifts in the majority, just like the House. Some kind of proportional representation could be more stable. (When you have representation by district, elected by majority vote within each district, a small shift in which party holds the majority can create a drastic shift in party representation. This would seem to be undesirable if gravitas is what we want.) I'd suggest, in fact, Asset Voting with the Senate being elected nation-wide. Asset Voting for PR has the benefit that no vote need be wasted. You end up with a Senator who either you picked, or someone you picked, picked. And you know exactly who your Senator is. And quite likely your Senator would be based relatively close to you, unless you find yourself affiliating with some group that is thinly spread about the nation, in which case all of you could share one Senator. Asset, if the candidates use vote transfers by precinct, essentially is districting-on-the-fly; that is, a Senator could generally represent a set of precincts geographically contiguous, but would not be limited to that. Personally, I don't understand all the fuss about more fixed PR methods when Asset is such a brilliant solution, one which Warren should more frequently take credit for. (His Asset Voting is more complex than what I generally proposed, which is Fractional Approval Asset Voting, where the ballot is essentially an Approval ballot, but, because no vote is wasted, unlike standard Approval single-winner, the votes are divided by the number of approved candidates on the ballot. I think most voters would pick just one and leave it at that.) ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
