
Fair Representation Act (HR 3057) - 0x45696e6172
http://www.fairvote.org/fair_rep_in_congress
======
pmorici
I don't buy the argument that "the system is fundamentally broken" because the
political divisions of our times are some how uniquely worse than at any other
point in US history. If you go read books like "A People's History of the
United States" or other historical accounts that go beyond the typical 8th
grade / high school US history you will find a lot of examples of when things
were as bad as they are today or arguably much worse. The whole rural vs urban
interests clash isn't even a new phenomenon that goes back to the beginning of
the United States.

That's not to say that the system of government could never be improved but if
your argument starts out with a premise that doesn't really seem true I
question whether the whole idea isn't a little half baked.

~~~
vowelless
> I don't buy the argument that "the system is fundamentally broken"

This animation visualizes the increasing partisan nature of Congress over the
last 60 years:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEczkhfLwqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEczkhfLwqM)

So the trend does not seem to be ideal here.

It seems like the proposed act will directly impact this increasing split.

More details:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stu...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning-
visualization-of-our-divided-congress/)

~~~
boona
> This animation visualizes the increasing partisan nature of Congress over
> the last 60 years

I've worked in government, and when we were asked to generate reports, there
was a conclusion that they wanted to draw and they were looking for data to
back it. If you ever hear something like "during the Carter era" it's likely
because that's the only time the data showed what we wanted to make a point.

In this case, I would need to see why they chose 60 years rather than say 100
years. 60 seems like an arbitrary number that needs to be investigated. They
may be right, but having read their pitch, there are a bunch of red flags that
scream that this is ideologically driven rather than actually being "fair".

I'd be interested if someone did a deeper analysis.

~~~
haltingthoughts
You can look up DW nominate scores from since late 1800s and you'll see the
rise since 1975

[https://legacy.voteview.com/Political_Polarization_2014.htm](https://legacy.voteview.com/Political_Polarization_2014.htm)

~~~
gmiller123456
There's an xkcd that used the same data to produce a graph since the
beginning: [https://xkcd.com/1127/](https://xkcd.com/1127/)

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mc32
My horse in the race did not win. It wasn't HRC. However the feeling I get is
a lot of her voters are in disbelief she lost and can't understand the
opponent having won. It feels as if they felt entitled to a result that didn't
pan out. If HRC had won, we would not be seeing these calls for reform gain
attention.

That said, gerrymandering has two effects, one negative, one positive. On the
negative side, there is little competition, on the positive side, the vast
majority are happy with the result. Moreso than that of a 51:49 split.

If you ask me competition is healthy, if I look at the previous election,
people don't like close elections.

~~~
maxerickson
Gerrymanding also gets used to deny the majority representation, it doesn't
just get used to make safe seats.

(Take an outcome matching the rightmost example at the top of this article:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/01/this-
is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/) )

edit: Actually, no need to say "majority" above, the 2 rightmost examples end
up with people being denied representation.

~~~
mc32
What's the frequency of the "red wins" scenario? versus typical
gerrymandering?

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whatupmd
I guess this is mainly about Ranked Choice voting.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-
runoff_voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)

"The Fair Representation Act (HR 3057) gives voters of all backgrounds and all
political stripes the power to elect House Members who reflect their views and
will work constructively with others in Congress."

What incentive is there to "work constructively with others" in this system?

~~~
brianolson
Instant Runoff Voting is severely flawed. It can solve basic problems like the
Bush-Gore-Nader election where Nader voters probably would have preferred
Gore, but it can also get the wrong answer and has in a real world election in
2009 in Burlington, VT:
[http://bolson.org/~bolson/2009/20090303_burlington_vt_mayor....](http://bolson.org/~bolson/2009/20090303_burlington_vt_mayor.html)

~~~
matthewowen
I find this example kinda 'eh'. FPTP also elects a 'wrong' winner, and it's
not clear to me that the IRV is substantially wronger.

I agree that there's probably a better way, but I fear that it could be at the
cost of either ease of use or methodological clarity. Ranking candidates is
relatively intuitive, and so is sequential elimination with votes reassigned
to the next preference.

I recognize that you could transform the rankings people provide into head to
head match up, but if the methodology is too opaque to the layperson, it's
going to breed distrust in the system, and I fear that that would be overall
worse (if it discourages participation) than having a minority of elections be
won by the 'wrong' candidate versus better approaches.

I recognize that this could also be an argument in favor of FPTP. I do think
there's a continuum here of conceptual difficulty, and I think finding the
sweet spot of correctness vs intuitiveness is tricky.

~~~
brianolson
IRV is less wrong than pick-one; but more wrong than a dozen other election
algorithms. If you want to read about one, read about Condorcet.

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tptacek
Doesn't the Constitution afford the states the prerogative to decide how to
allocate their representatives? Would a federal law imposing this structure be
constitutional?

~~~
snuxoll
Section 4 of the US constitution, the federal congress is allowed to make
regulations on how elections are handled that supersede the states - the only
exception is the places which elections are held, that power rests fully with
the state itself.

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twobyfour
This would make some progress towards fixing one of the biggest problems with
our winner takes all electoral system.

No way this actually passes, though, since it's against the interests of most
congresscritters - whose seats in their own gerrymandered districts are safe,
even if it puts their party at a disadvantage.

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realcoopernurse
Looks like this implements multi-member districts elected via STV, similar to
the system used in Republic of Ireland to elect members of the Dáil.

Overall I think this is better than single member districts with plurality
voting, but IMHO there are simpler reforms that offer better mathematical
properties.

MMP [1] (used in Germany, New Zealand) ensures proportional representation and
still allows for small geographic-based districts. The overhang allocation
mitigates the incentive for gerrymandering. A minor but significant
enhancement would be to use approval voting instance of plurality to elect the
single winner district MPs.

RRV [2] (not implemented anywhere I'm aware of) is similar to STV in that it
uses multi-member districts, but uses a simpler range ballot (think amazon 1-5
'star' ratings for candidates) rather than a ranked ballot.

The Center for Election Science [3] has some very good resources on this
general topic. Electoral reform is a terribly important issue that is very
difficult to make progress on. My hope is that we start to see some reforms at
the state and local levels that can provide indication that these reforms are
legitimate and are not being done to game the vote.

Speaking of, "Gaming the Vote" [4] is a really good book on this subject.

I think reforms like HR 3057 are well intended but I think it's too early to
attempt this at the federal level. Voters in the US have very little context
for electoral reform and it's an issue that tends to (perhaps legitimately)
cause people to be suspicious.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-
member_proportional_repr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-
member_proportional_representation) [2]
[http://rangevoting.org/RRV.html](http://rangevoting.org/RRV.html) [3]
[https://www.electology.org/](https://www.electology.org/) [4]
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K154R0/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K154R0/)

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AdrianB1
The problem definition is so wrong, the solution does not bring any real
improvement. There are many problems with the government system, but the
election part is not the root cause of the problems and it will solve almost
nothing. As people learned how democracy works and they are already
manipulating it, what good will do minor patching? How it makes it better for
a system where incompetent people vote for everyone else, where the vote of
someone that have certain beliefs will eventually make it mandatory by law to
do things that I don't want, that others can decide by vote how I can and
should live my life? Solve this, don't waste time and energy on distractions.

~~~
nine_k
Do you want a secession? Because this is how you can get things to a
secession. The law of the land applies to everyone, and the only way to have a
law applicable equally to two groups with conflicting interests is to force
one or both of them to sometimes do things they don't want.

A half-way solution is a confederation, Switzerland-style. Weak central
government, large variation in laws between cantons. Good luck trying to pull
power back from a central government, and make people of California agree that
people of Alabama should be allowed to live according to their [add derogatory
terms] principles, and vice versa.

~~~
AdrianB1
A possible solution is to reduce the surface of what can be imposed by law, so
that what people vote can affect less the people around them. This can be done
by more and stronger liberties (not rights, that's a different story). But
even this one is far from enough. I am not thinking of any secession, that
would solve nothing.

~~~
nine_k
You want fewer things regulated by law? It's a fail goal, but you will face a
huge number of "think of the children (elderly, environment, etc)" type of
legislation, completely well-intentioned.

One of the problems with democracy is that governing a state is a job that
should require certain qualification, experience, etc, but voting does not
require any of this. Presumably the elected officials should be the
experienced, reasonable people good at governing the state and making the
least harmful compromises. But it's only a presumption. (Authoritarian
governments are usually no better in this regard, too.)

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redm
I don't think the problem is districts. Governance in the US works through
compromise. The hyper-partisan environment is caused by bases pushing
representatives apart and not allowing for understanding. To make matters
worse, a tiny percentage of voters are educated on the issues in a meaningful
way. They are educated in soundbites though which exacerbates the issue. A
representative democracy can't function with the representatives being
accosted at every turn (either democrat or republican).

~~~
masklinn
> I don't think the problem is districts.

Districts, and more specifically FPTP single-member constituencies are a huge
part of the issue, they're a large reason for the bipolarisation endemic to
the US (for both voters and candidates) since they promote, nay, can only
result a 2-party system in which voters and representatives have to align or
be ignored entirely.

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baron816
I think this is a good solution. It is going to take a while for people to
accept it though. It's been clear to me that most Americans think our version
of democracy is the only possible version of democracy, and that anything else
would lead to tyranny. Or that our Constitution is perfect and we're just
using it wrong. People hate our government, so it's strange that they love the
document that makes it the way it is. I think we should change the
Constitution or write a new one, but I know that's hard, so this FRA is
probably more practical than my solution.

I hope people will soon recognize that they're not going to get major change
in the way government operates just by changing the people who get elected. We
need to change HOW people get elected.

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tdeck
Ranked choice voting is still fundamentally flawed [1]. Voters will be
incentivized to vote strategically in this system rather than according to
their preference, just as they do now.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem)

~~~
brianolson
Arrow's theorem says there isn't a 'perfect' method given Arrow's constraints.
There are still good and better systems. Our current 'pick one' ballots are
pathetically weak and real improvements could be made.

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jliptzin
Need to just somehow create a new country with better election procedures from
the start. This will never pass in our existing system.

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jasode
Has "ranked choice voting" been extensively studied in game theory? Is it the
consensus that RCV is the voting system with the least number of drawbacks?

~~~
snuxoll
Range voting seems to have the least drawbacks from an actual political
science view, but its complexity makes a hand counted audit rather challenging
when you don't want to trust anything electronic with counting votes.

~~~
moultano
For that reason I prefer approval voting (as well as how simple it is to
explain) but I'm happy to get behind any change that has momentum. We have the
worst possible system right now, so any movement is good.

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shmerl
The electoral college also should be replaced with popular vote.

