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Current Events » in reply to re: Oops, I fell down (& other excuses for not voting)

Decisive versus democratic.
Joe_Nietzsche — (archived)

To be clear, I do not believe the systems I mention above are perfect. Far from it, yet they meet the obligation of representation much more soundly than do our majoritarian electoral systems.

True, there is the issue of party before individual, but that is partially addressed by the “Open list” system, but perhaps not well enough. This dynamic also evokes images of pretty much every totalitarian state in the last 100 years. That being said, it is superstitious to think of party systems only in that way. Given that many of the European systems are parliamentary – presidential hybrids, in which parties play a pivotal role. Canada, and the UK are also party driven, and while the PM does have great overt power, it is tempered with a much higher degree of accountability, particularly compared to the US Presidential office.
As bit of a side note; the electoral college must go. It is nothing more than a relic from the 1700s to act as a stop gap on democratic choices the ruling, or if you prefer, the business class, disagrees with. That the college votes in line with the popular vote is purely by convention, and NOT by law. Which of course says nothing to the it’s potential for frustrating representation with just it’s more basic functioning.

Incidentally, the Senate is the effective equivalent of the House of Lords, and as such there is no need for a selectively business focused body in the house. As big business in the US fills the same general social / economic location as the gentry of 1600s England, no point in being redundant with such a powerful group. IMO.

Ultimately the point of bringing this up in a thread about gerrymandering was that representation should supersede all other considerations. Given the complications and frustrations that artificially regionalizing an electorate can have on representation, why bother with it at all? In terms of manipulation, it seems obvious that neither of the major parties in the US system is without taint, so clearly none of them should be trusted. A point on which we seem to agree.

It maybe that without the penalties of zero representation for supporting such parties as the Libs and Greenies, their backing would rise dramatically, which would more effectively meet the goal of representation in democracy (and offer some of that competition so often trumpeted as the source of quality down south). One can hope.

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