Aaron Hamlin suggests Approval Voting compatible with national popular vote
Clay Shentrup
Aaron Hamlin
To make AV compatible with NPV, I've proposed that those states using AV normalize the AV totals of candidates so that they sum to the number of voters in their states. This would make these totals comparable to the plurality-vote (PV) totals of candidates in states that do not use AV in order to determine the nationwide popular-vote winner.
How one would do this with IRV is not clear. If one took the first-choice totals of candidates, this would not necessarily duplicate the PV totals, because with PV voters are less likely to be sincere, so these totals may differ substantially from the first-choice totals under IRV.
Rob Wilson
Steve Cobb
The NPV solves the winner-take-all allocation of electors, but it assumes, as does the current Electoral College, a two-party system. If three candidates got electors, none might get a majority, so election authority would move to Congress. Unlike with papal elections, the Electoral College has no repeated ballots. So how about a State Approval Vote?
1. State conducts election using approval voting (optimally)
2. State assigns its electors to the top two winners of the national vote, proportional to their approval ratio in the state vote.
The state would thus express its own collective opinion, but without “wasting” electors on a candidate who could not win in the EC. The state electoral vote would still depend on the national vote, but much less. Initially one would still see electors going only to major parties, but at least for minor parties the door would not be shut and locked. The
Ideally other states would also use approval voting, but that is not a prerequisite. The SAV could be made contingent on other states’ dropping their unit rules.
Warren D Smith
http://rangevoting.org/NPVtrainwreck.html
nobody paid attention, and/or dismissed my concerns.
--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)
William Waugh
Steve Cobb
Your NPV analysis is pretty compelling. It is difficult to believe that your objections and suggestions have not been recognized and incorporated.
In summary, NPV has two big flaws: counting votes and motivating states to join and remain in the compact. The vote-counting problem occurs when states adopt alternative voting methods—especially ordinal methods—whose results are not obviously summable across states; the solution is to define counting rules in the NPV verbiage *now* (which is unlikely, given the current low awareness of voting-method reform). The main motivation problem is that the NPV compact counts the votes of states that haven’t signed on, so why should a state join and accept the cost (committing their electors, possibly the wrong way) when they would still get the benefit? The solution is to forget the “national” part and do a Bloc Popular Vote (BPV) that takes effect immediately with no minimum number of states and counting only the votes within the member states. This is a more elegant approach, fully decoupling member from non-member states, and more likely to appeal to federalists. There could be multiple blocs, with different underlying reasons for joining. Blocs would snowball, as states would seize the opportunity to join and influence one. It would allow some early, small-scale experimentation instead of going for a big bang.
FairVote declares that NPV’s main goal is to bring non-swing states more attention during elections:
http://www.fairvote.org/reforms/national-popular-vote/
I find this implausible, and suspect ulterior motives. A non-swing state is feeling unloved, so its majority party is to purposely risk its electors just to get a little attention? Swing states might get more attention in the general election, but large states (more electors), small states, and early-primary states also get extra attention, at least in the primary. I don’t know the attention metrics, and how attention converts to real benefit for a state’s voters, but it just seems unlikely. New Hampshire gets *lots* of attention--but how much does it benefit? Do presidents tend to come from swing states? Admittedly, as of today, none of the 11 NVP signers is a swing state, but none is a red state: ALL are solid blue, ranging in size from Vermont and DC to New York and California. Perhaps they don’t get enough variety and debate in their primaries, but perhaps they have other reasons.
Another problem that you mentioned is that the electoral college’s chunking just introduces noise. Yes, but it also gives small states more power: 2/3 of states with below-average populations get more electors proportionally than they deserve. If the large states don’t like that, they are free to divide into smaller pieces.
It is my understanding that the biggest problem is the winner-take-all allocation of electors, a.k.a. the unit rule, and its main victims are a state’s citizens who don’t support the dominant party. Its secondary victims are the citizens of other states who support other parties, as well as the country itself, when the electoral college result deviates significantly from the popular vote (and in the opposite direction). The simplest of all solutions is for states to enter a compact to end the unit rule and allocate electors proportionally to their state or bloc vote; they could do this unilaterally today if their main goal truly were receiving attention. However, if electors went to more than two candidates, none might receive the majority required by the Electoral College, sending the decision immediately to Congress.
And here I remain confused: If a key goal is to make the Electoral College result reflect the national popular winner, can that be done with multiple blocs, all using the unit rule? It seems to me that the unit rule is unfair at any level, though, in the case of Nebraska and Maine, where it exists at the district level for the electors associated with congressional seats, it is easy enough for citizens to move, sorting themselves into red and blue districts.
Warren D Smith
is interesting... but are they really free to do that?
I suspect they are NOT free to do that. It is like seceding from
the union. States just are not allowed to do it (at least not on their own)
under the US constitution.
One might be allowed to do it if enough other states agreed to help allow it
to do so. I would think at least a majority vote worth of helper
states in both houses
congress, at a minimum, and perhaps a good deal more.
Steve Cobb
BTW, the US representation rate used to be constant, as the House of Representatives used to grow in size with the population, until a century ago:
http://www.thirty-thousand.org
435 representatives might sound like a lot, but tiny New Hampshire does quite well with 400.
Warren D Smith
> No one said it would (or should) be easy for states to divide, but then
> neither are the other options and issues. Precedents and modern attempts
> abound:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_partition_proposals
> "Since the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, four states have been created
>
> from parts of an existing state: Maine (from Massachusetts), West Virginia
> (from Virginia), Kentucky (also from Virginia), and Vermont (from a
> disputed territory between New York and New Hampshire)."
> Has Congress ever blocked partition?
Vermont: statehood in 1791
(US constitution came into force 1789)
West VA, formed 1863 not as a voluntary act by VA,
but rather, by the union side as a result of the civil war;
West VA was part of that side of the war, the rest of VA
was part of the confederate side.
Kentucky: I think the claim it was formed by a
split of VA in 1792, is pretty bogus. I think it is more correct to claim it
was created de novo. (I may be disputed and ignorant.)
In any case, I don't regard anything happening before 1793 as meaning
much (which also may be disputed and ignorant of me).
Maine: part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
until 1820 when it voted to secede from Massachusetts.
On March 15, 1820, it was admitted to the Union as the 23rd
state under the Missouri Compromise.
--so, note, the USA as a whole had to approve;
Maine was not allowed to do this on its own.
Maine seems to me to be the only case which means a damn thing, if
we regard the civil war and the stuff before 1793 as abnormal special cases.
Steve Cobb
> "Since the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, four states have been created
> from parts of an existing state:
--uh, really?
Aaron Hamlin
Steve Cobb
Warren D Smith
> To jump in on the majority issue, states within a compact assign their
> electoral vote to whichever candidate has the most votes. Because the
> compact requires that it have enough states sign on so that the electoral
> votes have a majority,
happens. Otherwise, there is little or no incentive to join the compact.
Clay Shentrup
--this was a strategic mistake; they should active the compact even before that happens. Otherwise, there is little or no incentive to join the compact.