Beet
Atlas Star
Posts: 28,992
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« on: February 23, 2004, 06:01:00 PM » |
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« edited: February 23, 2004, 06:05:38 PM by Beet »
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Why not get rid of Congressional districts altogether and switch to a STV (single transferable vote) system.
1. each party runs # of candidates up to the max across the state
2. cast your vote for a candidate; indicate your top 5 or so choices if you wish
3. candidates to win the top 9 seats (or however many CD's your state has) wins a Congressional seat to represent the whole state, (or unofficially whichever area/constituency he/she gained most votes from, if there is one.)
4. if your candidate doesn't need your vote to get over the election threshold, your vote goes to your #2 choice... and if your #2 choice doesn't need your vote, it goes to the #3 choice, and so on and so on.
Reasons to do this:
1. greater chance of third party candidates to get elected, because it now only needs approx. 1/9 of the statewide vote (or however many CD's your state has)
2. since 3rd parties have more of a chance, give voters more of a choice and increase voter participation and interest
3. realistically, a congressperson's constituency does not have to be focused in a certain geographic area; hog farmers could be spread across the state
4. get rid of gerrymandering
5. get rid of pork barelling
6. save state legislatures and GIS programmers a lot of time and effort that could be spent doing more productive things
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