Proportional representation

[dg4ever]

I would definitely support proportional representation but I think the ideal system for the USA is a mixed system. I would favor either 4 regions or 9 regions where each state is included. National allocations wouldn't be good because I bet any of the major parties would have to put a threshold like 5% of the vote to qualify for seats. This is what I think: major parties wouldn't support a parallel mixed system and third parties would support a compensatory mixed system. So, why not have a semi-proportional mixed system? I favor a multi-tier system where you vote once but your vote counts more than once like in Denmark, Sweden or other countries. I would use a preferential IRV ballot where you rank at least 2 or 3 candidates (I favor a fill-in-the-oval style) and candidates need to get 50% +1 of the votes to win the single-member districts.

I don't like party lists but I do favor parties fielding 2 or 3 candidates per district. They can run just like the district candidate but can't go on to win the seat and they transfer their 1st choices. This would give candidates exposure. An at-large candidate can run in 2 or half the districts within the super-district (this could apply to a district candidate but it can run in only 2 districts). I like transferring the votes of a winner instead of excluding them because smaller parties would get a disproportional share of the votes and seats. If you transfer the winner's 1st choices, I think it should be semi-transferrable: a candidate wins x% of the 1st choice vote and is elected, the % of votes that go to the next party candidate would be x% of vote*x% of vote= x% party vote. So if it won 45% then the % of votes that stay is 20.25%. The remaining 1st votes are transferred to each voter's 2nd choice (if a voter ranked an at-large candidate 2nd, then it would count towards the at-large candidate's number of votes). So, voters would have the 1st round as a semi-primary since I favor having only 1 candidate per party to stay and have the votes of the at-large candidates to be transferred to each voter's 2nd choices. If a voter ranked an at-large candidate as 2nd choice, it would go to that candidate's party. There are several ideas I still have to get out of my head but what do you think?