This is a problem, but at least there is a defense. Assuming candidate A has more local votes than candidate B (which is pretty much a necessary condition for this to be a “problem” in the first place), then if candidate A gets enough direct out-of-district votes to reach a full quota (average-district-worth of votes) without transfers, they win, regardless of how well the anti-A voters coordinate. That’s because if two candidates both reach a full quota simultaneously (in this case, in the first tally), the tiebreaker is local votes. So in practice, candidate A’s party would need to give them about half a district-worth of out-of-district votes; perhaps they would decide not to run candidates in a few of their weakest districts, and campaign for their voters there to give their votes to A.
Still, biproportionality can give suboptimal results insofar as there are two candidates from district n who are both better/more-popular than any candidate from district m. This will happen by chance occasionally, but hopefully not too severely.
Having “leftover” statewide seats so that two candidates could win in a given number of districts would fix this problem. But some people would probably see that as unfair: “how come their district gets 2 representatives and mine only gets 1?” My feeling is that, at least in the context of proposing a system for electing the US House, it’s probably better to keep PLACE “simple” and strictly biproportional — especially because that also makes it less disruptive to incumbents.
(I’ve given you a response rather than a link because this question, while it’s one I’ve thought about, isn’t one I’ve been asked before.)
I guess that this is due to the historical fact that candidates in the US are supposed to be district-local, not state-local, and districts are supposed to be as small as possible. I’m not an American, so I cannot say how strong this is as a constraint for modified electoral systems.
If you had a small party/faction, with say 10% of popular vote, reaching up to maybe 30% in their strongest districts, then I would definitely see a problem: Such a party simply does not fit purely district-local representation (one-to-one mapping between districts and representatives). Think e.g. an environmentalist party.
If your representative chamber is more about opposing ideologies and national governance than about opposing local interests, then why not ditch this one-to-one mapping?
I mean, this works even in the EU parliament, and you can’t tell me that opposing local interests across US districts are harder than across states within EU countries? And you have a second chamber (the senate) that is explicitly about conflicting local interests.
I presume that you know how German federal elections, or European parliament elections are run; easy to google, far from perfect, but gets at least this right. I would definitely be opposed to a change to PLACE at home, for these reasons, but agree that PLACE beats FPTP by lengths.
And something that PLACE gets extremely right is to involve the general populace in the within-party selection. In Germany, only party members are allowed to vote in primaries (and members pay contributions and are expected to be activist, and parties can expel or reject prospective members). This slightly sucks; “too radical” candidates / factions are routinely squashed by the high party functionaries.
Of course this gives you an amusing game-theoretical problem in e.g. EU parliament elections: If countries were entirely free to select their voting system, they would have incentive to move to a winner-takes-all system, which strengthens the representation of their national interest. Same way you cannot get rid of your accursed winner-takes-all within states in US presidential elections, as long as states are free to design their voting systems. And, on the same lines, if you must have a winner-takes-all system, then each state should have votes roughly based on square root of population (I am yet again ashamed to be German for the way we treated the Polish, this time after they proposed the square-root for the EU council).
Yes, this is the downside of biproportionality.
This is a problem, but at least there is a defense. Assuming candidate A has more local votes than candidate B (which is pretty much a necessary condition for this to be a “problem” in the first place), then if candidate A gets enough direct out-of-district votes to reach a full quota (average-district-worth of votes) without transfers, they win, regardless of how well the anti-A voters coordinate. That’s because if two candidates both reach a full quota simultaneously (in this case, in the first tally), the tiebreaker is local votes. So in practice, candidate A’s party would need to give them about half a district-worth of out-of-district votes; perhaps they would decide not to run candidates in a few of their weakest districts, and campaign for their voters there to give their votes to A.
Still, biproportionality can give suboptimal results insofar as there are two candidates from district n who are both better/more-popular than any candidate from district m. This will happen by chance occasionally, but hopefully not too severely.
Having “leftover” statewide seats so that two candidates could win in a given number of districts would fix this problem. But some people would probably see that as unfair: “how come their district gets 2 representatives and mine only gets 1?” My feeling is that, at least in the context of proposing a system for electing the US House, it’s probably better to keep PLACE “simple” and strictly biproportional — especially because that also makes it less disruptive to incumbents.
(I’ve given you a response rather than a link because this question, while it’s one I’ve thought about, isn’t one I’ve been asked before.)
I guess that this is due to the historical fact that candidates in the US are supposed to be district-local, not state-local, and districts are supposed to be as small as possible. I’m not an American, so I cannot say how strong this is as a constraint for modified electoral systems.
If you had a small party/faction, with say 10% of popular vote, reaching up to maybe 30% in their strongest districts, then I would definitely see a problem: Such a party simply does not fit purely district-local representation (one-to-one mapping between districts and representatives). Think e.g. an environmentalist party.
If your representative chamber is more about opposing ideologies and national governance than about opposing local interests, then why not ditch this one-to-one mapping?
I mean, this works even in the EU parliament, and you can’t tell me that opposing local interests across US districts are harder than across states within EU countries? And you have a second chamber (the senate) that is explicitly about conflicting local interests.
I presume that you know how German federal elections, or European parliament elections are run; easy to google, far from perfect, but gets at least this right. I would definitely be opposed to a change to PLACE at home, for these reasons, but agree that PLACE beats FPTP by lengths.
And something that PLACE gets extremely right is to involve the general populace in the within-party selection. In Germany, only party members are allowed to vote in primaries (and members pay contributions and are expected to be activist, and parties can expel or reject prospective members). This slightly sucks; “too radical” candidates / factions are routinely squashed by the high party functionaries.
Of course this gives you an amusing game-theoretical problem in e.g. EU parliament elections: If countries were entirely free to select their voting system, they would have incentive to move to a winner-takes-all system, which strengthens the representation of their national interest. Same way you cannot get rid of your accursed winner-takes-all within states in US presidential elections, as long as states are free to design their voting systems. And, on the same lines, if you must have a winner-takes-all system, then each state should have votes roughly based on square root of population (I am yet again ashamed to be German for the way we treated the Polish, this time after they proposed the square-root for the EU council).