Yglesias cites research to knock down the idea that open primaries would get rid of polarization:
Primary challenges are rare, and turnout in primaries is low. Those reasons, it seems to me, explain why primary system dynamics in practice have few consequences for political outcomes. I think the reform that anti-polarizers are looking for is multiple member House constituencies so that we’d have one or two Republicans from New York City, a smallish block of white southern Democrats, a conservative Mexican-American from Texas, etc. Then I think you might find that voting patterns became a bit less systematically correlated.
However, he misses something big. Multi-member alone doesn't do it, you also need a voting system that doesn't work off a simple plurality vote. As the thesis of Flores over at Fair Vote notes:
Simply put, multimember districts, even when fairly drawn, can still dilute minority voting strength. This is due to the fact that a bare plurality could potentially determine the gamut of Representatives for the region, gaining a disproportionate share of political power. Minorities may once again be left without representation, especially when their interests differ sharply from the majority. Therefore, multimember systems can be strikingly similar to at-large elections, as both share the same unsatisfactory sweep tendency.
In the past, Yglesias had correctly noted that single-transferable vote would do the job. The tranferable vote makes it safer to vote for your preferred candidate by transfering your vote to a second-best option if your ideal candidate loses in early rounds; similarly 'excess' votes for candidates elected in early rounds can be transferred. And here I will add a slight caveat to the title, single transferable vote isn't the only way to go proportional, it's just a solid proven method.
For a practical example, look at Maryland's House of Delegates, which elects candidates in three member districts. However, Maryland generally uses block voting which "is not a system for obtaining proportional representation; instead, the usual result is that the largest single group wins every seat by electing a slate of candidates, resulting in a landslide." Under a proportional system Maryland's House of Delegates would probably have more Republicans elected from the Democratic strongholds and I suspect we'd also see more realistic challenges to the Democratic party from the third parties to the left. [The third party element would add a wild card in terms of polarization, however since we're still talking about districts the system would still have a noteable cut off in terms of popular support needed to get more than a handful of seats unless they were organized on a regional basis. An actual Tea Partybased in the south east might happen, but in turn politicians like Indiana's Sen. Lugar would have an easier time of it in the rest of the country.]
Recent Comments