Some interesting issues are raised here:
“The United States is currently experiencing the least competitive congressional elections in our nation's history, with nearly 99 percent incumbent re-election rates in every election since 1996. For years FairVote has drawn attention to the problem of lack of voter choice in our congressional elections. But some of the key players interested in reform skipped over the parts of our analysis that didn't fit in with their view of what is politically practical. From our argument that the political geography of elections is the most important factor for determining winners and victory margins, they concluded that the problem could be fixed through establishing independent commissions to draw legislative districting lines. They failed to grasp that the problem of lopsided districts is largely rooted in the use of winner-take-all elections in the red and blue partisan divide that defines most of our nation.”“We see evidence of the power of winner-take-all in how the parties target their campaigns in both presidential and congressional races. Because winner-take-all rules mean that 51 percent of voters will win 100 percent of representation, winning 40 percent of the vote is essentially meaningless for affecting representation. That makes a district or state an irrelevant sideshow if seen as having a clear partisan tilt.”“In contrast, most modern democracies use proportional voting methods in “super districts” with more than one representative. In a five-seat super district, 60 percent of voters would elect a majority of three seats, but 40 percent of voters would win two and 20 percent would win one seat. Proportional systems overseas typically are based on voting for parties, but others— including the cumulative voting system used in American cities like Amarillo, Texas and Peoria, Ill. and the choice voting system used in Cambridge, Mass.—allow voters to choose among individual candidates. If such proportional systems were used for congressional and state legislative elections, voters would have real choices among candidates within parties as well as between different parties. They could define their representation in every election no matter where they lived.”“Winner-take-all gives huge power over representation to whoever draws the district lines. Just changing who draws district lines means taking the power over determining most people's representation from one set of political elites and giving it to another— a change unlikely to get voters very excited. We should instead give that power to voters with proportional voting methods.”What we think voters will really get excited about is having a chance to vote for more moderate candidates, rather than just candidates from the Far Right or Far Left in these non-competitive districts.
Non-competitive races are breeding grounds for candidates on the Far Right and the Far Left. The candidates in these races concentrate only on the primary election and not the general election since once they win the primary, by definition, “non-competitive” race candidates will have little to no competition in the general election.
To win the primary race, candidates focus on the hard-core base and the extreme wings of their respective parties as these voters constitute a majority of their party and have the highest turnout rates. To win these votes, candidates will then tend to alter their positions and promises to gain the votes of these Far Right and Far Left voters.
What would generate more moderate candidates in the general election is to allow Independents, who are mostly moderates, to vote in the primary, thus increasing the odds of moderate candidates winning.
We are always interested in your thoughts and ideas. Write us at
blog@moderatevoters.org.
"Moderate" is not a 4-letter word!
