There are some. Not many but some. They would be shredded by both sides and be unelectable though.

Look Out Below said:

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There are some. Not many but some. They would be shredded by both sides and be unelectable though.

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some what? some people?

that's not a solution as every body (not every person, every institution) is political and every person becomes political in the system. The bipartisan nature of it (which isn't changing) ensures it continues.

so... there is no solution that is non partisan. It's a futile discussion. Just pie in the sky fantasy world stuff.

And no offense but that's the people that get run over and eaten alive by the system - see Lord of the Flies. You are either the bigguns or the littluns. Pacifists adapt or die.

There's a growing portion of the population that doesn't like either party. That would be a good start.

Look Out Below said:

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There's a growing portion of the population that doesn't like either party. That would be a good start.

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Sure and they are gonna vote for what?????.... a third party that doesn't win a seat anywhere.

Great plan.

I've been hearing about this dissatisfaction and growing number of people that are going independent or whatever since about.....ohhhh 1984.

Zombie Jon Snow said:

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Look Out Below said:

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There's a growing portion of the population that doesn't like either party. That would be a good start.

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Sure and they are gonna vote for what?????.... a third party that doesn't win a seat anywhere.

Great plan.

I've been hearing about this dissatisfaction and growing number of people that are going independent or whatever since about.....ohhhh 1984.

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The only things in the middle of the roads are yellow stripes, dead armadillos ,and Libertarians

I agree with Ship's take here. Let the left cry about it. Full steam ahead:

The Dems have used partisan redistricting to keep within 5 seats in the House. Without the changes made to NY, Calif, and Illiois, they would be -15 or more in the House.

The GOP has 3-4 red states where there has not been partisan redistricting. Those states are probably good…

— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) August 5, 2025

schmellba99 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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Quote:

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It's not oikophobic (yes, I admit I had to look up the definition) to point out when your country does a dumb thing.

Are you one of those people who thinks that car-dependent suburbia is wonderful, and that it's "communist" to want restaurants to pay their waiters like other employees instead of demanding tips?

---

Are you one of those people that think public transportation-dependent urban living is wonderful as opposed to the car-dependent suburbia?

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I'd rather be able to just walk to most places I need to go. As I did when I was a college undergrad.

And now that my mother has health issues that increasingly make it more difficult for her to drive -- thank God that she happens to live within a few blocks of a major commercial street, where she can (and regularly does) walk to the nearby Dollar General to buy essentials.

The only advantage I see in suburbia is getting away from certain urban demographics.

But this is getting off-topic.

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Then move somewhere you can do that. Amazing how that would fix your problems.

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After my parents die and I have no reason to stay in Greater Houston, I may just do that.

schmellba99 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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Get Off My Lawn said:

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Dan Carlin said:

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Gerrymandering is as old as the republic but that does not mean it is a sustainable path forward. Voting directly for parties like parliamentary systems do, instead of being segmented by house district, would be more representative. At this point though I would put greater odds on the end of the republic than for responsible actors in each party to reassert control.

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Everyone hates gerrymandering, but nobody has a better alternative. As mentioned before: there are myriad interests beyond red v blue. And if you vote purely for the party you lose even the tenuous connection you have with your representative as well as any ability to primary an turd.

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Except that pretty much every other country in the world that has legislative elections does have a better alternative. And if you're worried about party-list systems breaking your connection to a specific representative, that's an already-solved problem too:

• Open list systems allow a voter to vote for a specific candidate within their chosen party.
• Mixed-member proportional representation, as in Germany, combines district representatives with party-list representatives.
• Single transferable vote uses ranked ballots, and doesn't require parties to exist at all.
• Or, if you insist on single-member districts, those can be drawn by a non-partisan commission or by an algorithmic method (e.g., shortest splitline).

You're being willfully ignorant here.

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There is no world where a ranked ballot system is anything but the worst system, except outside of totalitarian regimes where assemblies are hand picked by the dictator.

Ranked ballot system is a sure fire way to get the worst candidates elected.

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Do you have any actual evidence for that?

MaroonBloodedTexan said:

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There's a bunch of states that have independent commissions for redistricting, or other ways to prevent gerrymandering. Idaho, Ohio, Arizona, etc. The reason Texas isn't one of them is because we've been under one party rule for 30 years. And the reason we've been under one party rule for 30 years? You guessed it... Gerrymandering.

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States which have "independent" citizen-redistricting commissions to draw electoral district boundaries include California and Washington.

California- 52 congressional districts, 38.3% of votes for Trump, 9 Republican congressmen (17%)
Washington- 10 congressional districts, 39.3% of votes for Trump, 2 Republican congressmen (20%)

New York state has an "Independent" Redistricting Commission.
New York- 26 congressional districts, 43.7% of votes for Trump, 7 Republican congressmen ( 27%)

Tell me more about the evils of gerrymandering.

BonfireNerd04 said:

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Burdizzo said:

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unimboti nkum said:

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fc2112 said:

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There is nothing illegal about gerrymandering. Everyone throws the term around like it's a mortal sin, but it isn't.

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Exactly. It's great when my team does it, terrible when theirs do

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I once read a suggestion that if you want to stop gerrymandering you institute a requirement dictating a maximum perimeter to area ratio. That way you don't end up with districts that look like spiders, barbells and other weird geometric shapes

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Technically, it should be perimeter divided by the square root of area, to create a dimensionless number.

For a circle, this ratio is 2*sqrt(pi) = 3.5449. For a square, it's 4. For an equilateral triangle, it's 4*sqrt(3) = 6.9282.

So, I think a reasonable limit would be somewhere around 8.

Of course, you'd have to define "perimeter" in a way that avoids the coastline paradox.

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I found an online GIS source for info on all the districts. You can download the data in a variety of formats including .CSV and .XLS. they have fields for area and "length" (assume that is actually perimeter). Although, they don't say what the units are, and I haven't taken the time to figure it out

It would be interesting to see an analysis of the current map



https://geodata.bts.gov/datasets/usdot::congressional-districts/explore

Just a quick glance, the worst gerrymandering is around big cities. Houston, DFW, and LA are bad. NYC is not as bad as I had expected. Chicago is a hot mess.

BonfireNerd04 said:

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Most democratic countries have some form of proportional representation, meaning that a party earns seats in the legislature in direct relation to how many votes they got.

So, for example, if Texas's House vote is 56% Republican, 42% Democrat, 1% Green, and 1% Libertarian, then the Republicans would get 22 Representatives and the Democrats would get 16.

The UK still uses single-member districts, but has boundary commissions to draw the districts instead of leaving it up to Parliament itself.

Gerrymandering is unique to the US because we have a terminal case of "Not Invented Here" syndrome.

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The US is not a Parliamentary system, you really can't compare the 2. Parliamentary systems also have little respect for minority rights and protections. If you have 50+1 in a Parliamentary system you have virtually all control with far fewer checks and balances that we are accustomed to here in the US. If you want to restrict government power and tyranny you don't want a Parliamentary system.

aggie93 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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Most democratic countries have some form of proportional representation, meaning that a party earns seats in the legislature in direct relation to how many votes they got.

So, for example, if Texas's House vote is 56% Republican, 42% Democrat, 1% Green, and 1% Libertarian, then the Republicans would get 22 Representatives and the Democrats would get 16.

The UK still uses single-member districts, but has boundary commissions to draw the districts instead of leaving it up to Parliament itself.

Gerrymandering is unique to the US because we have a terminal case of "Not Invented Here" syndrome.

---

The US is not a Parliamentary system, you really can't compare the 2. Parliamentary systems also have little respect for minority rights and protections. If you have 50+1 in a Parliamentary system you have virtually all control with far fewer checks and balances that we are accustomed to here in the US. If you want to restrict government power and tyranny you don't want a Parliamentary system.

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A parliamentary system is defined by having the head of government (usually called the "prime minister") being chosen by the legislature. This is a completely separate issue from single-member districts versus proportional representation. Note, for example, that the UK has a parliamentary system in combination with single-member districts. Inversely, Brazil has a presidential system but uses proportional representation for its Chamber of Deputies.

Bulldog73 said:

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MaroonBloodedTexan said:

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There's a bunch of states that have independent commissions for redistricting, or other ways to prevent gerrymandering. Idaho, Ohio, Arizona, etc. The reason Texas isn't one of them is because we've been under one party rule for 30 years. And the reason we've been under one party rule for 30 years? You guessed it... Gerrymandering.

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States which have "independent" citizen-redistricting commissions to draw electoral district boundaries include California and Washington.

California- 52 congressional districts, 38.3% of votes for Trump, 9 Republican congressmen (17%)
Washington- 10 congressional districts, 39.3% of votes for Trump, 2 Republican congressmen (20%)

New York state has an "Independent" Redistricting Commission.
New York- 26 congressional districts, 43.7% of votes for Trump, 7 Republican congressmen ( 27%)

Tell me more about the evils of gerrymandering.

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It's interesting that the statistic you're using to measure "unfairness" of a district map is the difference between percentage of voters and percentage of Congressmen. One that would naturally be minimized by adopting proportional representation instead of single-member districts.

BonfireNerd04 said:

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schmellba99 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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Get Off My Lawn said:

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Dan Carlin said:

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Gerrymandering is as old as the republic but that does not mean it is a sustainable path forward. Voting directly for parties like parliamentary systems do, instead of being segmented by house district, would be more representative. At this point though I would put greater odds on the end of the republic than for responsible actors in each party to reassert control.

---

Everyone hates gerrymandering, but nobody has a better alternative. As mentioned before: there are myriad interests beyond red v blue. And if you vote purely for the party you lose even the tenuous connection you have with your representative as well as any ability to primary an turd.

---

Except that pretty much every other country in the world that has legislative elections does have a better alternative. And if you're worried about party-list systems breaking your connection to a specific representative, that's an already-solved problem too:

• Open list systems allow a voter to vote for a specific candidate within their chosen party.
• Mixed-member proportional representation, as in Germany, combines district representatives with party-list representatives.
• Single transferable vote uses ranked ballots, and doesn't require parties to exist at all.
• Or, if you insist on single-member districts, those can be drawn by a non-partisan commission or by an algorithmic method (e.g., shortest splitline).

You're being willfully ignorant here.

---

There is no world where a ranked ballot system is anything but the worst system, except outside of totalitarian regimes where assemblies are hand picked by the dictator.

Ranked ballot system is a sure fire way to get the worst candidates elected.

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Do you have any actual evidence for that?

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Alasaka

BonfireNerd04 said:

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schmellba99 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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It's not oikophobic (yes, I admit I had to look up the definition) to point out when your country does a dumb thing.

Are you one of those people who thinks that car-dependent suburbia is wonderful, and that it's "communist" to want restaurants to pay their waiters like other employees instead of demanding tips?

---

Are you one of those people that think public transportation-dependent urban living is wonderful as opposed to the car-dependent suburbia?

---

I'd rather be able to just walk to most places I need to go. As I did when I was a college undergrad.

And now that my mother has health issues that increasingly make it more difficult for her to drive -- thank God that she happens to live within a few blocks of a major commercial street, where she can (and regularly does) walk to the nearby Dollar General to buy essentials.

The only advantage I see in suburbia is getting away from certain urban demographics.

But this is getting off-topic.

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Then move somewhere you can do that. Amazing how that would fix your problems.

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After my parents die and I have no reason to stay in Greater Houston, I may just do that.

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I'm sure you'll absolutely love Brazil or England or wherever you think is a utopian state.

schmellba99 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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schmellba99 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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It's not oikophobic (yes, I admit I had to look up the definition) to point out when your country does a dumb thing.

Are you one of those people who thinks that car-dependent suburbia is wonderful, and that it's "communist" to want restaurants to pay their waiters like other employees instead of demanding tips?

---

Are you one of those people that think public transportation-dependent urban living is wonderful as opposed to the car-dependent suburbia?

---

I'd rather be able to just walk to most places I need to go. As I did when I was a college undergrad.

And now that my mother has health issues that increasingly make it more difficult for her to drive -- thank God that she happens to live within a few blocks of a major commercial street, where she can (and regularly does) walk to the nearby Dollar General to buy essentials.

The only advantage I see in suburbia is getting away from certain urban demographics.

But this is getting off-topic.

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Then move somewhere you can do that. Amazing how that would fix your problems.

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After my parents die and I have no reason to stay in Greater Houston, I may just do that.

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I'm sure you'll absolutely love Brazil or England or wherever you think is a utopian state.

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Dude, I voted for Trump 3 times.

The USA has a lot of things to be proud of. The world's highest GDP. The most powerful military. The most Nobel Prize winners. The most Olympic medals. The most extensive airport network.

But that doesn't mean that the American way of doing things is always the best way. Some things we do are really dumb, and our election system (which entrenches a rigid two-party system) is one of those things. Pointing this out is not "hating America".

And I understand that if I did move to other country (which I have no good reason to do because it's really expensive, and everyone I care about lives in the US), I'd just have different complaints.

Sure, we have faults. Every system designed my man does.

But even with those faults, which mostly lie with the fact that we don't use the structure set up by the framers anymore and the electorate is stupid, are still better than anything you have proposed so far.

A 3rd party is absolutely viable here - the problem is that there isn't a 3rd party that doesn't spit out bat sht crazy candidates that nobody wants to vote for and because of that they end up being nothing burgers in perpetuity.

BonfireNerd04 said:

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aggie93 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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Most democratic countries have some form of proportional representation, meaning that a party earns seats in the legislature in direct relation to how many votes they got.

So, for example, if Texas's House vote is 56% Republican, 42% Democrat, 1% Green, and 1% Libertarian, then the Republicans would get 22 Representatives and the Democrats would get 16.

The UK still uses single-member districts, but has boundary commissions to draw the districts instead of leaving it up to Parliament itself.

Gerrymandering is unique to the US because we have a terminal case of "Not Invented Here" syndrome.

---

The US is not a Parliamentary system, you really can't compare the 2. Parliamentary systems also have little respect for minority rights and protections. If you have 50+1 in a Parliamentary system you have virtually all control with far fewer checks and balances that we are accustomed to here in the US. If you want to restrict government power and tyranny you don't want a Parliamentary system.

---

A parliamentary system is defined by having the head of government (usually called the "prime minister") being chosen by the legislature. This is a completely separate issue from single-member districts versus proportional representation. Note, for example, that the UK has a parliamentary system in combination with single-member districts. Inversely, Brazil has a presidential system but uses proportional representation for its Chamber of Deputies.

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The PM is just the head of the Party in control. Not sure how that changes my argument about checks and balances or protections for minority rights. If your party has 50+1 you control virtually everything with very little to check your power. They can just change out the PM as well (which they often do) without an election. They gerrymander their districts as well btw, it's done in a different way though because control in a parliamentary system is complicated with so many other parties. Still if you get that 50+1 and thus don't have to worry about a vote of no confidence that would dissolve the government you have incredible amounts of power compared to anything here. The Constitution provides few protections and there is no filibuster, it's true one party control.

Quote:

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There is no world where a ranked ballot system is anything but the worst system, except outside of totalitarian regimes where assemblies are hand picked by the dictator.

Ranked ballot system is a sure fire way to get the worst candidates elected.

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Do you have any actual evidence for that?

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Alasaka

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I knew you'd pick that particular example. I'm assuming you mean the 2022 special election, between Mark Begich (R), Sarah Palin (R), and Mary Peltola (D). The publicly available data gives the rankings:

• 11290: Begich
• 27053: Begich > Palin
• 15467: Begich > Peltola
• 58973: Palin
• 75799: Peltola

Unfortunately, we don't know the second choices of Palin and Peltola voters, so I'll have to speculate here. Let's assume that 2/3 of Peltola voters would have preferred Begich (as the more moderate Republican). Let's also assume that 3/4 of Palin voters preferred Begich. (More lopsided than Peltola's because Palin's opponents were from opposite parties, but there would still be some "Begich is a RINO" who figured that they might as well vote for the Democrat.) Also, for the sake of having all the ballots to have a full ranking, let's force all of the Begich voters to make a second choice, and split the 11290 who didn't down the middle. So the ballot set becomes:

• 32698: Begich > Palin > Peltola
• 21112: Begich > Peltola > Palin
• 44230: Palin > Begich > Peltola
• 14743: Palin > Peltola > Begich
• 50533: Peltola > Begich > Palin
• 25266: Peltola > Palin > Begich

Now, then, let's count this same ballot set under various election methods.

Plurality Voting, aka First Past the Post (FPTP)

Everybody votes only for their first choice. The votes are:

• 75799: Peltola
• 58973: Palin
• 53810: Begich

Peltola wins.

A textbook example of the spoiler effect. Had the Republicans united behind one candidate, they would have easily won. But by splitting the vote, they threw the election to the Democrats.

This is why we have primary elections. Each party must nominate only one candidate, because if they ran two in the general election, they'd split their vote.

It's also why third parties never get popular. Voting for one is "taking a vote away" from one's preferred "real" candidate, and thus is counterproductive.

Borda Count

A simple point system in which each candidate gets 1 point for each candidate voted below them. In a three-candidate election, this means that a voter's first choice gets 2 points, second choice gets 1 point, and third choice gets 0 points. The scores are:

• 202383: Begich
• 187453: Peltola
• 175910: Palin

Begich wins.

Borda does not have a spoiler effect. In fact, it has the opposite "teaming" effect where a party can pad its score by nominating more candidates. This may not be desirable.

Condorcet Methods

A Condorcet winner is a candidate who pairwise beats all of the other candidates. In this election, the pairwise victories are:

• Begich beats Palin, 104343 to 84239
• Begich beats Peltola, 98040 to 90542
• Peltola beats Palin, 96911 to 91671

So Begich is the Condorcet winner. And then Peltola is the secondary Condorcet winner, and Palin is the Condorcet loser. This election happens to produce a complete Condorcet ranking of Begich > Peltola > Palin.

What if there isn't a Condorcet winner? Like if A beats B, and B beats C, but C beats A? Well, that's when things get complicated. Fortunately, there is a Condorcet winner here, so I don't need to get into the weeds with cycle-breaking algorithms.

Baldwin's Method

This is technically a Condorcet method, but it straightforwardly handles cases where a Condorcet winner doesn't exist. It's like IRV (more on that later), but instead of eliminating the Plurality loser, you eliminate the Borda loser.

In this case, Palin is the Borda loser (see above), so is eliminated in the first round. That leaves a two-candidate race with the votes:

• 98040: Begich
• 90542: Peltola

So Begich wins.

Approval Voting

Each voter votes for as many candidates as they want to. Think of it as Plurality with checkboxes instead of radio buttons. Or Score Voting where the score options are limited to 0 or 1.

If each voter approves only of their first-choice candidate, then the result is the same as Plurality, and Peltola wins.

If each votes approves of their first and second choices, then the vote counts are:

• 148573: Begich
• 116937: Palin
• 111654: Peltola

So Begich wins.

If every voter votes for their first choice and flips a coin to decide whether to vote for their second choice, then the vote counts are:

• 101192: Begich
• 93726: Peltola
• 87955: Palin

So Begich wins.

The nice thing about Approval Voting is that it's simple. Easy to vote, and easy to count the votes. And if a person somehow misses the announcement that Approval Voting is used, and votes for only one candidate as in Plurality, their vote still counts (even if it's not strategically optimal).

If you prefer that the candidate is elected by a majority of the public, a simple modification is to have a separate top-two runoff. In this case, it would be either Begich-Peltola or Begich-Palin, which Begich wins.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), aka Ranked Choice Voting (RCP)

This is the method actually used in Alaska. In each round of counting, the Plurality loser is eliminated. Repeat until only one candidate is left.

In the first round, Begich got the fewest votes (see above) and was eliminated. That left a two-way Peltola-Palin race which Peltola won.

This is IRV's "center squeeze" effect, where a candidate who's everyone's second choice gets eliminated early because he's few people's first choice.

IRV is a bit of a philosophical contradiction, in that it's reason for being is the idea that Plurality is a bad method for choosing the best candidate, but somehow a good method for choosing the worst candidate. Borda elimination (Baldwin's method) makes more sense that way in that the eliminated candidate is chosen based on points from throughout the entire ballot.

People who seriously academically study election methods tend to hate IRV. In large part because it fails popular mathematical criteria like "monotonicity". (In IRV, there are pathological situations were voting a candidate lower turns them from a loser to a winner.) But also because it adds complexity without fixing Plurality's spoiler effect. IRV's proponents tend to be people who have concluded "Plurality bad" without seriously comparing the alternatives.


In short, Alaska's problem wasn't that they used ranked ballots, per se, but that they used one of the worst ranked ballot election methods.

Sorry if I got overly technical, but I'm a bit of a nerd about this stuff.