This post’s purpose is to clarify a point I made in this essay about coordination failure under nonpartisan Alternative Vote, AKA “the Alaska system.” I have suggested in a few posts that elaborate single-seat electoral systems do not perform well in high-dimensional policy spaces.
Continue reading “Responding to the response to one of my critiques of the Alaska system”Category: Politics
Rolling back the clock?
I am not an expert on presidential nominations, at least insofar as publications confer expertise. Here are nonetheless some thoughts on where things stand and what might be done about them.
Continue reading “Rolling back the clock?”Institutional sources of election-outcome acceptance?
I am not an expert on this literature, but I do know that close elections are a problem. I also believe (perhaps wrongly) that independent election administration is self-enforcing when it emerges from and exists alongside multiparty competition. If right, this strikes me as a way to design other institutions so that they enjoy broad legitimacy.
The unit-rule allocation of Electors is therefore an issue: first by constraining the number of parties, second by making outcomes depend on very small numbers of votes.
Here is an idea for the sake of argument: mandate closed-list PR within states for choosing Electors, and move the election of the President into the Electoral College.* Make it negotiate and produce a coalition. Do what the Framers intended, except in a more modern way.
I do not think this change is likely, but it’s interesting to think about.
*The EC already chooses the president in a technical sense, but it does not deliberate. Hence the notion of a “faithless elector.”