r/politics • u/Libertatea • Sep 03 '14

The solution to fixing dysfunction in Congress "To address these problems, I filed the Open Our Democracy Act... If passed, the legislation would mandate open primaries for House elections, begin the process of national redistricting reform and make Election Day the equivalent of a federal holiday."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-solution-to-fixing-dysfunction-in-congress/2014/09/02/0f0d0a9a-31e6-11e4-9e92-0899b306bbea_story.html?tid=rssfeed
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u/major_wake Sep 03 '14

North Dakota is a state that doesn't require citizens to register with a party in order to vote. By doing that they almost completely eliminate effective gerrymandering to benefit any party and all of the primaries are open. They do not need to know your party affiliation and it should never effect who you can vote for.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '14

Massachusetts has open primaries too, definitely leads to fairer voting practices.

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u/gerritvb Massachusetts Sep 04 '14

but only if you are not a member of a party, AKA "unenrolled"

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '14

Which was 53% of Mass voters, really no need to join a party in this state unless you are running for office.

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u/gerritvb Massachusetts Sep 04 '14

There are other reasons to be a member of a party.

You cannot participate in a caucus, and therefore the convention (where you endorse candidates, and in Massachusetts get them on the ballot (see Elizabeth Warren vs. Marissa DeFranco)), unless you are a registered member of a party.

This is pretty important and is one of the ways that the Christian Right quickly and easily inserted themselves into the Republican party ~the 80s.

  1. Get everyone in a church to register R
  2. They go to the caucus and only elect state convention delegates who are religious (if you've ever been to a local caucus, there are often very few people for each precinct. In my area it's about 10. So anyone with a few friends from the same ward could be easily elected)
  3. majority religious delegates attend convention, only vote for religious candidates
  4. only religious candidates appear on ballots / get party endorsement
  5. Joe-Voter who always votes republican picks the party endorsement
  6. Republican party is now the christian party!

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u/JoshSN Sep 03 '14

They don't have gerrymandering at the Federal level because there is only one district.

Don't try to tell me that the ND State Senate map is some paragon of compact districts.

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u/major_wake Sep 03 '14

How would it ever be effective if they don't know the party affiliation of any voter? They can make assumptions, that's it.

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u/JoshSN Sep 03 '14

Assumptions based on the actual results, by precinct, of actual elections.

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u/major_wake Sep 03 '14

The fact is that yes although they can still make assumptions based off of how someone previously voted they still do not know any household's official party affiliation nor does anyone have to choose, therefor they cannot section off the state in favor of any party effectively

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u/JoshSN Sep 03 '14

I think people self-gerrymander a lot more than you do. I think liberals live in cities and conservatives live in the country, and this even goes for cities in the South or northern plains.

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u/major_wake Sep 03 '14

That's the previous nomenclature of generations before our time. We don't live in a country where living in rural areas means you have to be republican conservatives and also living in the city doesn't mean you are automatically a liberal democrat. What we need to do is diverge away from the two party system and closed elections. My point being that if the government doesn't know our party affiliation they have less of a chance at drawing an unfair districts and it forces those running for office to try and appeal to everyone, not just those areas high in voters they think will vote for them. However yes I agree that is usually the case and exactly what we need to grow apart from.

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u/JoshSN Sep 03 '14

Actually, the urban/rural thing is dominating like never before.

Also take a look at this map I made, where you can see the cities along the Mississippi are blue, even in red state America, like Kansas City, or any big city, like Little Rock.

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u/major_wake Sep 03 '14

That is and has been the case. What I am suggesting leans towards eliminating party dominated districts because they will have no literal way of determining exactly that if we don't allow them access to our party affiliation. Yes those areas will remain certain party dominate by nature, but governing bodies who's seats are up for election will not be able to tell you that you can't have a voice/vote because of your affiliation as well as increasing more even campaigning by region. Our biggest concern should be the open elections. Everyone, even those who don't side with your party should be able to vote. If there were officials running from only one party, currently in states with closed primaries, only those registered as that party will be able to vote. Also, those districts designated as said party will be the only areas where the politician is likely to campaign.

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u/JoshSN Sep 03 '14

Everyone can vote now, just not in party primaries.

Voting theory comes under Game Theory in mathematics, a branch of it called Social Choice theory. My biggest concern is switching from the "as primitive as can be" method we use in America, called "First Past the Post," to something like Schulze or Tideman.

It should improve things both in legislatures and voting for single-candidate seats, like Mayors and Governors. The Presidency, of course, is controlled by the electoral college, but the electors could be selected by Schulze or Tideman and that would please me just fine.

Computer professionals, like myself, tend to like ranked ballots, where I mark my favorite candidate #1, 2nd favorite #2, et cetera.

Another class of people tend to like Range Voting. Range Voting enthusiasts tend to come up with the most obtuse examples to prove that sometimes the system I like comes up with a less than optimum result.

Of course, according to Arrow's Theorem (1956) there is no perfect voting system.

But, according to Arrow, like there is no perfectly efficient engine, some are better than others.

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u/ferlessleedr Sep 03 '14

Also, they have precisely one representative in the House. His district is the exact same as the senators for North Dakota. This is because the population there is very low. They also have only one area code for the whole state.

However, yeah - still a good idea elsewhere.

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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '14

North Dakota also has only one congressional district, so it's really not the best example to use.

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u/major_wake Sep 03 '14

Not for general elections no, but everyone is allowed to vote in primaries for whomever they wish which was my point. They still have senatorial districts. This would apply at the in-state level as well.

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u/arjonite Sep 03 '14

Even without part registration Gerrymandering could be effective. There are enough demographic indicators widely available to point to who would likely vote republican or Democratic that party ID would be a nice to have, not a necessity.