Subject:
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Thought experiment on alternative government structures
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 30 Nov 2000 04:03:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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85 times
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On my way home from work today, I was thinking about government
structures, and had some interesting ideas, so I offer them for your
digestion:
The first thought was:
If we strive to attain a Libertopia, is there any need for state
governments? I think I see a reason for a top level government (whose
purpose is to provide for a minimal amount of "national security",
provide a structure for higher courts to exist, provide a centralized
resource for diplomatic relations with other nations, and probably also
to guide the exploration of the meaning of rights). I think I also see a
reason for local governments (as one way of organizing). State
governments seem to have totally arbitrary jurisdictions.
From that thought, I started to think about, well, if we don't have
states, how do we determine the membership of the house and senate?
The thought I had for the house is that rather than assigning arbitrary
political boundaries which contain roughly the population which earns
one representative, why not go for direct representation. Every
registered voter gets one vote. To make the rest of the discussion a bit
easier, I'll take a round number of 50,000 people earning one seat in
the house. This means a candidate must get 50,000 votes to earn a seat.
People and organizations who wish to claim seats in the house register
and get an ID. They then campaign. The voters then get to vote for
whomever they chose. Organizations may present a plan for how they will
chose the people to sit in the house for the seats they earn (thus an
organization which collects 100,000 votes will get to seat 2
representatives). The candidates and organizations may chose ANY method
they wish for selecting the representatives they earn. The voting will
take place virtually all year, and you will be allowed to change your
vote. The totals will be continuously maintained. On the first Tuesday
in November, a snapshot of the votes are taken, and the seats assigned.
Note that if you get 49,999 votes, you don't get a seat. This is why you
get to change your vote. If it's getting near election day, and your
candidate doesn't have enough votes, you can change your vote to someone
who is closer to making it, who is still attractive to you. The
candidates themselves may work deals (say two candidates with very
similar platforms each have at least 25,000 votes, they may decide to
join forces [hopefully not losing too many votes for doing so] and claim
a single seat).
Some things I think are nifty about this are:
- Assuming you didn't piss away your vote on someone who didn't get a
seat, you have a representative who directly represents you (I think the
candidates should even get the list of their constituents)
- People who don't vote aren't represented, and also cause a smaller
house to be seated. That will either make the house more efficient, or
encourage more folks to vote. Note also that voting is much easier, you
don't need to get out on a specific date.
- Special interest groups which were large enough would have direct
representation.
I then thought that it might be interesting for the candidates to vote
for president. They would get as many votes as they had constituents.
For this, even candidates who failed to get 50,000 votes would still get
to vote for president. This would allow a more direct popular vote, but
still probably have a similar advantage to one I saw pointed out for the
electoral college, that it reduces the recount battles to something less
than the entire country since many jurisdictions will win by enough that
a recount isn't going to change anything. There would be a granularity
to the vote since 90% or more of the votes would be cast in blocks of at
least 50,000 votes (I figure not many folks are going to waste their
vote on a candidate who doesn't have enough appeal to win a seat). Of
course if you still want the impact of the states, you could give the
senators 50,000 votes each also.
I haven't thought of how the senate might be re-worked in a similar way.
Have at it.
Frank
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