House Members Chosen By Entire State?

Is it possible for the federal government that House members are elected by the entire state, not by district? I believe some states did have this at some point, so it shouldn't be completely implausible for the federal government to standardize house elections this way, rather than by districts.

What would the effects of this be?
 
So in a large state like NY you would have 70-80 people running for 30 odd spots?

As a voter would i go in and vote for 30 candidates if 30 seats?
 
so WY's one Representative would be voted for by the entire state instead of... the entire state? What a difference! ;)
 
I remember at one point the State Senate's chose the Federal Senators I think... That's about as close to the system as I could think but for House of Reps I think that would be too much of a bureaucratic nightmare
 
I remember at one point the State Senate's chose the Federal Senators I think... That's about as close to the system as I could think but for House of Reps I think that would be too much of a bureaucratic nightmare

No, what sly is talking about is at-large voting, which was formerly common and has been used at one point or another by most states, but which fell into disfavor and was eventually outlawed due to evolving Constitutional law, because it tends to disenfranchise minorities (who, being a minority of the population, are outvoted by the majority).
 
So the New York Metro area gets to decide on the states CongressCritters instead of just most of them. Seriouly this is a really bad idea imo
 
No, what sly is talking about is at-large voting, which was formerly common and has been used at one point or another by most states, but which fell into disfavor and was eventually outlawed due to evolving Constitutional law, because it tends to disenfranchise minorities (who, being a minority of the population, are outvoted by the majority).

I was more thinking of proportional representation.
 

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So in a large state like NY you would have 70-80 people running for 30 odd spots?

As a voter would i go in and vote for 30 candidates if 30 seats?
What would probably happen is that each party would have 30 candidates and you would have an option to vote for the whole party list, or fill out 30 names individuialy.
 
Several states had one or two at-large House seats for a while. You'd need to get rid of the Wesberry v. Sanders ruling in 1964 as well as the this law being passed a few years later.

To expand at-large representation, though, would require a POD further back. No state had more than 4 at-large districts, and most of the time it was because they had an increase in representation after the census but the state legislature hadn't redrawn the districts yet.
 
So in a large state like NY you would have 70-80 people running for 30 odd spots?

As a voter would i go in and vote for 30 candidates if 30 seats?

It would be a luxurious trouble if you do get 30 choices and spoiled for choice, but at least you'd have a bigger chance of choosing.

In countries like Japan, on the municipal level, which uses a sort of pseudo-proportional system called Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) voters only get one choice in giant constituencies with 30-40 seats up for grabs.

This means voters have to think carefully to make sure their vote is not wasted on "popular candidates" perceived by polls to have enough core supporters to go "past the quota", i.e. minimum number of votes needed for 1 seat. Though this would backfire on said "popular candidates" as they end up losing to other candidates due to complacency of their supporters. This creates a vicious cycle where candidates compete with each other, even with those of their party, to avoid the "poisoned chalice" of "popular candidate" status and constant mind games, confusing voters even more.
 
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^A little bit off topic, but SNTV is used to elect Japan's Upper House, the House of Councillors, too. It also used to be the system for electing their lower house, too.
 
^A little bit off topic, but SNTV is used to elect Japan's Upper House, the House of Councillors, too. It also used to be the system for electing their lower house, too.

Indeed. SNTV encouraged factionalism of the same party, mainly the Liberal Democratic Party, in power for 54 of the last 60 years. It got so bad that it was decided to scrap SNTV for the Lower House elections from 1996 and replace it with a mixture of FPTP and proportional representation. (Though the FPTP districts being skewed in favoured of LDP-friendly conservative rural voters is another matter entirely... )

Back on topic, if such a thing were to happen in the States, they would be better off with the Single Transferable Vote system, used in Ireland's parliament Dail Eireann and Australia's Senate, which have medium to large scale constituencies, and allows for voters to pick more than one choice.
 
Indeed. SNTV encouraged factionalism of the same party, mainly the Liberal Democratic Party, in power for 54 of the last 60 years. It got so bad that it was decided to scrap SNTV for the Lower House elections from 1996 and replace it with a mixture of FPTP and proportional representation.

SNTV might be a better fit for the United States, though, because of the issue of minority representation. If minority voters pooled their votes behind one or a few candidates (depending on their proportion of the state's population as compared to the number of seats), they'd be able to elect these candidates despite being a minority of total voters. They wouldn't be able to do this with STV.

SNTV might actually be better for US minority voters than FPTP: there would be no gerrymanders or minority vote sinks, and candidates from throughout the state would have to compete for their votes. This could be unwieldy in the big states, though; states like California or Texas might better be divided into 4-to-7-member districts.

SNTV could of course promote factionalism within political parties as happened until Japan, but that's always been the case in the US, so it probably wouldn't be considered much of a drawback if implemented in the 1970s-90s.
 
SNTV might be a better fit for the United States, though, because of the issue of minority representation. If minority voters pooled their votes behind one or a few candidates (depending on their proportion of the state's population as compared to the number of seats), they'd be able to elect these candidates despite being a minority of total voters. They wouldn't be able to do this with STV.
This seems inaccurate to me. Say a state is 2/3 Orange and 1/3 Purple, with Oranges preferring Oranges to Purples and Purples vice versa. If we start off with six candidates (three otherwise undistinguished Oranges and three otherwise undistinguished Purples), then in a three-member district STV is still a method for proportionality:

1st round: 2/9 O1, 2/9 O2, 2/9 O3, 1/9 P1, 1/9 P2, 1/9 P3
2nd round: 2/9 O1, 2/9 O2, 2/9 O3, 1/6 P1, 1/6 P2
3rd round: 2/9 O1, 2/9 O2, 2/9 O3, 1/3 P1
4th round: 1/3 O1, 1/3 O2, 1/3 P1

It shouldn't be possible for votes from Oranges to ensure the election of more Orange candidates than would be proportionally assigned.
 
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