Proportional representation in United States

I think open-list, mixed-member proportional representation would be the best sell for the American public. That would allow regional control over most of Congress, and the people in general would have control over the rest.
Getting this to happen extremely early, I'd say the federal government may have to allow each state to choose its own method of proportional representation. However, the federal government decided what the laws will be for how many members of congress each state can have and the states got on board with that.
And the best way to make presidential elections proportional is to simply eliminate the Electoral college. However, an Electoral College running on PR is certainly a fun thought experiment. Ariosto, I'm looking at your examples of a D'Hondte electoral college, and I'm shocked at how distorted the D'Hondte method can be. How does that happen?
 

Lusitania

Donor
I can see this working for election of President where each states delegates are assigned by it instead of winner takes all. I believe only one or few states have that. This would change presidential elections since it obligates candidates to not give up on a region. Without getting bogged down in current politics how would that of changed things if say republican candidate now has chance of getting 1/2 or 1/3 of California votes or democratic get 1/2 if Texas or Florida.

Could we see 3 way races for president like in the 19th century where each of candidates gets 1/3 of delegates?

As for congress or state elections it would only work if it is based on regional areas. Example in state of New York it would need to be divided into let say 10 districts. Each district represent a geographic area. So New York City is one district, upstate a another, Long Island different and so forth. Each district would have X amount of seats and each party puts forth a list of candidates to fill all those seats in each district and based on percentage of vote the people from the list get elected. Cannot be for whole state because high population areas be over represented.
 
Ariosto, I'm looking at your examples of a D'Hondte electoral college, and I'm shocked at how distorted the D'Hondte method can be. How does that happen?
I'm not sure how you mean...

...The catch however is that similar with the Congressional method as used in Maine and Nebraska presently, the electors representing Senators are taken by the winner of the State popular vote whole-sale; in practice this provides a sizable electoral bonus to the candidate that carries the most States, while also assuring that there are no ties in the electoral vote on the State-level...

Ignoring those bonuses for Statewide winners, D'Hondte also rewards those who manage to "run up the margins" as it were. Beyond that, I can only recommend that you look at Wikipedia's article on the D'Hondt method here, as they are able to break it down far better than I can.
 
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