WI: United States implements a "more democratic" voting system

In the United States, the voting system has traditionally been a First Past the Post (FPTP) system, in which the Electoral College in each states puts votes forwards for one of two candidates in an election, and the candidate with the most vote wins, period. However, this has the effect of the two major parties - the Democratic and Republican Parties - dominating politics in the U.S, while minor "third parties" such as the modern Libertarians and Greens are few in number and limited in power.

However, there are other voting methods. One example is Thomas Jefferson's proposed higher averages method of proportional distribution of seats in the House of Representatives that would divide the House according to the votes for each party - this method is more widely known as the D'Hondt method, and is used in many other countries (but not the United States). Not to mention proportional representation that is seen in other nations.

If the United States adopted such a system, what would be the major ramifications? I'm pretty sure there would be a rise in the power of many political parties that IOTL are long extinct.
 
Clarification needed. Do you want:

A) The United States to adopt a different voting system, like proportional voting?

B) The United State to adopt a more democratic voting system?

The two are not the same.
 
FPTP crunches representation to two parties and voters either vote them or stay at home (something that is called democray only in certain countries :rolleyes:).

WI the US had adopted a proportional voting system? it would be a completely different nation, with many parties and coalition governments.

The main difference I see is the capability of conducting long term programs, something that it is impossible with the current system (e.g. see the space programs which are systematically rewritten every 8 years, ending up going nowhere).
 
Clarification needed. Do you want:

A) The United States to adopt a different voting system, like proportional voting?

B) The United State to adopt a more democratic voting system?

The two are not the same.

I did mean a different voting system, but unfortunately I can't change the title, so to clarify, a different voting system and NOT the current first past the post system, and that is final.
 
FPTP crunches representation to two parties and voters either vote them or stay at home (something that is called democray only in certain countries :rolleyes:).

There's nothing inherently undemocratic about that. Whether or not there are viable national political parties for each niche position has no bearing on the relative democratic merits of a voting system. Each system has merits, pros and cons. For example, since FPTP promote a small number of 'big tent' parties and inhibits small niche parties, anti-democratic fringe parties are generally stillborn.
 
Its not undemocratic if every single party doesnt have the same chance to win because you could still vote for them even if they will not win. I could start a party that says that zombies are going to take over the world and trying to turn everyone into a zombie but that doesnt stop you from voting for it even if it would never win because it is completely out there.

And the system that was put in place was done so partly because they couldnt count all of the votes in time and it would take potentially months to count them all. Unless it is in ancient athens where there was a small enough population of voting citizens it would be almost impossible to run an effective direct democracy.

This is different today when there is near instant comunications but the writers of the constitution couldnt forsee it so they went with a good system at the time.
 
Would PR necessarily lead to a multi-party system in the United States? That would depend on the minimum threshold for representation. I can see even the largest present-day third parties--the Libertarians and Greens-- failing to meet a five percent threshold of the sort they have in Germany. (Admittedly, we can't know for sure; one reason these parties get well under five percent of the vote *may* be that people consider votes for them "wasted" under the current system.) Certainly a ten percent threshold as in Turkey's parliament would make it hard for small parties--though of course the larger the threshold, the more one can question whether it is "true" PR.

IMO the real reason the United States does not have a multi-party system is not so much first-past-the-post--after all, the UK and Canada have first-past-the-post and they have multi-party systems, especially Canada. Rather it is the presidential system, which tends to resolve itself into a race between two candidates and therefore two parties. In parliamentary systems, even small parties can help determine who forms the government if they have the balance of power in Parliament . In the US they can have no such power. And if a party cannot wage a plausible fight for the presidency, Americans are also inclined not to vote for it for other offices as well.
 
I cannot tell you how many countless hours I sunk into trying to implement Jefferson Method voting as the USA in Victoria II.:p (Frickin' Socialists!)

Also, the Libertarians at least meet five percent in some states. (There was some third party that I remember regularly got something like 10% in non presidential election while I was living in Ohio, and doesn't even seem to really exist in any other states). But the effects today are not important, the Republican and Democratic parties as we know them may well not even exist in 2014 ITTL.

Which seats are being elected differently? Presumably, at least initially, the Senate is still appointed, as this was a big part of the big states little states compromise, the house being Jefferson Method is obvious. What about electors though? Are they Jefferson method then? Presumably the house, especially later, will get coalitions forming around the two or three biggest parties like we see in many parliamentary countries, regardless of how senators are chosen they will be more varied by party, would senate coalition form from the same parties as the house ones?

One big problem is that the Presidential system encourages a two party arrangement i.e. the Libertarians would rather see a Republican or Whig president than a Green, Democrat, or Socialist candidate, so they vote for the Republican, since he has the biggest support base. Since only one person can become president the 'left' and the 'right' basically coalesce in favor of the least objectionable candidate that even remotely agrees with any of their preferred policies. The coalitions will be looser in this setup but they'll still be there.
 
not to be a party pooper,

But if we could have gotten an amazing stroke of good luck and phased out slavery, say, by 1720 as an early mistake,

and avoided the whole 3/5's of a person but no vote at all, that may have helped!
 
And with Native Americans, maybe the approach that if a person lives on a reservation ('respected land') as part of a sovereign nation whose borders are genuinely acknowledged, then no vote.

But if the person is subject to U.S. and state law, then he can vote just like everyone else.

And of course later on, she can vote, just like everyone else.

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I'm sorry, but I really think winner-take-all vs. PR is the least of our problems!

But then, slowly and gradually, over 200+ years, things have continued to improve, and that is pretty amazing, too.
 
Slavery is not going away before the mid-1800s. It was too important to the America's economically. Though I suppose we could phase it out a little earlier if the racial institutionalization doesn't develop.
 
Slavery is not going away before the mid-1800s. It was too important to the America's economically. Though I suppose we could phase it out a little earlier if the racial institutionalization doesn't develop.

Actually i've read somewhere that if the invention of the cotton gin was postponed, slavery might have been outlawed in many states as cotton exploitation in the US wouldn't have been as profitable, thus reducing the profitability of slavery.
 
Unlikely. The best shot at ending slavery is nipping it in the bud before it becomes institutionalized. That requires a POD in the 17th century, rather than the 18th.
 
Actually i've read somewhere that if the invention of the cotton gin was postponed, slavery might have been outlawed in many states as cotton exploitation in the US wouldn't have been as profitable, thus reducing the profitability of slavery.
Quite. There was some discussion in Virginia iOTL about slow emancipation (e.g. all kids born after a certain date would be free) before the cotton gin changed the economics of slaves dramatically. After which, such discussion died.

Getting the Upper South to abolish slavery with a PoD of 1790 is possible (having Eli Whitney die, give him a good paying job in Massachussetts, etc.).
 
Actually i've read somewhere that if the invention of the cotton gin was postponed, slavery might have been outlawed in many states as cotton exploitation in the US wouldn't have been as profitable, thus reducing the profitability of slavery.

It is a myth that slavery was dying out before the cotton gin. Too many people assume that slavery equals the Southern plantation system equals cotton. That was actually not true until *many* years after the invention of the cotton gin. As late as 1800 only about 11 percent of all slaves lived on cotton plantations. (By 1850, with greatly increased world demand for cotton, that had risen to 64 percent.) Tobacco made a considerable recovery after the Revolution, and spread to new regions in South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Slaves were also used in the production of rice, sugar (after Louisiana was annexed) and grains.

Of course, there *were* some areas of the South that were much better suited for cotton than for any other crop--above all the black belt of Alabama and the alluvial areas of Mississippi. But these areas were not opened up to the plantation system until many years after the cotton gin. I guess my problem with "no cotton gin" hypotheticals is this--I find it very implausible that nobody would *ever* think of the cotton gin. And I don't think a mere delay in its discovery would leave slavery so weakened in the interim that Southerners would be willing to abandon it. "There were in fact, almost as many Africans brought into the United States during the 30 years from 1780 to 1810 as during the previous 160 years." (Robert Fogel, *Without Consent or Contract*, p. 32.) And these 30 years were a period in which cotton was by no means dominant.
 
Unlikely. The best shot at ending slavery is nipping it in the bud before it becomes institutionalized. That requires a POD in the 17th century, rather than the 18th.
I tend to agree, the earlier the better. Even though I suggested the date of 1720 above, maybe that's the date slavery is completely phased out, say in a few remaining holdover places.
 
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