Truthseeker
01-09-2006, 02:59 PM
Originally there weren’t any parties and or as many people per district. As such a rep was more likely to be a well known and respected citizen, few understood actual policy questions so it was the integrity of the person they voted on. But constituencies are now to large enough to keep a significant percentage of people from knowing the candidate any better than they know any other politician who regularly appears on TV. The people are also better educated, have more information, and can track their reps activities and so can make decisions on the issues.
Each person is forced to run alone and ads need to be custom made for them. As such parties need to make tough choices as to which campaigns to help finance and candidates need to rely on contributions from private interests for the rest. This both makes them more likely to sell out, and because an individual is easier to buy than a party it is more feasible to do so.
Being voted for as individuals has other drawbacks too, when they’re members are the focus of scandals, parties claim innocence and aren’t held accountable since they didn’t choose the candidate like in proportionate representation systems and claim the voters have only themselves to blame.
Since campaign promises are made by individuals parties aren’t held accountable for those either. It also determines the manner of advertising. When parties compete they discuss issues, when individual candidates compete voter go to poll knowing only whether a candidate is faithful to his wife but uncertain of how they’ll vote on issues.
The last problem is that districts create a closed system in which it is almost impossible to create a new party of significant size, and if it succeeds it usually just replaces one of the two parties perpetuating the two party system. This is because it matters not just how many people vote for your party but how they’re concentrated. You could get 100,000,000 votes and not win a single seat. Furthermore there also aren’t any runoffs, so if there are more liberal candidates in an election than the conservative ones (or vice-versa) the vote will often be split amongst them diminishing their chances forcing them to form to coordinate in one large party to prevent it.
I’m not suggesting we become parliamentary democracy, the need for coalitions has huge drawbacks. We need a president who should naturally run as an individual (because that’s the nature of his office). But we need to ELECT our representatives proportionately and by party, advertising will be by party so most of the same ads can be used everywhere. During elections, there will be attempts to get votes everywhere not just “contested” areas. Voters will also hold parties responsible for whether it votes the way it says it will since it's responsible for picking who represents it.
It’s not that districts were a bad system, but they’re simply obsolete.
Each person is forced to run alone and ads need to be custom made for them. As such parties need to make tough choices as to which campaigns to help finance and candidates need to rely on contributions from private interests for the rest. This both makes them more likely to sell out, and because an individual is easier to buy than a party it is more feasible to do so.
Being voted for as individuals has other drawbacks too, when they’re members are the focus of scandals, parties claim innocence and aren’t held accountable since they didn’t choose the candidate like in proportionate representation systems and claim the voters have only themselves to blame.
Since campaign promises are made by individuals parties aren’t held accountable for those either. It also determines the manner of advertising. When parties compete they discuss issues, when individual candidates compete voter go to poll knowing only whether a candidate is faithful to his wife but uncertain of how they’ll vote on issues.
The last problem is that districts create a closed system in which it is almost impossible to create a new party of significant size, and if it succeeds it usually just replaces one of the two parties perpetuating the two party system. This is because it matters not just how many people vote for your party but how they’re concentrated. You could get 100,000,000 votes and not win a single seat. Furthermore there also aren’t any runoffs, so if there are more liberal candidates in an election than the conservative ones (or vice-versa) the vote will often be split amongst them diminishing their chances forcing them to form to coordinate in one large party to prevent it.
I’m not suggesting we become parliamentary democracy, the need for coalitions has huge drawbacks. We need a president who should naturally run as an individual (because that’s the nature of his office). But we need to ELECT our representatives proportionately and by party, advertising will be by party so most of the same ads can be used everywhere. During elections, there will be attempts to get votes everywhere not just “contested” areas. Voters will also hold parties responsible for whether it votes the way it says it will since it's responsible for picking who represents it.
It’s not that districts were a bad system, but they’re simply obsolete.