A People’s Convention to Revise the Constitution
[Originally Posted on the old Fluid Imagination site; this particular post was a homework assignment for a U.S. Government class]
Representatives of the State of Harmony, seeking to devise institutions that will maximize pluralist democracy, hereby proclaim the desire to achieve the following objective:
Whereas the Constitution of the United States, as ratified and adopted in 1788 when the country was young and population small, needs amending to minimize majority rule at the expense of minority rights; we gather to divide and further limit government authority to enhance pluralist, rather than majoritarian, democracy, so that minorities and factions will be able to effectively further their special interests in government policies.
The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the rationale for that amendment is as follows:
Weighted Delegate System: In the current system, the victor in an election can win either with a majority (50% of the vote + 1) or a plurality (more votes than anyone else), which means that one representative speaks for an entire district, regardless of how many people voted for the losing candidates. With a Weighted Delegate System (WDS), the Congressional election & voting system is changed to protect the losing voters from having their views under-represented in Congress.
In our version of a WDS, a state is apportioned a number of representatives in Congress (see the next entry for how this number is decided), but instead of cutting the state into a group of districts, the citizens of the state petition to form Representative Parties. These political parties are like special interest groups, but instead of focusing on one issue, such as “environmentalism” or “gun control,” these political parties would devise complete platforms on a myriad of issues. Each of these groups then nominate a candidate (and an alternate) to the list of potential representatives. Any individual can start a group.
For a sufficient amount of time, the groups and the media educate the general public about their individual platforms and encourage the voters to register with their groups. After a deadline, the list of groups that will be posted on the final ballot is decided using the most registered voters as a defining factor. The state then mails out official “voting brochures,” creates attendant Web sites, and hosts public debates to educate the citizens about the groups, the nominees, and the alternates.
On voting day, the electorate votes for the total number of candidates to be eliminated + 1. If a state has 10 representatives, and 15 groups are in the running, the electorate votes for six different people. The voting, however, is a ranking, with each voter ranking their top six candidates in order from one to six. When the polls close, votes are counted by the 1st choice on the ballot. The candidate with the least vote then surrenders all of his or her votes. The ballots that had the eliminated candidate as #1 are then redistributed based on selection #2 on those ballots. The process continues until the eleventh candidate is eliminated.
While the total number of representatives who end up in the Congress is still the same, almost all of the voters now have at least one preferential representative in the house. It may not be their first preference, but it is a preference.
To satisfy the national desires, each representative’s vote is “weighted” based on the number of votes they received in the election. With this method, the representative does not represent a geographic district but a block of voters who may be dispersed throughout the state.
The Representatives of the State of Harmony are still drafting other amendments, but we would love your feedback on this particular one.