One House Democrat said he spoke for others in the wake of the president’s stunningly feeble debate performance on Thursday: “The movement to convince Biden to not run is real.”
The House member, an outspoken defender of the president, said that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should consider “a combined effort” to nudge President Joe Biden out of the race.
Crestfallen by the president’s weak voice, pallid appearance and meandering answers, numerous Democratic officials said Biden’s bet on an early debate to rebut unceasing questions about his age had not only backfired but done damage that may prove irreversible. The president had, in the first 30 minutes of the debate, fully affirmed doubts about his fitness.
A second House Democrat said “reflection is needed” from Biden about the way ahead and indicated the private text threads among lawmakers were even more dire, with some saying outright that the president needed to drop out of the race.
We’re not trying to force a change in winners though. The elections below president are far more dynamic and the people elected usually win for a reason beyond FPTP.
But also, any kind of proportional representation requires a constitutional amendment. RCV can be installed with a state legislature making a 2 sentence bill.
Really what needs to happen is removing the 100 year old cap on the size of the house. 800 reps would drastically change both presidential elections and representation of people in general. Using 800 reps puts California at 96 members to Wyoming still having 1.
Honestly I’d go further, let’s get a round thousand and hook it to a ratio. Obliterating the ability to buy house races will result in better high level candidates and better low level representation. I’d say let’s do the full ten thousand if I thought people would for it.
That linked data is collected from local American races. The winner is overwhelmingly the person who won the first round, which is the only round the majority of the time. When people claim RCV will break the two party system they are trying to claim it will change the winners. The evidence largely shows that no voting system can take a single-winner duopoly and break it.
Any new voting system would require only a simple bill from the legislature. “Ballots instructions for every election at every level shall direct voters to select any number of candidates. The candidates with the most votes wins their respective election.”
Proportional representation specifically refers to how parties divide the available seats in a parliamentary body. Not how you cast your vote.
RCV allows for changes that FPTP doesn’t but that has never meant this would be shaken up right away. Mostly it’s a way to avoid vote splitting. So you can run a progressive, moderate, conservative, and an alt right candidate without the traditional alliances worrying about vote splitting.
Proportional representation specifically refers to how parties divide the available seats
I apologize for not addressing that, but I didn’t think it required expanding on. Yes, that’s correct. I feel the preferred proportional method is Sequential Proportional Approval Voting
RCV doesn’t eliminate vote splitting, it only mitigates it. If two candidates have similar support in a non-final round, one can act as a spoiler for the other. The problem is that it’s harder to understand and FairVote used to lie about it, so a lot of people think it’s not a problem. The Alaska special election from a few years back is an example of a spoiler election. If Palin hadn’t run (or fewer Palin voters voted) the other Republican would have won. If you want to completely eliminate vote splitting you have to move to a cardinal voting method that satisfies the independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion, which is most of them, including approval voting.
