Let’s say you have multi-member constituencies. You hold an election with an outcome that looks roughly like this:

  • Candidate #1 received 12,000 votes

  • Candidate #2 received 8,000 votes

  • Candidate #3 recieved 4,000 votes

All three get elected to the legislature, but Candidate #1’s vote on legislation is worth three times Candidate #3’s vote, and #3’s vote is worth half Candidate #2’s vote.

I know that the British Labour Party used to have bloc voting at conference, where trade union reps’ votes were counted as every member of their union voting, so, e.g., if the train drivers’ union had 100,000 members, their one rep wielded 100,000 votes. That’s not quite what I’m describing above, but it’s close.

Bonus question: what do you think would be the pros and cons of such a system?

  • souperk
    2·
    27 days ago

    I need a bit of clarification, are you suggesting that every candidate that gets even a single vote gets to be a representative? or is there some selection mechanism? (minimum votes, fixed number of seats, etc…)

    • frankPodmore@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      1·
      27 days ago

      I think for this to be at all practical, there would need to be some sort of minimum threshold and/or maximum number of legislators, yes.