Has there ever been a political system where legislative votes were weighted by how many votes each legislator received? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by frankPodmore@slrpnk.net to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 2 points 7 months ago

If a single person gets the majority of votes, then they get to make the decisions.

But there would be multiple constituencies in my hypothetical scenario. Someone from the Left Party in District A gets a majority of the District A votes, but someone from the Right Party from District B gets a majority of the District B votes. So, the majorities in Districts A and B get their voices effectively represented, but the minorities aren't shut out. In District C, no one wins a majority, but all the voters are represented in the legislature.

Compare the current system, where the Left Party in District A gets the majority of votes (or even the most votes, but no majority). The Left Party wins District A, but there's no representation at all for the voters who didn't vote for the Left Party. Isn't it easier to buy the vote of just the one Left Rep for District A?

[-] souperk@reddthat.com 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months 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.net 1 points 7 months 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.

this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024

56 points (90.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26980 readers

540 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.