In Thursday's election digest diary, I posted the following comment:
You know what I'd like to see? NO map. (2+ / 0-)Instead, have every state elect its representatives at-large, statewide, using Cambridge-style preference voting. Bam, no more gerrymandering, no more minority underrepresentation, no more seats held through local patronage power.
It met with some pushback from folks unfamiliar with the system. So I've decided to conduct an experiment to illustrate how it works. I think seeing how it works and what kinds of results it produces will make it clearer than my simply trying to explain and describe it.Here's the gist: I will conduct an election for the High and Mighty Daily Kos Ruling Council, which will consist of nine members -- the average number of House seats per state.
If you'd like to register to vote for this election, all you need to do is post a comment below saying you're in.
If you'd like to run in this election, all you need to do is post a comment announcing your candidacy. There will be no limit on the number of candidates allowed to run. You don't even have to campaign! Your record as a DKos user stands for itself. However, if you want to campaign, no one will stop you. Let that be a proxy for the effects of Citizens United. You may campaign as much or as little as you like. The voters will decide which matters more: your record as a diarist, commenter and community member, or the amount of campaigning you do.
The window for registering to vote or announcing candidacy is until noon today, 48 hours from when I posted my first announcement on this topic the end of the weekend, because I'm not going to hold the vote until Monday anyway. (BTW, announcing your own candidacy will also register you as a voter.) The following candidates have announced so far:
Antitheist CaliSista Meteor Blades Mokurai polar wholphin prwsag52 qazplm Sir Vantes snarkylgbtdem
So we've already got the requisite minimum nine candidates for nine seats. To make the election competitive, though, I'm hoping we get more self-nominations today. Preferably including some polarizing figures. :-) (If we don't get more than nine, maybe I'll reduce the number of seats on the High and Mighty Council to five or something. But the larger number will provide a better illustration, if enough candidates run.)
One more thing: I ask any user who announces his or her candidacy to explicitly state which DKos groups he or she belongs to, along with any salient descriptors that constitute your personal identity (ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, political orientation, regional identity, etc.) and -- this is extremely important -- whether you support Clinton, Sanders, both or neither; if you're a r0x0r or a sux0r; and whether you favor the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks or the Who. I ask you to do this, to elicit the kinds of tribal behavior that voters engage in, but you don't have to. You can, if you choose, run as a cipher.
May the best nine win.
P.S. kos is allowed to run. It is his site, after all.