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Two fixes to our democracy [1]
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Date: 2025-05-08
Our democracy has been flawed long before Trump. There are two things rarely discussed I want to mention that would help a lot.
One is the apportionment act. It set the size of the House to 435 regardless of population and was done in early 20th century when population was less than half of now.
The constitution specified 30k people per seat but we are now at 750k. This means smaller states not only get 2 Senators but are overrepresented in the House as well.
Changing to 30k per seat would give is 11000 seats or so. Have them stay at home, away from lobbyists and vote remotely.
At 30k it would be much more difficult to gerrymander in any meaningful way as well.
We get one electoral vote per House seat so the Electoral college would be around 11000 as well. This would make it always reflect the will of the voters.
The reason to go after the apportionment act is it is just a law and does not need a constitutional amendment. It can simply be rescinded by Congress. But it has big effects on our democracy.
The second fix is our "first to post" voting method. This is why we only have 2 parties. This can be fixed at state level by moving to ranked choice voting. You pick a first, second, third, etc. choice and it automatically runs off until we get over 50% for a candidate.
Ranked choice makes it easier for smaller parties to win and would open it up a lot more.
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