Proportional Representation

Hear Oh Israel has a couple of posts up that are critical of Israel's democratic parlimentary representative system. While the comments are from a definetly right wing perspective, the analysis of proportional representation is sound. For those of you unfamiliar with proportional representation, here is a good overview of how it works. In short, each party gets a percentage of seats based upon the percentage of votes it recieves in the election. This means that smaller parties have a much greater say in the governing process than they do in our winner take all system. I used to be in favor of proportional representation. It struck me as a nice way to make my vote 'count' and to better allow me to pick a party that more closely matched my personal preferences. Certainly the majority of Democracies have chosen this system. I have changed my mind on that however. The problem with proportional representation occurs when it is actually time to form a government, after the election is complete. Due to the diversity of parties a proportional representation system fosters, it is almost unheard of for any one party to gain a clear majority. In order to form a government, the party with the largest number of votes typically has to create a coalition with one or more smaller parties to gain the majority in needs (theoretically the party with the largest votes could be shut out of the eventual governing coalition, but I don't know of any cases where this has happened.) In forming this coalition the parties have to make compromises with one another, diluting the platform on which they ran on. These compromises may make the governing coalition radically different from anything that the voters were actually voting on. In our winner take all system the major political parties are 'pre-formed' coalitions of different voter groups. The Republican Party, for example, is primarily a coalition between social conservatives and traditional small government conservatives. They have compromised on a platform and a common ideology that neither side is fully happy with, but both are mostly willing to accept. A similar dynamic exists in the Democratic Party, although the number of 'voter groups' is greater there. The point is though, we vote for a particular person who has agreed to a public compromise. As a small government conservative, if I vote for a Republican I know that I am going to be furthering the interests of social conservatives, who I frequently disagree with. It is a compromise that I have to make to get what I want. I know though, that I am making this compromise and if, I decide that this compromise is not worth it I can with hold my electoral support. Primary elections further let me influence the nature of the compromise I will be making. I have come to greatly appreciate the fact that the ideological compromises are mostly made before, not after, I vote however. Yes, it means I don't get to vote for my 'perfect' candidate. It puts more work on me as a voter because making compromises can be difficult. It puts me in charge of this though, and that is very important. This is not to say that our system is perfect, I have spoken on Gerrymandering before and it is a serious flaw in our system. On the whole though, I think our two party, winner take all system is a lot more fair, and a lot more democratic, than the proportional representation systems.