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We are locked in a voting system that ends in two-party control. Minnesotans deserve better, and there’s an easy fix.
We call on Minnesota to implement proportional representation. It’s simple: instead of voting for one person to represent you, you’ll vote for one party to represent you, and we’ll distribute seats proportionally. The key question is how big are your districts, and how many representatives do you elect for each district.
Here’s an example of voting results in one district along with the number of candidates that get elected for each party based on the total number of representatives elected in that district:
| Party | Votes | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republicans | 380 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| Democrats | 260 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Agrarians | 220 | - | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| Independents | 80 | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Green | 50 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | 1 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Socialists | 10 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
The most obvious pattern is that minority parties do not receive any representation until there at least of few representatives per district.
In Minnesota, we always follow the first column of one representative per district and democracy suffers.
Depending on your perspective, fairness may not emerge until 8-16 representatives per district. At only 1% of the vote, the Socialists will not see representation unless a district contains 50 or more elected representatives. Let’s look what happens when we follow this to the extreme:
| Party | Votes | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 25 | 50 | 100 | 200 | 500 | 1000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republicans | 380 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 19 | 38 | 76 | 190 | 380 |
| Democrats | 260 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 13 | 26 | 52 | 130 | 260 |
| Agrarians | 220 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 11 | 22 | 44 | 110 | 220 |
| Independents | 80 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 | 40 | 80 |
| Green | 50 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 25 | 50 |
| Socialists | 10 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
The ratios do not drastically change until 5% of the voters are now also representatives and the Socialists receive a single represenative. At this point they are over-represented with 1% of the vote and 2% of the representatives. Yet they still do not have enough power to form or change coalitions.
By 100 representatives per district, these voting results happen to achieve perfect fairness (because all vote totals are divisible by ten), but that would not typically occur until every single voter is also a represenative and we have achieved perfect direct democracy.
Our party is a strong advocate for representative democracy, and we believe that 8-16 representatives per district is the ideal number. Smaller than that, and relevant minority parties are excluded; larger than that, and the increased representation is too small to justify the costs and logistical challenges of that many representatives.
We can simply achieve this in Minnesota by replacing our state legislative districts with our existing congressional districts. Instead of electing one Senator from each legislative district and one Representative from each legislative sub-district, we’ll elect eight Senators and 16 Representatives from each congressional district.
This will reduce the number of Senators from 67 to 64, and reduce the number of Representatives from 134 to 128. Yet fairness, represenative and democracy will increase.
Vote Agrarian to respect the People, support Democracy and implement proportional representation in Minnesota!