[HN Gopher] The Icelandic Voting System
___________________________________________________________________
The Icelandic Voting System
Author : alexharri
Score : 59 points
Date : 2025-04-19 19:10 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (smarimccarthy.is)
(TXT) w3m dump (smarimccarthy.is)
| dheera wrote:
| I absolutely love that you need to read a list of axioms with
| Greek symbols in their descriptions to make an informed vote in
| Iceland. Sets a minimum bar of education to vote, which is
| reasonable.
| smlavine wrote:
| Nah, just vote for the party you like the most. The nerds at
| the elections office take care of the math themselves. "Better"
| than US/UK/Canada where you have to consider a primary system
| or multiple elections or "Liberal Democrats win here" signs to
| not split the vote.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It does underline the comparative disadvantage of America's
| uneducated population: something like this wouldn't get
| through because most of the population is too stupid to grok
| it. We're foreclosed from an entire domain of solutions
| because idiots won't or can't tough through understanding
| them.
| smlavine wrote:
| This is true, this is an inherently more complex system.
| Personally I prefer the French two-round system as a
| balance between complexity and proportionality -- America
| sorta has this with primaries, although them being months
| in advance and the districts being gerrymandered to hell
| doesn't help.
| vidarh wrote:
| The French two-round system is _wildy_ unproportional to
| the point that it is just very marginally less
| undemocratic than first past the post.
| rayiner wrote:
| And the government keeps allowing even more uneducated
| people through the open border!
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I think you're both underestimating the education of
| immigrants and overestimating the abilities of your
| neighbors.
|
| A lot of bad shit hides in the averages. Some US states
| have poor or no standards, or allow kids to bypass
| standards through various means.
|
| Unless they got remedial education in the military or
| something, the average high school graduate from a poorly
| performing place is much less capable than a Mexican or
| Filipino graduate.
| Muromec wrote:
| The good thing is -- you don't have to suffer the idiots.
| It's a choice
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you don't have to suffer the idiots. It's a choice_
|
| Sure. And I don't anymore. But the casualty of that
| choice is social empathy.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| And yet we push the idiots to vote.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| Hong Kong used to have a proportional voting system. The pro-
| China camp is often very efficient, sometimes winning a seat
| with half the votes compared to another candidate
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| You absolutely don't. The formula they give for calculating
| seats from votes is very simple and only uses a few letters
| from the standard alphabet.
|
| The section further with the complicated Greek formulae is for
| a different voting system, explicitly not the Icelandic one.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The section further with the complicated Greek formulae is
| for a different voting system, explicitly not the Icelandic
| one.
|
| What? It's for all voting systems. It just defines a set of
| criteria that are desirable; it doesn't _describe_ any
| system.
| lkrubner wrote:
| Sadly, these tweaks don't address any of the more obvious
| oddities that people have with proportional representation in the
| legislature. While such a system won't necessarily end up with
| Dutch levels of weirdness, it is still possible:
|
| https://demodexio.substack.com/p/why-does-proportional-repre...
| jltsiren wrote:
| That didn't really make sense. On the one hand, the author
| complains that proportional elections favor a limited number of
| parties, which don't always give voters good options to choose
| from. And on the other hand, the winner usually doesn't get the
| majority of seats, forcing them to negotiate with other parties
| instead of governing unilaterally.
|
| Then there the focus on the left vs. the right, which is no
| longer as relevant as it used to be during the cold war. If you
| choose a single faction (such as the left, conservatives, or
| environmentalists), that specific faction is almost always
| smaller than everyone else combined. When there are multiple
| major issues instead of a single overarching question,
| political divisions become more nuanced than simple X vs.
| not-X.
| Vinnl wrote:
| If your source for "Dutch levels of weirdness" is just that
| article, then keep in mind that the VVD being "in power" meant
| that they were one of the parties in the government coalition.
| They have had to compromise with other parties through all of
| that time, and so it was not the case that those governments
| were only representative of a very small party of the
| electorate, as that article makes it sound.
|
| (In my opinion, the Dutch system is one of the best implemented
| in practice, precisely because of its proportionality.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Huh, TIL the Constitution doesn't require Congressional
| districts. A state could technically switch to a model like this
| for assigning representatives at large.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| The two main parties in the US are way too happy with the
| status for any change to happen. If there is one thing they
| hate more than each other it's another party.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _two main parties in the US are way too happy with the
| status for any change to happen_
|
| California could make this change by referendum.
| googlryas wrote:
| Yes but Ds and Rs will come out in force to rally their
| base against it. That's what happened in Colorado this past
| election.
| int_19h wrote:
| Many states could, but why would they if other states
| retain a system that disproportionally skews sits towards
| one party?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why would they if other states retain a system that
| disproportionally skews sits towards one party?_
|
| Because your constituents are better represented.
| California strikes me as a potent place to do this
| because I could see a constitutional amendment passing at
| the ballot box.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > California could make this change by referendum.
|
| No, it could not, because Article I, Section 3 (emphasis
| added): "The times, places and manner of holding elections
| for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in
| each state by the legislature thereof; _but the Congress
| may at any time by law make or alter such regulations_ ,
| except as to the places of choosing Senators." (the last
| part of that about choosing Senators has its effect
| eliminated by the 17th Amendment, but that isn't important
| here.)
|
| And Congress has exercised its authority in U.S. Code Title
| 2, Section 2c (emphasis added): "In each State entitled in
| the Ninety-first Congress or in any subsequent Congress
| thereafter to more than one Representative under an
| apportionment made pursuant to the provisions of section
| 2a(a) of this title, _there shall be established by law a
| number of districts equal to the number of Representatives
| to which such State is so entitled, and Representatives
| shall be elected only from districts so established, no
| district to elect more than one Representative_ (except
| that a State which is entitled to more than one
| Representative and which has in all previous elections
| elected its Representatives at Large may elect its
| Representatives at Large to the Ninety-first Congress). "
| whatshisface wrote:
| I don't think that is actually true. It is in part
| redistricting that lead to the ascendancy of extremism, by
| putting all of the strategic emphasis on the primaries in
| uncontested constituencies.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| "Redistricting" isn't a new recent thing, it is a process
| done by state legislatures to state and federal legislative
| district every decade that has been used for both personal
| and partisan advantage since the founding; the word
| "gerrymander" was coined in criticism of a particular
| instance in _1812_.
| smitty1e wrote:
| 1. The original 1787 apportionment would result in a House of
| Representatives of ~30k members[1].
|
| 2. That's obviously unwieldy, and so we haven't had a bump in
| seats since ... 1910.
|
| 3. 'Factions' were viewed dimly by the Founders. I would
| argue in favor of two immediate changes:
|
| - Term limits for everything, including shorter max civil
| service careers. Capitol Hill, like any compost heap,
| benefits from regular turning.
|
| - A "bidder bunch" rule, whereby if Congress can't manage its
| key function--that of producing a budget--then none of these
| goofs (even the ones I admire) get to run for their seat when
| next up. There are copious talented alternative people to put
| on ballots. Do your job or face corporate punishment, say I.
|
| [1] https://thirty-thousand.org/
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _A "bidder bunch" rule, whereby if Congress can't manage
| its key function--that of producing a budget--then none of
| these goofs (even the ones I admire) get to run for their
| seat when next up_
|
| This creates an obvious and huge perverse incentive to
| throw a wrench into the works any time you want a do-over.
| paul7986 wrote:
| We need another one whose motto is "Country Over Party," and
| is backed by locked down solid ethics that always follows
| right vs. wrong with right (not politically right or left)
| guiding everything this entity stands for and is guided by.
| Present day it's neither party standing for right vs. wrong
| it's the b.s. Right (politically) vs. Left(politically) or
| Left vs. Right! Gross, there's neither party today cares
| about right vs. wrong or integrity just divide the country
| further!!!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _locked down solid ethics that always follows right vs.
| wrong with right (not politically right or left) guiding
| everything this entity stands for and is guided by_
|
| As in?
|
| People can legitimately disagree about what is right and
| wrong, or what even falls on a moral continuum. Nailing
| down a moment's broad truth is among the most revered roles
| in any society.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Can they ... poll a group of people (right and lefties)
| and ask...
|
| If vandalizing a Telsa and vandalizing the US Capitol are
| both wrong. Both acts are clear cut wrong!
|
| Those who refuse to say both are wrong their brains are
| driven now by political emotional mind control babble
| where they've thrown out knowing and standing for right
| over wrong.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| There was a time when senators were not elected by popular
| vote. The constitution leaves a lot of this up to the states
| and just by convention they mostly do the same thing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The nexus of stupidity in our Republic has less often been
| the Senate; I'm unkeen to mess with it.
|
| The House is a mess. So is SCOTUS. My proposal for the latter
| is redefining the Supreme Court as one drawn by lot from
| appellate judges for each case. This not only solves the
| appointment lottery. It also incentivises expanding the
| judiciary, which we need to do, and removes the modern
| perversion which is the Supreme Court just not bothering with
| controversial cases.
|
| Most importantly, the edits to SCOTUS can be done by the
| Congress. The edits to the House can be done by the states.
| (EDIT: Nah.) Senate requires a Constitutional amendment; that
| window isn't open at this time.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| This is something that was defined in the Constitution,
| however. Article 1, Section 3 called for the selection of
| Senators by state legislatures. This is superseded by the
| 17th Amendment, and calls for Senators to be elected by the
| people of their states.
|
| This is important to understand, because the 17th Amendment
| is an on-again-off-again political issue; Republicans have,
| in recent history, held most state legislatures, so repealing
| the 17th Amendment would basically guarantee that the
| Republican Party would control at least one house of Congress
| for the foreseeable future, and give the party greater
| control over who is selected to the office.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Thanks... didn't remember that detail and admittedly didn't
| check the source.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Huh, TIL the Constitution doesn't require Congressional
| districts.
|
| True, but...
|
| > A state could technically switch to a model like this for
| assigning representatives at large.
|
| No, it can't because Congress itself is given the overriding
| power in the Constitution to regulate the "time, place, and
| manner" of elections to the House, and has exercised it to
| prohibit at-large districts (many times, with lax enforcement,
| but the most recent mandate, adopted in 1967, has not had the
| compliance problems the earlier ones often did.) The 1967
| mandate was adopted under the dual specter of a some states
| failing to resolve districting controversies and potentially
| facing judicially-imposed at-large districts and several states
| having used at-large districts for non-federal elections to
| effectively disenfranchise Black voters and concerns that the
| same might be done to Congressional delegations as a way of
| blunting the impacts of new rules like the Voting Rights Act.
|
| Additional detail at:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43739929
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Appreciated as always!
| nabla9 wrote:
| There is a federal law.
|
| There has been numerous proposals in the Congress to get rid of
| it, but they don't get ratified because two parties like the
| status quo.
|
| People will have to make it an issue.
| krapp wrote:
| Nnnneeeeeeeeerds!
| yorwba wrote:
| It's interesting that it's possible to achieve proportional
| representation with respect to geographic distribution and party
| votes simultaneously. (Though, as the article notes, Iceland
| falls short of this ideal.)
|
| This makes me wonder: why stop at two? Some places have explicit
| quotas for different ethnic or religious groups as a compromise
| to avoid civil war. Could they use a tripoportional system?
|
| And why not add in even more demographic variables? Age, gender,
| income, level of education, ... I suppose at some point it stops
| being a secret election because the number of voters sharing all
| attributes becomes too small, or the parliament would get
| unwieldily large trying to represent every hyperspecific
| constituency.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > It's interesting that it's possible to achieve proportional
| representation with respect to geographic distribution and
| party votes simultaneously.
|
| That _would_ be interesting, but it 's not even possible to
| achieve one of those things by itself.
| avar wrote:
| The main "feature" of the Icelandic voting system is to dilute
| the relationship between a voter and their representative
| representing _their_ interests in _their_ district.
|
| Instead their vote goes to someone in the same political party in
| another district.
|
| So the entire system is biased away from local representation and
| towards party policy decided on a national basis.
|
| That policy is in turn heavily weighed towards the interests of
| geographic areas over "one person one vote". Icelandic law only
| starts considering that a problem once your vote counts 2x as
| much as mine, just because we live an imaginary line apart.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-04-19 23:01 UTC)