If a significant fraction of the population votes for the "I love cheese party", then why is it wrong for that party get their voice? And if 15% of the population votes for the "kill all the heathens" party, then that party will have 15% of the votes in congress. Why shouldn't they? With proportional representation, people can vote for parties they actually agree with, rather than needing to vote strategically for the lesser of two evils, neither of which they agree with. I've met Americans who say that they actually agree more with one of the small parties, but you can't vote for any of those because you would be throwing away your vote. Any others who don't even know what the smaller parties stand for. "The winner takes it all"-type election systems create a strong tendency towards a few, large parties. I think it will be impossible for the USA to break out of its two-party rut without switching to proportional representation.
It may be true that you end up with much less focus on individual representatives, and more focus on the party as a unit, when you use proportional representaiton. That is certainly how it works where I come from (Norway). When voting, you vote for a sorted list of representatives, with the most weight going to those at the top of the list, and less to those at the bottom. These lists are provided by the parties, but they can be edited before you cast a vote - you can strike out representatives, change their order, or even include people from other parties. In practice almost nobody does this, though.
I am not sure that this will actually change how the representatives behave, though. Do the politicians in the USA behave as if they are beholden to the people who voted for them? In countries with proportional representation it is much more feasible to vote for another party if the previous one did not fulfill one's expectations. So in a way, the party takes on the same role as the representative. In the USA, if you voted Democrat, you can't really punish the Democratic party as such if they behave too much like Republicans for your taste, for example, as the alternative would be to vote Republican. The only option is to punish your representative. So I understand why Americans think voting for individual representatives is so important. But in a many-party system (for which you need proportional representation or similar), voting for another party is actually practical, and just as effective.
Slashdot Mirror
If a significant fraction of the population votes for the "I love cheese party", then why is it wrong for that party get their voice? And if 15% of the population votes for the "kill all the heathens" party, then that party will have 15% of the votes in congress. Why shouldn't they? With proportional representation, people can vote for parties they actually agree with, rather than needing to vote strategically for the lesser of two evils, neither of which they agree with. I've met Americans who say that they actually agree more with one of the small parties, but you can't vote for any of those because you would be throwing away your vote. Any others who don't even know what the smaller parties stand for. "The winner takes it all"-type election systems create a strong tendency towards a few, large parties. I think it will be impossible for the USA to break out of its two-party rut without switching to proportional representation.
It may be true that you end up with much less focus on individual representatives, and more focus on the party as a unit, when you use proportional representaiton. That is certainly how it works where I come from (Norway). When voting, you vote for a sorted list of representatives, with the most weight going to those at the top of the list, and less to those at the bottom. These lists are provided by the parties, but they can be edited before you cast a vote - you can strike out representatives, change their order, or even include people from other parties. In practice almost nobody does this, though.
I am not sure that this will actually change how the representatives behave, though. Do the politicians in the USA behave as if they are beholden to the people who voted for them? In countries with proportional representation it is much more feasible to vote for another party if the previous one did not fulfill one's expectations. So in a way, the party takes on the same role as the representative. In the USA, if you voted Democrat, you can't really punish the Democratic party as such if they behave too much like Republicans for your taste, for example, as the alternative would be to vote Republican. The only option is to punish your representative. So I understand why Americans think voting for individual representatives is so important. But in a many-party system (for which you need proportional representation or similar), voting for another party is actually practical, and just as effective.