US election reformers are following the wrong model. We should copy UK 1832, not NZ 1993.

And that means a biproportional method, not STV.

Most US election reformers are following a model that’s worked before. As with progressive-era reforms in the US, as with international examples like New Zealand, we’ve mainly been focusing on building a grassroots movement, planning to work up from municipal to state level and eventually to take on federal elections through state-by-state action.

But in the fight against gerrymandering, that’s a dead end. If you’re on one side of the political spectrum, you can only build grassroots energy in states your side controls. But reforming just those states would be counterproductive to your goals; you’d need the other side to agree to reform also.

The only solution is federal action. And that means that grassroots energy has to be matched and embraced by at least one of the major parties. In other words, instead of the NZ 1993 “party system collapses” model, we need to aim for the UK 1832 “one party embraces reform” model.

That’s what happened for the UK’s parliamentary reform act of 1832. Prior to reform, “rotten Boroughs”, localities with as few as 12 voters, could elect their own members of parliament. Public sentiment against this system had grown, and grassroots action was strong; for instance, Birmingham and Manchester illegally elected their own unofficial Members of Parliament. But it wasn’t until Tories, under their leader Earl Grey (the T Party?), supported reform and won a landslide election against Whig leader Wellington (who also had his own brand of steak), that reform actually happened.

That Earl Grey? Hot!

This is different from the New Zealand model. In that model, step one is for growing third party support to destabilize the two-party system, so that a major party embraces reform not as a weapon against the other party but merely for survival against a growing third-party threat. That’s the model that worked in US cities in the progressive era, and it’s essentially the model happening in British Columbia today. It’s more common than the 1832 model, but at a US federal level, it’s just not in accord with the present reality. Dissatisfaction with the two-party system is high, but polarization and demonization of the “greater evil” party is even higher, so that third party growth is likely to follow, not to precipitate, electoral reform.

And if we’re following the 1832 model, with gerrymandering replacing rotten boroughs, we need a reform proposal that can be embraced by at least one party in Congress. That means it should disrupt life for incumbents as little as is necessary in order to fix gerrymandering. Changing voting methods is enough; it shouldn’t also require a change to districts, so STV is not a viable option. That means using a biproportional method that can give proportional outcomes using existing districts. (Or expanding the House and simultaneously moving to MMP; but that’s two changes.)

There are various biproportional methods available:

These are all relatively new, but they’re composed from long-established basic ingredients. This last method, DMP, is among the 3 new methods on the ballot in British Columbia’s #PR4BC referendum scheduled for November, so it may get a trial run there in the upcoming years.

We can end this system, so that the two major parties have to win or lose fair and square, without choose-one voting unfairly propping them up. But in order to do so, we can’t wait for the party system to collapse first, as in most historical cases of reform. The injustice of gerrymandering is directly comparable to that of rotten boroughs, and in such cases, building an alliance with one of the major parties to enact reform is possible, as the example of 1832 shows.