[bravesoul2]

I live in Australia and we have preferential voting. We also don't vote for a president but the prime minister is decided by majority of seats in house of representatives.

It still ends up mostly being a 2 party thing. Supporting your team is deep rooted. However at least there is the potential for a third party to get in.

But it suffers from the same statistical issue. If a quarter of voters vote green but equally across seats then that popular vote is not represented in the number of seats.

It is a vote of a vote still.

I wonder if we can move away from representation purely on where you live.

Where you live means something. City vs. Countryside. Poor neighbourhoods vs. Rich. But if your issue is suffered by many but you don't all cluster together in latitude and longitude then that issue has less weight.

Sorry forgot this is who's hiring!

[theteapot]

Current US house of reps (435 seats):

  Republicans: 220 seats.
  Democrats: 215 seats.
  Independents/Third Party: 0 seats.

Current AU house of reps (150 seats):

  Australian Labor Party (ALP): 94 seats
  Coalition: 43 seats (combined Liberal/National parties)
  Australian Greens: 1 seat
  Centre Alliance: 1 seat
  Katter's Australian Party: 1 seat
  Independents: 10 seats

[bravesoul2]

It's definitely better. But it's not proportional representation.

E.g. Greens got about 12.2% of vote.

12.2% of 150 is 18, not 1.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/jun/02/...

The system while better is biased towards parties who can get the majority of individual constituencies based on geographic location. It relies on localized monocultures to get democracy for smaller parties. But that doesn't happen.

[theteapot]

House of representatives is not designed to provide proportional representation based on aggregate % vote country wide. Senate is more aligned that way and it's reflected in the numbers, in AU:

Current US senate (100 seats):

  Republicans: 53 seats (Majority Party)
  Democrats: 45 seats (Minority Party)
  Independents: 2 seats

Current AU senate (76):

  Australian Labor Party: 29
  Coalition: 27
  Australian Greens: 10
  Pauline Hanson's One Nation: 4
  Jacqui Lambie Network: 1
  Australia's Voice: 1
  United Australia Party: 1
  Independents: 3

So Greens are slightly over represented in the AU Senate based on aggregate vote if 12.2% is correct.