Multi Party Democracy in a Presidential Republic, Part Four: The presidency

In a multi party system as I've defined before, likely tailored to the needs of the US in particular, the nature of the president and executive government tends to come up. 

Most countries you probably associate with proportional electoral systems are parliamentary systems, and so the PM is always responsible to the legislature. In a presidential system, that's not the case. 

But the US does have an additional weirdness factor that their president is dependent on: The electoral college. 

The obvious thought about the electoral college is about how a person with a mere plurality of the votes gets all of the state's votes (with a couple of exceptions being Maine and Nebraska which award two for the statewide winner, and one elector for each congressional district you get a plurality in), and that you need a majority to win. In a two party system, the idea that someone will have a majority is obvious, and so if the minority gets 45% of the vote, the majority has to get 55%. But in a multi party system, that's not the case. 

And so assuming all other aspects of political elections are using Single Transferable Vote with a secret ballot by whoever is voting, and the primary for any partisan election is also based on STV, that means that you have the electors themselves chosen in a primary and not nominated by the state's party. This would be different than it is today where most states have either their state party convention or their state party committee or some other similar type of appointed method by existing officeholders or election by a party committee such as the district committee. It also changes their loyalty, to those who helped them get elected, and this would be a faction of the voters of the party in the primary and a faction of the voters in the actual election. Some electors can have split loyalties as it is possible for a candidate without a full quota on first preference to win by being moderate and appealing to next choice preferences from others, in both the general and the primary election.

The same also is true of the presidential primary, which is not technically done directly in the US but by delegates. If you were to, as my rule before described, divide up the US into 5 member districts, the Republicans would elect 2550 delegates, or dividing up the US into 510 districts each with about 647 thousand people, and the Democrats with 3979 delegates into 796 districts with 414 thousand people each, and each delegate has the same incentives as the electors, as they can win by getting a full quota or appealing to be a moderate. Having a mind of their own also opens up the potential for the vice presidential campaign to also be based on negotiations and contested votes. 

It's also a strong likelihood that no one candidate will get a majority and will cause a brokered convention. This was normal in the US before the 1970s, and VPs also often got contested votes too. Back then, the delegates had a lot of influence from bosses but under this new model, while the conventions would likely be brokered, the delegates would be elected transparently and directly by the general membership of the party. The party nominee will need to be uniting their party in the general election and the campaign up to it, as they would need to convince the perhaps 60-80% of the party that didn't rank them as number one to support them in the general election. 

In the November election when the things come back to the electors, the electors will be chosen in the general election. But under a proportional system where a candidate with say 40% of the vote may only have say 2 out of 5 electors in a state like Nebraska, and similar stories all over the US, the electors have to make important choices because they probably won't have a majority for anyone, and it is actually written into the constitution that an absolute majority of the votes must be cast in favour of the president and vice president for them to win. If not, the Congress holds a runoff.

The Congressional runoff is quite unique. Each house picks from among a shortlist which the electors have voted for, which is part of how the electoral college is designed to operate, to allow the legislature to pick a president but not allowing it to elect those from inside their own clique of legislators or elevating their own or acting like a Roman Senate friendly to just their own. The Senate actually holds the vote to determine the identity of the vice president, potentially having a different group of parties and support than for any president. The House of Representatives holds the vote to choose the president, but instead of the way that they elect the speaker, their members have to vote state by state by a majority within each one, by ballot, and 26 states would be necessary to win. In a multi party system where you have these delegations likely being split up wildly by party and by geography, this could create very strange results. 

Each legislator can act in their own consciousness but they also have to think about the overall coalition for passing laws, impeaching the president, and the kinds of coalitions which helped them get elected in the primary and what coalition of parties supports their allied legislators in their own state. Offend them and their actual support diminishes, with just two years for the next election in the House, this could be a turnoff for the votes to get reelected, even more so if recall is made permissible against congresspeople. 

The party leaders have less control over this process, for a couple reasons. As I prescribed in the rules, in this multi party system, whenever someone is being elected, the electors vote by secret ballot. The electors, the delegates at that party convention, and the Congresspeople here have a free mandate and a secret ballot with which to make that free mandate expressed. The legislators also have already voted to choose who to name to committees and chairs, so their legislative roles are already protected. The primaries are friendly to any faction within the party getting on the ballot and potentially getting on the November ballot so long as they can get enough support from the voters in general not just their own partisans. And the party leaders only have a few choices, the shortlist of electors demands only a few options. 

Any president who wants the job will also have to do a lot of work, they have to promise to state by state delegations that they will carry out their desires. They will be desperately trying to convince electors to get them on the shortlist made by the electors, even if they don't have a majority, they could end up as the third candidate on it and so might get congressional support. And the vice president will act more like a candidate for chairperson of the Senate which they constitutionally in fact are. 

This part means that the vice president has an independent legitimate mandate from the president, and the president is likely to have little control over them. They would not have caused them to be on the legislative ballot and a VP can become VP without their party's nominee for president getting elected, so they can advance their own desires and use their own platform for what they want. The popularity they must have had to be elected by the Senate to the vice presidency would give them some weight to throw there, so they might manipulate the president's desire for a legislative agenda there and the nomination of appointments. 

This could make the president's role less direct and feel more abstract, and more conductive to someone who negotiates for every piece of policy and appointment. They aren't more legitimate than the Congress which was directly and well fought for in popular votes, while the presidential nomination needed a brokered convention, the electors had to be convinced independently to put their name in the shortlist, and the Congress had to vote for the president. It doesn't matter as much who the president is or how many attempts they make to directly influence the public opinion, to become a loudmouth makes it harder for you to get elected and a liability on your own party. So we may see the presidential power substantially reduced, and possibly also see that it's rare for a president to be reelected given how many things have to happen to be reelected. 

Next part coming soon.