Bob, I like that you want to take it slow and that you articulate yourself well.
We both take in different perspectives and the question is if I can make the position I promote clear or not.
First the Tenth Amendment therefore, because it say that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
We therefore see that there are powers indeed, not just rights. This sets the USA apart from all other nations because in other nations (in as far as I investigated this) they talk about rights and how the government fits into the larger reality of a nation. The other nations don't talk about powers, but we have that word power in writing in the highest document of our nation.
We can also see that in the USA there are only three powers in total. There are no additional powers -- all got divvied up per the Tenth Amendment, meaning there is nothing remaining for any other entity.
Two of them are governmental powers and one of them gives US Constitutional power to the People. We therefore have the sovereigns of this nation (the People), and we have the two levels of government of the nation, Fed and State. Nothing else.
These three powers all both work together and battle it out over the realms of their powers. When written down in the US Constitution in specifics, then each realm is given clear directions. But there are gray areas where these realms battle each other because it isn’t all clear all the time.
We are all very familiar with the tug-of-war between the Federal government and the State governments. The Federal government is the most powerful of the two, but only in as far as the States are not given their own powers (sometimes this is really clear, sometimes this is a gray area).
The point I am making is that the other tug-of-war, between the States and the People, can remain unnoticed. Folks can lay back, relax, enjoy the show, and not see that the State is taking more than what it should be taking. When the People do not say "wait a minute" then the State can take and take and take and take.
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The interesting battleground is where the States and the People are in each other's face, so to speak.
That is not at the State level itself.
The State is given powers about the State and anything the State does for, with or against the State is basically up to the State. How the State holds its State elections is up to the State and if they want to make cooking Brussels sprouts verboten in the State kitchen then they can do whatever they want to do.
The States did establish the additional realm of cities and counties, yet this realm is not a US Constitutional power. Therefore, this enters the gray area where the US Constitutional power of the State and the US Constitutional power of the People battle one another.
Cities and counties are indeed given their own powers by the State, yet these should not be confused with US Constitutional powers. Cities can for instance have their own ordinances about picking up dog shit by dog owners. The State does not get involved. Basically, the State's power ends in the gritty-nitty of daily governmental reality. The State could not operate a State government if it had to deal with everything governmental in the entire State. It had to hand out powers to others (but again these are not US Constitutional powers).
The question is next if the State has the power all the way to the gritty-nitty level if it had been able to do all. The answer is Yes but only for the governmental tasks and rules and regulations about those tasks. The answer is No where the People have their realm of US Constitutional power and it is not any business of the State, for instance, what we do in our own homes (in as far as we are not breaking any laws inside our homes of course).
We do not live in a dictatorship. We do not have all power just for the government.
The People are not just given rights, they are given US Constitutional powers, so there is a realm from which a push back exists, fully supported by the US Constitution.
Today, the People lay back, relax, enjoy the show, while the State wrote the rules how people must select their own representatives in their own cities and counties.
But now the People (a few) are starting to rise up, claiming their power, pushing back the State government, not at the State level because the State can indeed decide what to do at the State level. Rather, at the local level is where the State is taking from the People and so we are pushing back. We want what is ours at least in the one spot where we have the full support of the US Constitution.
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That brings me to the voting systems because it appears you don't see the important difference between winner-take-all and full representation, but see them more or less as two different flavors of the same.
Let me use the example of the US Senate because there are 100 senators and the numbers are therefore easy. At one point in time, I did the calculations (thank you internet with all data readily available back then) and the average senator got 59.03% of the votes to win a seat. Let's round this up to 60%.
In the Senate, the balance is 50%-50% between both parties. That means that when a decision is made (let's say with a miraculous 60% of all senators) that this is then always a voter minority-supported decision.
60% times 60% = 36%.
Do you see it? When 60% of the voters get the one they wanted, and the winners vote 50 Senators plus Vice President on an issue (I made this example more realistic here) then that means that 30% of the voters got the outcome they themselves voted for. Half of that 60% ended up being 'the majority'.
50% times 60% = 30%.
As a side note: The battle in the USA for the Senate is therefore about one party making sure to win the right 30% of the voters (these voters get all attention, everyone else gets little).
The realm of the people is hollowed out because just the majority won ALL seats. In the example, more than 40% of the voters got nothing to begin with, went home empty handed. Insult to injury, they got the senator to represent them that they did not vote for.
But… this is just an example. We are not interested in the Federal level; it's just an easy example to show that the voting system is not clean.
Thomas Jefferson was the first to devise the clean voting system. It works as follows:
You go to the voting booth and pick Cobalt Blue because you like Cobalt Blue best from all colors. You already know in advance that you are a Cobalt Blue fan; it is very easy to pick from all colors.
Everyone picks their own favorite color.
The total outcome of all the votes is then translated into the total outcome of all representatives. There are no losing voters. The system is the cleanest there is.
When there are just four seats on a council, then 80% of the voters are guaranteed their pick. That is 30% more than in the district voting system with its 50% plus one vote for the win.
When there are nine seats on a council, then 90% of the voters are guaranteed their pick.
I am jumping a bit between the two systems from here on out, so I hope that is not too confusing, Bob.
With district voting, we see that not 50% but rather about 60% of the voters get who they voted for in real time. So, when there are nine seats instead that are voted in proportionally, then not 90% but likely 96% of the voters will get who they voted for. Very close to everyone is represented by their own choice in proportional voting.
That benefit of the clean system over the not-clean system is visible already when there are just two seats in total. The voting systems are totally different, except when there is just one seat, for instance, the mayoral seat.
Proportional voting is clean. District voting is not clean. District voting is giving less than what is promised (equality in outcome is not given).
So, when one in six San Francisco voters is Republican, and there are eleven seats, then one seat will ALWAYS be occupied by a Republican, probably registered as such and all, in proportional voting. To say that this would not necessarily be the case is like saying that 1 and 1 isn't always 2.
Next, a second Republican will likely also occupy a seat, but not necessarily so. If not declared, then we will likely see a Republican-leaning person in that seat, but then without declaring party affiliation.
If an average city with eleven seats on the council were to have proportional voting in place, then both Democratic and Republican parties would likely occupy in total eight or nine of those seats. One or two would go to the Green party or to the Libertarian party.
It should be obvious immediately that in district voting we end up with Red and Blue, and that we can almost never get any other color in place. We are restricted in expressing ourselves. No Yellow, no Green, no Orange (but we do get Purple sometimes).
It should be obvious immediately that in proportional voting the voters are in control much more. The outcome is based on the voters and not on the twists and turns of the voting system because proportional voting is clean.
District voting is like basketball. Admire the sport as much as you want, but a person who is 5 feet tall is not playing on the court. A normal sized person is already the exception. If we decided politics via a game of basketball then all would agree that the system is not clean. District voting contains a game and is therefore not clean.
Recap:
The Federal elections are fine as is. It's the law.
The State elections are not fine as is, but there is nothing we can do about it because we are not powerful enough. It's not the law, but our position is not strong enough to make anything else the law.
The local elections are not clean and we can point to the Ninth, Tenth and Fourteenth Amendment to get a clean voting system in place, and the other two powers have nothing to stop us. It's the law, and this one is fully in our favor.
That is -- if the people are aware that they are being taken for a ride. If they are not aware, then the State can take and take and take and take.
A scam is only successful when the people who gave us their money walked away thinking all was fair when they lost their money. They did not see that we manipulated the outcome; they think all was fair indeed.
District voting is not a clean voting system.
Thank you, Bob, for being interested. I am curious what your thoughts are because then we can discuss this in further detail. I hope you see by now that I am really just using the Ninth, the Tenth and the Fourteenth Amendments. They contain the directions how we organize the three realms of power of the US Constitution, one of the governmental levels is without US Constitutional power while the People have that US Constitutional power.
The State powers are taking us for a ride at the local levels. The State powers are the reason we are stuck in a restricted Red and Blue reality at all levels.
