Direct Party Vote/Closed Party list
In a Direct Party vote, you don’t vote for a candidate; you just vote for one party. Whatever percentage of the vote the party gets across the whole Country/State is what percentage of the senators they get. The parties prepare a list of potential senators that they publish before the election. The party gets to create the list without direct input from the voters, hence why this system is also called a closed list system. For example, with the current US senate size, there is 100 senators. Let’s say the purple party got 25 percent of the votes; the first 25 out of 100 candidates on their list would become senators. If the yellow part only got two percent of the votes, they get two senators.
Why Direct Party Vote For The Senate?
Direct Party vote is the most proportional and will promote the creation of new parties needed to break away from the two part system. It allows for even smaller parties and thus their voters to have a voice in the legislature. Without districts, it is impossible to gerrymander, and it is the easiest system for voters. In most cases, a large number a voters already only vote based on the party, not the candidate. The system does lack local representatives, as it is possible that no one in the Senate could be from your area. This is why we have paired it up with STV in the House. The benefit of having two chamber in the legislature is that we can elect the Senate with a different method to balance the trade offs. Just like in the current system, the House represents the people, and the Senate represents the states. In the Minnesota Plan, the House represents the individual locations, and the senate represents the Country/State as a whole. Click below to learn about STV for the House.