New voting system for Louisiana congressional races

Those believing ‘we’ve always had winner-take-all elections’ will be surprised to know Louisiana just held two for the first time since 1976. (On a Saturday, no less.)

In the 1st district, Steve Scalise (R) won a four-way race with 75%. Voters in the 6th district, formerly held by Richard Baker (R), elected Democrat Dan Cazayoux with 49% of votes. The big news, some say, is that the national swing favoring Democrats in 2006 seems like it will persist into November 2008. In other news, the new winner-take-all system wasted 50.8% of votes in LA-06.

Louisiana used to use a ‘cajun primary’ for all its elections until legislation last year brought congressional races in line with the national norm.

The cajun primary is an open-endorsement two-round system (TRS). All candidates compete in the first round of voting. If no candidate has a majority, the top two face off in a later round. The system makes it somewhat difficult for parties to discipline candidates and organize voters, which are features I like given the context. On the other hand, the top-two logic of the first round makes it easy for like-minded voters to spoil their own candidates, which I do not like. With its single round of voting, sequential (versus batch) elimination, and majority requirement, IRV is a better option for parties and voters alike.

Unfortunately Louisiana did not go that route. Happily, though, the federalism of electoral system design (versus election administration) holds out the possibility for such innovation. If only states could control district magnitude too.