So, the surest way for any PR legislator to convince voters that he or she is championing their values is still by publicly attacking ideological opponents. E lections could be structured so that each legislator ends up speaking for a group of people who share the same values, and each lawmaker has a direct channel of communication to those constituents. With that combination, each legislator would know that if he or she resolved differences with ideological opponents, he would have the means to show his constituents that it was the best way to achieve their own objectives. So, legislators should have incentives to seek constructive agreements. T he experiment lets an instructor model this election method in the classroom and gauge the effects on voters and legislators.
Students get a more vivid experience of the political process than they can get from a text book.
Ideally, the students are divided into two groups, one using the above election method and the other using the current American system, so the two can be compared. That would require 60 or more students. If you have less than 60 students or limited time, we recommend that you just create the negotiation-based legislature. After the exercise, the students can compare their experience to what they see happening in election campaigns and in Congress itself. T he instructor may want to discuss or assign the students some reading about political conflict and the role of negotiation in resolving it.