Because the median voter doesn't realistically have that detailed a level of knowledge on legislators/their policies. This is tough for a lot of people to believe- especially the kind of high-information voters who propose these sorts of reforms to begin with. But there's an enormous, multi-decade literature on voter ignorance. They simply don't know much about who's running or what their policies are

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SubiculumCode 18 hours ago | parent [-]

But if they came from your own small town and had a reputation in that small town based on years of living there?

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hash872 17 hours ago | parent [-]

1. I grew up in a small town, and occasionally ask my parents how mayoral/city council politics is going there. (Or, I check out the latest drama on Facebook about it). My good friend's uncle was our mayor for a long time, etc. People might know personalities, but they're still not following national policy positions. Not to mention that people would be voting purely for personalities/clan/ethnic affiliations, and again not policy- we have a term for that in poly sci, personalism

2. A country of 340 million people with an elected representative from every small town would have an unrealistic number of representatives. 1 for every 5k citizens would be 68,000 reps in the House

I get that you're fetishizing hyper-localism to the exclusion of all else, but it's just a bad basis to run a modern society. This is not a realistic vision

	▲	SubiculumCode 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Was it hyper localism in the years between 1776-1930 to have 1 Representative per <=70k citizens. We do not need to go to 5k, and no one said that. But there are ways to aggregate and distribute processes for a larger House, and you have provided no reason for why the current fixed small number of 435 should be preferred, why that is workable, but not 870 (1:350k) or 1740 for 1:175k. Practically, and with all due respect, you keep stating opinions why it is a "bad basis to run a modern society" but you never articulate why exactly. To my mind, the increased complexity of the world can use more Representatives to work and specialized in more specializes committees.