Some random observations on the theme.
"Seats != power" seems to assume that there is a hard party
discipline (=all party representatives will/must vote as told by the
party). Or alternatively representatives could have different weights
(different number of votes each).
You skipped the "normal" rule of proportional systems where votes =
seats quite quickly. It has its problems but I guess also possible
power measurement based methods would have some problems. Let's say
there is a rule that one can modify the constitution with 75% of the
votes. There are three parties: 45%, 45% and 10%. Should we now give
the smallest party more power by allowing it to modify the
constitution together with one large party in some cases (with only
55% of the votes)?
With 50% limit and parties 30%, 30%, 30%, 10%, should we allow
minority decisions in some cases to allow the small party to decide
in some cases?
One alternative approach would be to require higher percentage of
votes in some cases, e.g. after decisions have been made with lower
percentages for few times. In this case 30%+30% would not be enough
any more in some cases but the the approval limit would go up from
50% e.g. to 65% at some point.
Note that if the parties will make majority decisions that then
require all the party representatives to vote as decided this means
that some of the party representatives may have to vote against their
will. The party is allowed to wield power but part of the
representatives will wild the power against themselves. The party has
power but the representatives and supporters would in some cases be
hurt by this power (maybe the alternative that lost had majority
support among (all) the representatives and voters). The party "won"
but maybe not all of its representatives and supporters.
I guess the basic idea behind party discipline is that this way the
party is able to reach a better negotiation position. A party that is
internally split 50%-50% on some question can still do horse trading
and agree with some other party to support that party in this vote if
that party will support this this party in some future vote. The
power of the parties now follows the power measurement schemes
instead of "votes = power". But in principle parties that together
have sufficient majority may take a dictator role. It is hard to
design systems that would eliminate the possibility of this kind of
party negotiation level voting discipline (if one party can do this,
why not a group of parties too).
Voting methods that would take the power measurement aspects into
account may give more power to the small parties in order to allow
them to decide more than they would otherwise be allowed to. This
could lead to a strategic for the big parties to split at least
formally but still after the elections use strong party discipline
that would now cover all the party fragments.
How about using the more traditional votes = seats method and
discouraging the use of the party discipline? That could be just a
recommendation, or maybe a rule that would ban disciplinary actions
towards representatives that have voted against the party majority
opinion. One approach would be to introduce more structure in the
party structure. I have few times promoted the idea of allowing a
tree like structure within the parties (and between them too). That
would make it easier to the right or green wing of a party to vote
differently than the rest of the party (they could feel close to
being required to do so in some "right" or "green" situations).
Also methods that do not rely on the party structure (e.g. STV) are
more likely to lead to a having representatives that will make
independent decisions, maybe sometimes working together with other
right wing representatives, sometimes together with other greenish
representatives etc.
I'm not aware of methods that would take some of the power
measurement formula into account.
I welcome multi-winner discussions. No need and no reason to limit
the discussions to the single-winner theme. (What would be the reason
to do so? Often single-winner and multi-winner systems are
alternatives to each others => both needed to cover the field properly.)
Juho
On Sep 21, 2007, at 18:22 , Howard Swerdfeger wrote:
I know that this list is primarily single winner elections but I
thought
given the low volume as of late a slight change of topic would be
welcome.
with that, I was wondering about multi winner elections. specifically
the parliamentary kind typical of most former British colonies.
Do to the inadequacies of the FPTP system in creating a government
many
of these countries are looking at alternative systems, New Zealand
moved
to MMP, Scotland as well, BC tried to once, and will try again move to
STV, Ontario is looking at MMP.
The drive behind thes moves it usually that the old system fails to
translate votes into seats "fairly". (Votes != Seats)
but most of these reforms fail to recognize that that Seats do not
equal
power. So we are still still stuck with a similar problem (votes !=
power)
I was looking into 2 methods of measuring power in a weighted
voting system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banzhaf_Power_Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley-Shubik_power_index
I was wondering first if there are any methods of measuring power in a
legislature that I am unaware of? Secondly if anybody has tried to
design a generic system where by votes are kept proportional to power,
via allocation of seats?
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