On May 8, 2008, at 5:52 , Fred Gohlke wrote:
re: "I already commented earlier that the "groups of three" based
method that you have studied does not implement proportionality in
the traditional way."
You're right. It's not traditional, but it sure is proportional.
One of the unspecified conditions I intended for the 'groups of
three' method was that participation in the election process should
be mandatory, as it is in (I believe) Australia, Singapore and New
Zealand. If every person in the electorate participates in the
process of selecting those who will represent them in their
government, there can be no greater proportionality.
Well, I think proportionality is at its best / strongest when n% of
the voters get n% of the seats. Extensive participation in the
election process is a good thing but "proportionality" is not a very
descriptive name for this.
re: "Large parties (or whatever opinion camps) tend to get more
representatives to the higher layers (more than their proportional
size is)."
Is that assertion not based on the assumption that large parties
(or opinion camps) must dominate our political existence?
Only on the (country independent) technical properties of the "groups
of three" method.
(If there are e.g. two parties, one small and one large, the
probability of getting two small party supporters (that would elect
one of them to the next higher level) in a group of three is so small
that in the next higher level the number of small party supporters is
probably lower than at this level.)
Juho
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