On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 9:55 PM, Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yes, in general members of some group in the parliament are expected to vote > the same way most of the time. Different parties have somewhat different > attitude. In some questions the groups explicitly give free hands to their > members. (I believe the constitution says something about the independent > decision making of the representatives, and I don't like at least sanctions > very much.)
Right, this is very important. There is no point in having legislators if they all must vote with the party/party leader. In New Zealand, if you are kicked out of the party, you must give up your seat. This seems like a bad idea. > I guess any votes are welcome. The elected candidates are likely to be part > of the team in any case and increase the strength of the party. Also > candidates that fail to become elected are very beneficial (their votes will > be inherited by others). Ahh, ok. A party ideally, wants candidates who don't get elected (so they get 'free' votes) or candidates who get more than 1 quota, so the party gets the excess (more 'free' votes). > In open lists all candidates are expected to campaign as much as they can > and to collect as many votes as they can. It is also beneficial to nominate > as many candidates as possible (even few additional votes are better than > none). Well, under PR-STV, candidates do campaign very hard. In fact, it is a method that results in very few safe seats. Even if parties are being tactical, there is still choice for the voters. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info