On Sep 5, 2008, at 4:00 , Stéphane Rouillon wrote:
Hello Juho,
using age, gender or other virtual dimension to build virtual
districts
replaces geographic antagonism by generation antagonism.
Ok, also that may happen. Each society should pick dimensions that
suit them best. (I'm just listing different options.)
The idea is to get equivalent sample that are not opposed by
intrinsec construction.
If the intention is not to divide people to groups that defend the
interests of that group (or just feel like being part of the same
group), then one could get rid of the districts altogether and use
only one nation wide district.
Thus we may find neutral decision takers that will minimize the
overall
bad impacts of a decision, thus maximize to the best of their
knowledge
the decisions for all the electorate. If you split representative
into groups who have divergent opinions, the result will not
optimize common interest, it will only illustrate the "rapport de
force"
(maybe translated as power struggle) between the representatives.
Age representatives would hardly stay neutral while deciding
retirement fees and pensions for example.
The Irish senate based on profession seems one step toward getting
neutral decision takers
for deciding the localization of projects for example.
I prefer equivalent samples of the entire electorate (phone numbers
or hash tables using names could work too, but it has some slight
discrepancies and problems...)
Yes, if one wants to avoid any groupings (like age groups, regional
groups, races, political parties) then maybe electing a random set of
citizens (trying to avoid giving them the opportunity to organize
themselves) could be the best approach. Some groupings are however
likely to emerge afterwards even if we would elect the
representatives by some random selection method.
Juho
From: Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Election Methods Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [EM] No geographical districts
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 00:13:34 +0300
Geographical proportionality is one specific dimension. Most
other dimensions could be called political dimensions. Also
groupings that do not live in any specific compact area could be
called political groupings. In principle they could form a party
and that way get a proportional number of representatives. (This
is also in line with the geographical proportionality related
target of guaranteeing representation from all _geographic_ areas.)
Many political systems have chosen geographical districts to be
fixed in the sense that people automatically "vote" for the
district where they live in. In the political dimension people
are typically allowed to pick the group that they want to
represent them.
It is possible to have election methods that support multiple
dimensions, i.e. more than these two. One could e.g. simply have
multiple orthogonal "party" structures and then in the vote
counting process force the representatives to be elected so that
proportionality will be respected in all dimensions.
There could be also additional "fixed dimensions" like automatic
fixed sex or age based proportionality.
Some of the additional dimensions could also be "virtual
districts" in the sense that each voter would be registered in
exactly one of them, and probably also vote only for candidates
that belong to one's own "virtual district". I understood that
you would use virtual districts to replace the current
geographical districts (and the geographical proportionality that
they represent).
The simplest (not necessarily optimal) approach to implement
multiple dimensions is one where you simply elect representatives
starting from the ones with strongest support (e.g. best
candidate of the largest party in the largest district), skip
candidates that can not be elected any more (e.g. district
already full, party already full), and continue until all seats
have been filled. At some point in the chain all "requirements"
of all dimensions are met if they are strong enough (and if there
are suitable candidates left).
(Some dimensions could be one-directional in the sense that one
would aim at guaranteeing at least a proportional share of the
seats but would not limit them to this number. For example one
could allow all members of some minority to require proportional
representation by marking this in their ballot. Other voters
would however not be required to vote either for or against this
minority. Any candidate (or any party, of any regions etc.) could
belong to this group. One should however not allow these lists to
overrule party proportionality or other "complete dimensions" (to
avoid riding under two flags (party and "minority") and getting
also corresponding double representation).)
Small ad here too. Trees (hierarchical candidate lists) offer
multiple dimensions in a simplified framework, but with
priorities involved too. One can e.g. be a greenish red or a
reddish green.
Juho
On Sep 4, 2008, at 1:01 , Stéphane Rouillon wrote:
Hello electorama fans,
regarding that last comment, I invite those interested in non-
geographical district
to consider astrological district. The idea is to obtain
equivalent samples of the electorate
in term of any distribution (age, geography, profession,
language, religion,...) like
poll survey use. For example, in Quebec with near 4 000 000
electors, we could
obtain around 73 (73 x 5 = 365 days) of less than 55 000
electors each.
Thus electorate results could indicate a better performance from
some candidates
instead of reflecting the district bias produced by its design.
For example the first district could be formed with all
Quebecors born between
1st and 5th of january, the 2nd with Quebecors born between 6th
and 10th of january
and so on...
For more details of an electoral system using such "districts",
search for SPPA
(Scrutin Préférentiel, Proportionel et Acirconscriptif in french).
An english version is available on the electoral reform website
of the British-Colombia citizen assembly.
...
However, even something like "they should be compact" favours some
people. If you are part of a group that is spread evenly, then
you do
worse if the districts are compact. The problem is that philosophy
that districts should be geographically based.
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