On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 3:29 PM, James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Raph Frank > Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 2:45 PM >> Anyway, you would rank PR-STV behind single winner election methods? > > This is an illogical question. By definition, "single winner elections > methods" are for electing single winners. By definition > "PR-STV" is for obtaining proportionality of the voters for which several > winners must be elected together. So you are not > comparing like with like.
Fair enough, I meant would you elect a legislature via single winner or PR. > Single winner voting systems should, of course, be used only for > single-office elections, like city mayor or state governor. Single > winner voting methods should never be used to elect assemblies, like a city > council or a state legislature. Ok, then we are in agreement. Actually, I would see the reviewing House of the legislature as less important in this regard, but the primary/government linked House should be PR based. > There is, of course, a separate debate about the nature of assemblies elected > by PR voting systems (of different kinds) and those > elected by single-winner voting systems. But that is essentially a political > debate about how representative or how distorted you > want the assembly to be, and about some of the other effects of some > single-winner voting systems, such as the tendency of some > single-winner voting systems to manufacturing single-party majorities within > the assembly even when no such majority exists among > the voters. Some see such distortion of the voters' wishes as highly > undesirable, while others see that distortion as highly > desirable, indeed, as an essential feature of the political system for "good > and effective government". True, some see the solid majorities given by plurality as one of its main benefits. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
