2011/7/24 Juho Laatu <juho4...@yahoo.co.uk> > On 23.7.2011, at 17.45, Jameson Quinn wrote: > > > We had a discussion about the best practical single-winner proposal, > which, while it certainly wasn't as conclusive as I'd hoped, seemed > productive to me. I think we should have a similar discussion about PR. > > > > Obviously, the situations in the UK and in the USA are very different in > this regard. The UK is, as far as I know, the origin of the PR movement (in > the 1860s and 1870s, liberals gained seats disproportionately as the > franchise was extended, and Conservatives looked for a "fairer" system to > recoup their losses). And it's part of Europe, where people have experience > with PR. But both the UK and the US currently elect their principal > representative bodies by district-based FPTP/plurality. > > > > And so I'd like to suggest that we should be looking for a PR system > which satisfies the following criteria: > > > > 1. Truly proportional (of course). I would be willing to support a > not-truly-proportional system, but I'm not everyone. Egregious compromises > on this issue will simply reduce the activist base, to no benefit. > > What is a not-truly-proportional system? That could range from being close > to proportional (=> only few seats difference to full PR) to being close to > what the system is today in the USA (=> gives one or two seats to third > parties). >
I was thinking of things like limited vote as somewhat-proportional systems. These would be an improvement, but the activist base for these half-measure reforms is I think always smaller than that of true PR. > > > 2. Includes a geographical aspect. People are attached to the "local > representation" feature of FPTP, whether that's rational or not. > > That may well make sense also in a PR system. Proportional geographical > representation is a different and separate target, not necessarily a relic. > Note that SODA-PR is not perfect here. It would tend to elect about one candidate per district, but there would be a possibility that some districts would get 2 and some would get 0. > > > 3. No "closed list". A party should not be able to completely shield any > member from the voters. In general, voter power is preferable to party > power, insofar as it's compatible with the next criterion. > > 4. Simple ballots. A reasonably-thorough voter should not have to mark > more than, say, 5 candidates or options, and an average ballot should not > list more than 20 candidates or options. Those are extreme limits; simpler > is better, all the way down to around 7 options (of which only around half > will be salient and/or viable). > > I hope you don't assume that all the candidates must be listed on the > ballot. One could have also ballots where the voters write the number(s) of > their favourite candidate. That approach allows high number of candidates. > > Let's say that there are 100 seats. In a fully proportional system a > "party" with more than 1% support would be entitled to one seat. If you want > the voters to decide who wins instead of letting the party decide you need > several candidates to choose from. Let's say that this party has 5 > candidates. If other parties have similar rights to nominate candidates you > could end up having e.g. 100*5 candidates. That is not an exact formula and > I ignored the impact of districts, but the point is that if you want to > support small parties and ability to select from multiple candidates the > total number of candidates and the total number of candidates per district > may grow large. Does number 20 above limit the number of candidates per > district? > I understand that large numbers like this are possible; that's the reason for this criterion. A system (like SODA-PR) which allows legal, useful votes for the full candidate set, but which only explicitly lists some (district-based) subset on any given ballot, would pass this criterion in my view. > > > 5. Ideally, the smoothest transition possible. If existing single-winner > districts can be used unchanged, all the better. > > Having both pure single-winner districts (not e.g. MMP) and full PR is > possible but then you have to accept considerable inaccuracy in electing the > most liked candidate in each district. I guess what you are looking for is a > good balance between these incompatible (but positive) requirements. Maybe > this is one reason why you would accept also less than perfect PR. > I said I'd personally accept it, but it's not what I'm looking for in this thread. But yes, it's a balancing act here. > > 6. Insofar as it's compatible with the criteria above, greater freedom > in voting is better. For instance, if ballots are printed with only > in-district candidates, a system which allows out-of-district write-ins is > better than one which doesn't, all other things being equal. > > Is the old American tradition of allowing write-in candidates included in > your list of requirements? > No. In this case the write-in capability is a way to list fewer candidates than the full allowed set, as a way to simplify the ballot. I use the term "write-in" because in the US it is assumed that this will be allowed. In the UK, you'd probably say "out-of-district by-name" or something instead of "write-in". > > > > > My proposal for SODA-PR satisfies and surpasses all 5 criteria. Other > systems which do reasonably well: > > -I've seen a proposal for single-member districts and open party lists. > This is similar to my SODA-PR system, except that it requires that all > candidates in a party approve the same party set. As such, it is strictly > worse on criterion 3, without being notably better on any of the other > criteria. It is more conventional, though. > > -Multimember districts, with some system inside each district. > > -Mixed member systems. > > One possible approach (with accurate PR) is to first allocate the seats to > parties at national level and then allocate those seats to (probably > multimember) districts (in a geographically proportional way). > > One approach that allows high number of candidates and simple ballots is to > allow voters to rank candidates of one single party in one single region > only. One may also limit the maximum number of ranked candidates heavily > since that vote will support the correct party anyway (with its full > strength of one vote). > > Is party internal proportionality a requirement or would e.g. basic open > lists do? intraparty PR is better, but open lists are enough. > (And if you want party internal proportionality, would trees or candidate > given preference order (without option for voter given preference order, as > in SODA) be enough, or do you require any voter given preference order to be > supported?) > Again, the more the better, as long as it balances with other criteria. JQ
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