Juho wrote:
I think already the basic open list provides a quite strong link between
candidates and voters. Voters will decide which candidates will be
elected, not the party (this is an important detail). (Extensions are
needed to provide proportionality between different subgroups of the
party.)
I'd classify the various party systems like this:
Closed list: Forced party-based voting.
Open list: Opt-out party-based voting.
Ranked ballot PR: Manual opt-in party-based voting.
In other words, although a properly constructed open list may be
equivalent to ranked ballot PR (it would be pretty easy, if pointless,
to make a party list that translates the votes into ranked ballots),
which way the default goes makes a difference.
I would put STV+above-the-line somewhere in there, but because the only
implementation of "above the line" voting is Australia's, and since the
forced "rank all below the line if you're going to vote below the line"
constraint means that it'll be prohibitively expensive, in terms of
effort, to vote below the line, it's probably quite similar to closed
list PR.
The "vote for some, then your party completes the rank" method would go
in between open list and STV (ranked ballot) somewhere.
(I don't think there's a point in having closed list if you can have
open list. Others may disagree, though; they could argue that coherent
policies is what matters and that individual candidates would become
demagogues and swing to the short-sighted public opinion instead of
forming such coherent policy. But inasfar as democracy has a problem in
that people are shortsighted, that should be handled separately, such as
by long term limits or rotating assemblies.)
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
