I think the issue with multi-winner primaries is not whether they are proportional, or even whether the elect clones, but whether they advance at least one winnable candidate to the general election. But I suppose a proportional system would be more likely to do so due to the "shotgun effect" of advancing dissimilar candidates-- resulting in at least one electable candidate, along with a few destined to crash and burn.
Bart Adam Tarr wrote: > > This shouldn't bother us in a single-winner situation, but in the case of a > multi-winner election it begs the question of why we are even bothering > with electing more than one nominee, if all we are doing is getting the > three most similar candidates. > > Moreover, this could constitute really poor strategy. If the general > electorate has different preferences than the primary electorate (obviously > very likely) then producing a slate of candidates with diverse stances is > more likely to produce a good result for the party, in general. > > Again, none of this argues that perfect PR is needed in a primary. But > completely ignoring PR issues is a mistake, too. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
