Adam Tarr wrote: >>Also, I think PR should stick to districts of 5 or 6 members, rather than >>operating state-wide, to keep the district sizes half-way reasonable. > >Whether this is necessary really depends on the election method. If the >election is done using open party list, then voting is very simple no >matter how many candidates there are.
My concern is not the method. My concern is that electoral districts be a reasonable size so that campaign costs aren't unmanagable. Also, I worry that if each party's slate is too large the individual candidates will receive less scrutiny. As for Forest's comment that PAV is easy for local elections, here in CA each county counts ballots separately. If PAV were used for large multi- member legislative districts, and some of those districts crossed county lines (a virtual guarantee in CA, given the distribution of population) vote-counting with PAV would be logistically more tricky (although not totally unwieldy). I dislike Adam's idea of linking the elections of the two houses of the legislature. If the CA Assembly were elected from single-member districts but the Senate from multi-member districts, I may support a Green or Democrat in the Assembly race, due to local environmental issues. However, on most (but not all) non-environmental issues my sympathies are with the Libertarians. Since the state Senate has powers beyond those of the Assembly I may have reasons for voting Libertarian in the Senate race and Democrat in the Assembly race. Under Adam's system, am I better-off voting Libertarian in the Assembly race so they'll get some Senate seats, or voting Democrat in the Assembly race so the Dem will win the local Assembly race? As for party-list, I don't understand the "above the line" and "below the line" distinctions. My vague understanding is that when all seats are apportioned according to how many votes a party got (be it state-wide, district-wide, whatever) in an "open list" system you vote for a party and also one or more candidates in that party. Seats go to the most popular candidates of the party. In a closed system, it's been decided in advance that if the party only gets one seat, Bob gets it, and if they get two seats Jane gets one, and the third goes to Fred, etc. Am I incorrect? Alex
