12/22/02 - Markus Schulze Wrote and Wrote again: Dear Markus,
I agree with your selection of IRV being the best single-seat method, but I disagree on district STV being the best multi-seat method. Years ago you wrote: "I think, that the aim of proportional representation is to minimize the number of the wasted votes." On Dec 17, 2002 you wrote: "In my opinion, the best multi-winner method in use today is Northern Ireland's fractional version of proportional representation by the single transferable vote." Markus Schulze Donald here, These two quotes by you are in conflict. I will agree with you on your first quote, but Northern Ireland's method does not meet your aim of PR, for it has a large amount of wasted votes. Correct me if I am wrong, but if I remember correctly, Northern Ireland's multi-winner method is a district STV method, which means that because of the use of the Droop quota in each district there will be a quota of wasted votes in each district which can add up to a total of twenty percent wasted votes for the entire jurisdiction. If the election method had no districts then there would only be one quota of votes wasted. As a district method, STV has too many wasted votes, but this is not the only problem with district STV, A claim of PR methods, STV and Party List, is that ten percent of the voters will be able to elect ten percent of the members. This will not be true for district STV. Ten percent of the voters will not be able to elect any members if they are spread evenly in the jurisdiction. They may be able to elect one if they happen to have a large group of their supporters in one district. District STV has this added problem because there is no linkage between the party proportionality in the district and the party proportionality in the entire jurisdiction. The only district method in use today that does have this linkage is top-up Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP or MMPR). In a MMP election, ten percent of the entire jurisdiction will be able to elect ten percent of the members. MMP is able to give as good proportionality as single area STV or Party List, but MMP also gives the voters a closer member-link because of the small districts. Now, I will say that MMP does have a few flaws, but nothing that cannot be corrected if a jurisdiction is willing to change a few rules of MMP, but in spite of these few flaws, MMP is still the best district method in use today and is also the best multi-seat method if the close member-link is important to the people of a jurisdiction. Because you have claimed the Northern Ireland method to be the best, I am going to assume that you know enough about the method to be able to tell us some details, like total number of seats and how many districts (if it is a district method). If you would be so kind as to give us that information, we will be able to calculate how many wasted votes there will be in the method. Thank you, Regards, Donald Davison, host of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald Candidate Election Methods +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ | Q U O T A T I O N | | "Democracy is a beautiful thing, | | except that part about letting just any old yokel vote." | | - Age 10 - | +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Please be advised that sending email to me allows me to quote from it and/or forward the entire email to others. ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
