Allen Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (on 11 June 2006 15:15:22 >+0100), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (James Gilmour) wrote: >>Promoters of the many different voting systems need to stand back from all >>the competing technicalities for one moment and ask the question: "What is >>the purpose of this election?" In the case of Denver it appears to be to >>elect a 'city council' (a body of 13 members) that is supposed to be >>representative of the community it is elected to serve. Analysis of >>election results worldwide shows time and again that the only way to elect >>such a body that is properly representative is to use a voting system that >>gives proportional representation. All voting systems based on >>single-member districts will give PR only by chance. > >I had an idea a while back, which I suspect others probably have had before >me but I haven't been able to locate much on (probably due to lack of time >to look thoroughly, just as I haven't had time to reply to some emails on >and off this list - sorry!), for how to do PR with single-member >districts. Instead of district assignments based on geography or any other >essentially arbitrary criterion (for elections to a multimember body >governing a particular set of voters, as opposed to a non-arbitrary >criterion of voters being only allowed to vote in elections for >individuals/bodies governing them), allow individual voters to decide what >district they are in. Voters would be randomly assigned voters to districts >at first (or to the district with the lowest number of voters, for newly >registering voters), but allowed to switch districts as desired (probably >with some limits on frequency of switching per election). Voters would be >kept as currently informed as possible as to the numbers of voters signed up >for a given district (any limits on frequency of switching per election >would be to make this easier and give other voters time to react to numbers >changing).
A slighty different method of achieving something similar would be to base it at the polling booth level. The rules would be something like: - everyone registers at a nearby polling booth - voters vote at polling booth they are registered at - voters can change their polling booth once every 2 years (or if they move residence) - polling booths with more than 1500 voters are split in 2 randomly (but voters can switch immediately to one or the other) - 2 or more polling booths can be physically located at the same location - districts are made up of sets of polling booths - by majority vote of everyone in the polling booth (or in each polling booth) (probably held at the same time as other votes) -- 2 or more polling booths summing to less than 1000 may merge -- a polling booth may move from a "larger" district to a "smaller" district (larger = higher seats/voters ratio) this means that the districts should balance votes/seat over time - If to many polling booths request to move to a district (so the target district is no longer "smaller"), the ones with the one(s) from the largest district are moved first until no more moves are allowed. There could also be something like each booth electing a polling booth manager. This person would be responsible for calling a vote for changing district. In fact, there could even be a system whereby each district sets its voting method. You could move your polling booth to a polling booth that follows the voting system that you prefer. Ensuring that voters only register in one district would require some kind of central management of the voting registers. This would store the totals for each polling booth. ___________________________________________________ Try the New Netscape Mail Today! Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List http://mail.netscape.com ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
