Stéphane Rouillon wrote:
For your second point, there is one way to enforce coherency (using a
mathematical definition)
within an MMP election. If one uses the same results to elect the
individual representatives
and to determine the corrected proportion obtained after electing list
members. The simple way to enforce
such coherence between these two proportions is to use a single ballot
MMP, where voting
for an individual is considered too as giving support in favor of this
candate party list.
From what I know two german landers use this system. Otherwise you have
to relie on cultural
honesty of the parties or electorate to avoid the decoy problem.
Wouldn't that turn MMP into, in essence, open party list? To me it seems
that this solution would turn into one where constituency votes for a
party just results in a reordering of the list for the constituency in
question (so that it is better than closed party list).
Votes for independents could be handled one of two ways. Either by
letting those who vote for an independent manually choose his party. In
that case, parties can run candidates as nominal independents, though
this strategy may be too visible for parties to pull off without a
backlash of complaints that the party is being dishonest. The other way
would be to deprive those who vote independent of the list vote
altogether (since it's not formally certain who the independent is
aligned with).
But now that I think about it, there might be a way to save this system.
Independents have to state party allegiance, and their supporters' list
votes go to the party in question. That's a slight improvement upon open
list PR because independents can state party allegiance without actually
having to join any party. (One would also assume that the independents
so aligning would not be subject to party whips.)
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