On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 6:08 AM, Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Don't know the details of these mechanisms but tickets seem to me like > add-ons that may have both good and bad effects. They do reduce the problems > of vote splitting due to short votes.
In Ireland, there are no 'how to vote' cards. Voting the 'party ticket' in this context is just voting for all candidates that your party puts forward before giving any rankings to any other candidate. A large number of voters in Ireland don't do that. The voter might support FG but still vote for a FF candidate first choice because they like that candidate and then vote for all the FG candidates. This is called a personal vote and it has a large effect on tactics in Ireland. Some candidates can end up with almost two quotas due to a large personal vote. The problem for parties is that the surplus doesn't remain within the party and leads to a vote management strategy. (If none of their candidates have a large surplus, then they get to keep most of the personal votes for any of their candidates). > I tend to favour counting exact proportionalities at national (=whole > election) level ((if one wants PR in the first place)). One slight issue here is how to define proportionality. It is implicitly assumed that if a voter votes for a candidate, they also support the candidate's party. However, as can be seen with personal votes, this is not always the case. > I also tend to favour more fine-grained expression of opinions, > as in STV or with trees, as a way to allow the voters to better influence > the direction the system takes (reduces the risk of stagnation and > alienation of the voters from the "parties and politics that continue as > before no matter how we vote"). I think PR-STV at the national level where the voter votes for a list but can override the initial votes is the best compromise between maximum expression and reasonably low complexity. However, that is pretty complex to actually count. Another option is to allow a voter vote for local candidates and then as their last choice, vote for a national list. The local count would be standard PR-STV, but with the same quota nationwide (and a rule that you must reach the quota to get elected). Unallocated seats would then be assigned using d'Hondt or similar method based on the amount of votes transferred to the national list. Also, it could be in effect an open list. The person elected would be from the district that transferred the most votes to the party's national list. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
