On Aug 23, 2008, at 3:34 PM, James Gilmour wrote:
And why should there be guaranteed proportionality for women? The
logical corollary is guaranteed proportionality for men. Just
for the record, I am opposed to both and would be very happy if 60%
or more of the MSPs in the Scottish Parliament were women
PROVIDED we had voted them into office by our free choice with a
suitably sensitive voting system. If we are going to guarantee
proportionality to eliminate sex discrimination, we must logically
follow with proportionality to eliminate other discriminations
that have been officially recognised, starting most obviously with
those that have already been enshrined in law: race, religion,
disability, age. Once you start down that anti-discrimination road
there is no logical end point. Better by far to change to a
sensitive voting system that gives the voters free choice among all
the candidates and encourages the political parties and other
nominating groups to offer the widest choice of candidates to the
voters, representative of the local community.
Apropos this general subject, David Hill wrote an article on the
subject of STV with constraints (Voting matters <http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE9/P1.HTM
>). He concludes (and I agree):
I believe that the approach given above is the best way, within STV,
to implement constraints but that they should not be employed unless
it cannot be avoided.
The mechanisms of STV are already designed to give voters what they
want, so far as possible, in proportion to their numbers. It should
be for the voters to decide what they want, not for anyone else to
tell them what they ought to want.
The magazine Punch in 1845 included "Advice to persons about to
marry - Don't". My advice on constraints is similar.
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