Raph Frank wrote: > Richard Fobes wrote: > > As I've said before, it's difficult to get proportional > > representation for more than the two main sub-groups
> That isn't true, PR methods are designed to do exactly > that. If a group represents 1/6 of the electorate, then > they will get roughly 1/6 of the seats. I neglected to clarify what I meant by "difficult." Yes, it's possible to get high levels of proportionality without identifying on the ballot which party or subgroup the voter regards as most representative. However, that occurs at the expense of other fairness criteria, which I regard as very significant, and possibly more important. In particular, such a highly proportional method is more likely to be vulnerable to strategic voting. It's also likely that the method would fail to meet various fairness criteria. Personally I regard resistance to strategic voting to be very important, and it should not be neglected just to achieve what on the surface appears to be highly proportional results. Another way to express this is to say that, as a voter, I would rather choose to elect a competent leader whose political views are slightly different than mine, rather than elect a less-competent politician who claims to represent the party I most prefer. Richard Fobes ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
