Admittedly this example was selected for its simplicity for illustrating the main ideas, and NOT for its plausibility.
----- Original Message ----- From: Raph Frank Date: Friday, December 10, 2010 5:30 am Subject: Re: [EM] Fair and Democratic versus Majority Rules To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] > Another issue is the fact that the resulting legislature would > end up > using majority rule for making decisions. > > A legislature of > > 60) A > 0) C > 40) B > > gets the A faction almost all of its policies and the B faction > nothing. > Replacing that by > > 0) A > 100) C > 0) B > > means that the A faction loses some of its policies, as C compromises. > Thus the A faction will refuse. > > Control of 60% of the legislature is better than 60% chance of control > of 100% of the legislature. > > I think to make it so the compromise works, you still need the random > element. It is the threat that the "other-side" could win everything > that causes compromise. > > If power was actually shared in the legislature, then that issue goes > away. For example, the rule could be that the national budget is > shared equally between all legislators. A funding bill might require > support from 1/3 of the legislature in addition to legislators willing > to pledge a portion of their funding allocation. Another option would > be to give legislators a finite number of votes and allow them cast > more than 1 per motion. > > Alternatively, you could introduce a small random element. The fall > back could be standard list-PR, however 1/4 of the seats are reserved > as bonus seats and given to one party. The odds of a party getting > the bonus would be proportional to the number of votes it receives. > > This means that a faction with 1/3 or more of the votes who wins the > lottery will have a majority. They would get 1/3 of the 75% standard > seats + 25% of the seats from the bonus, giving them more than half. > > However, a minor faction would still need the support of other > parties, even if they win the lottery (though their influence > would be > greatly enhanced for that 1 term). > > Another issue is that it would make parties much harder to > manage. A > party couldn't offer potential legislators the potential of being > careen politicians. This may or may not be a good thing. > However, it > does mean that the degree of representativeness of the legislature > would vary over time. Sometimes there would be wide representation > and sometimes there would be narrow representation. > > One option would be to make the bonus seats the only seats that are > subject to the lottery/compromise system. This means that there is > more stability. > > The voting system could be > > Each party submits a list > > The votes would be > > - voter marks at most 1 party as favorite > - voter marks any number of parties as approved > - voter marks any number of parties as acceptable > > If the most approved party is acceptable to 90% of the voters, > then it > is given the bonus seats. > > Otherwise, a party is picked at random using the favorite votes and > that party is given the bonus seats. > > I haven't been keeping up to date on Jobst's latest single seat > proposals, so there could be a better way to handle the specifics. > > Another problem is one legislature taking decisions that bind later > legislatures. For example, a legislature could increase the national > debt or enter in long term agreements. A party which is > unlikely to > have power after the next election is likely to try to take as many > irreversible decisions as possible. >
---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
