> From: Juho Laatu <[email protected]> > To: EM <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system? > > On 4.7.2011, at 4.08, Kathy Dopp wrote: > >> Thanks for the responses. In response to the party leaders having too >> much control, I believe it is possible to make "party-lists" on the >> fly from voters' own rank choice ballots in a way that the most voters >> would naturally support -- which would put the control into voters' >> hands and treat all voters fairly and the same (unlike IRV and STV). >> As soon as I have time, I'll write it up. > > Yes. One could use primaries to determine the order of candidates in the > closed lists. One could enhance open lists by using STV (or e.g. some > Condorcet based proportional method) to build a hybrid method that provides > proportionality also within parties. One could also use tree like "lists" to > implement more accurate proportionality within parties. There are many tricks > to reduce the possible problems of fixed order in the closed lists and to > improve party INTERNAL proportionality in both open and closed lists. >
I was *not* referring to using primaries or STV. I am proposing using a combination of Condorcet and "voters' own rank choice ballots", i.e. all the unique permutations of rank choice ballots cast by voters to determine an "on-the-fly" list ordering of candidates to elect winners. However, although it is precinct-summable, it would require (n-1)! sums per precinct to count, and be at least tediously time-consuming to manually calculate. I haven't given thought yet to how to manually audit the results. That seems complex too. So, even though this method is simpler than IRV/STV methods to manually count, and at least does not require centralized counting only after all ballots are cast, and treats all voters votes equally, it may be too complex - regardless of how fair and individualized. I will write it up when I have time. Perhaps it is an all-new PR electoral method proposal, or perhaps not, or will be equivalent to some other. >> >> I appreciate the comments and agree with the problem of too much >> control given to party leaders -- but think that it is solvable, and >> that the Condorcet method can be used to resolve any ties with this >> method. It seems a little more complex than I like, but perhaps it >> can be simply described and counted? Not sure yet. > > One reason why Condorcet based proportional methods have not gained > popularity is that they are even computationally complex (in addition to > being quite difficult to understand to regular politicians) (when compared to > basic single winner Condorcet methods that are simpler but do not provide > proportionality). This method I am thinking of is, I believe, fairly easy for computers to count (once I go through all the cases that may crop up to see what rule(s) fits best), and probably fairly easy, but tedious and time-consuming, for people to count manually. Condorcet comes in as the secondary condition, not the first, in this method. Even after I work through it, folks on this list may think of other special cases that may crop up and need some resolution. It may not be the best choice in terms of complexity of counting. I like the open party list system, and agree that as long as anyone could form an "on-the-fly" party by running and putting his/her own list together, it does not necessarily give parties any more of an upper hand than already exists today. I suppose the name could be abbreviated to be simply the "list method". However, I do like the idea of allowing voters to simply rank any of the candidates from any "list" and put together the lists on-the-fly from their rank choices - but may not be worth the extra effort in counting difficulty, since the lion's share of voters would not have time or ability to investigate the individual positions of a large number of candidates. Most voters use political party as an identifier for quick decision-making. Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 "One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts." Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
