I found this paper by James Green-Armytage very interesting: http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~armytage/proxy2010.pdf
He doesn't cover all of the issues you mention, but it's a good start. On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Peter Zbornik <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear all, > > has a direct proportional election system with proxies been considered > before? > > Each voter is granted a vote in parliament, either personally or through a > proxy (as in stock companies). The voter could change his representative in > parliamet when she/he likes (or at a specific date to avoid identification > of the voter). The voter could have several representatives, each of them a > specialist in a different issue (health care, tax, education, business and > so on), or split his vote on several representatives in each area. There > would be no elections, just a continuous switching of proxies. The > representative of the voter would not know who supports him/her to avoid > coercion. > > The voter who chose to represent himself would have the right to speak and > be present "virtually" or (less practical) physically in the parliament and > to vote on all issues and so on. For the time being I would like to put > aside such practical details, like how a milion parlamentarian would vote > and so on. Such problems can be solved through remote voting or similar. > > The government could (but need not) be formed through proportional > elections by the citizens too. > Each voter would vote for each department, i.e., if there were 10 > ministries, then the voter would cast a ranked ballot for each of the 10 > ministries. > Some weights could be applied, i.e. if the voter could only care for one > ministry instead of all 10, then he could put all of his votes on this > ministry and none for the others. > In addition to this, each ministry could be weighted according to the share > of the public budget it uses. > I.e some ministries would take more of the vote than others. I.e. if one > ministry has half the budget, then a "standard" vote for this would require > half of the votes the voter has (i.e. 5 votes in the case of 10 ministries). > I.e. the voter has a constant number of votes (say V votes), each vote for > a specific seat "costs" A1,...,AS, where S is the number of ministries, and > A1+...+AS=V. A vote for ministry s, 1>=s>=S, would be normalised by the > "cost", i.e. if the voter would like to vote only for one minstry s, then he > would get V/As votes. > Furthermore, the voter would need to specify the rank-order of the > ministries themselves, so that all of the vote is used, even if the minister > in the "favorite minstry" becomes someone else than the candidates preferred > by the voter or if the preferred candidate is elected but the vote is not > fully exhausted. > The elections would then proceed as a normal STV election. > This got a bit complicated, I will provide a simple example upon request. > > An election system as described above would blur the difference between > proportional representation and direct democracy and allow for direct > elections of a government. > > A question I am not sure of, is how the approach above should be applied > for budget allocation for each ministry, i.e. how big part of the cake each > ministry should get. I guess each voter could make his budget allocation > between the ministries, and the resulting budget would be the arithmetic > mean of the submitted allocations. I guess there are better or more > sophisticated systems for optimal budget allocation. > > Does anyone on this list have more information on similar methods to the > ones described above? > I guess such methods have been discussed on this list before. > A recommended book or paper or a reference to previous posts on this list > would be appreciated. > > Best regards > Peter Zborník > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > >
---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
