On 5.6.2012, at 1.52, James Gilmour wrote: >>> On 4.6.2012, at 19.18, James Gilmour wrote: >>>> A system that counts the proportions at national level >>>> (typically a multi-party system) would be more accurate. Also >>>> gerrymandering can be avoided this way. >>> >>> Yes, the votes could be summed at national level and the seats >>> allocated at national level. But you do not need to go to national >>> level to achieve proper representation. Where the electors also want >>> some guarantee of local representation, a satisfactory compromise can >>> be achieved with a much more modest 'district magnitude' than one >>> national district. > >> Juho > Sent: Monday, June 04, 2012 7:48 PM >> In Finland there was a reform proposal that counted the >> proportions at national level, but the seats were still >> allocated in the existing districts. (Current government >> doesn't want to drive that proposal forward.) One can do this >> trick also with quite small districts. In Finland the size of >> the smallest districts is 6, but even smaller districts could work. >> >> Both targets can thus be met simultaneously, accurate >> proportionality and local(ish) representation. All systems >> will however have some "rounding errors". In this proposal >> the seats of the parties are allocated to the districts so >> that the total sum of seats per district and seats per party >> are exactly correct, which means that some of the last seats >> have to be "forced to go right", and this may violate the >> personal interests of some candidates (some other party may >> get the seat with fewer votes), but in a rather random / >> unpredictable / unbiased way that people are likely to >> accept. Political proportionality in the districts is also >> not as accurate as at the national level, but I guess the >> national level proportionality is the one that counts. >> >> In theory one could use this system also with single-member >> districts, but the "forcing" operations would already be quite >> violent. If current single-member district countries want to >> keep the idea of very local representation, one approach >> could be to use only slightly larger districts than today >> (maybe 3, 4), calculate proportionality at national level, >> and then allocate the seats to the districts using some >> similar algorithm as in the Finnish reform proposal. Just an >> idea, to keep as much of the familiar and maybe liked features >> of the existing system. > > Iceland currently uses a system that sounds very like the Finish proposal. > Votes are tallied at national level and in six > constituencies, each of which has nine constituency seats in parliament. > Nine additional "equalization seats" are distributed to > constituencies and allocated to political parties so that the parliamentary > representation of each party and each constituency will > reflect as closely as possible the total votes received. This is done by > solving a pair of simultaneous equations! It does have > the effect you describe, forcing out some "constituency winners" and > replacing them with "equalisation candidates". This seems to > be accepted because the constitution demands that every vote shall have equal > value.
In the Finnish proposal there are no "equalization seats". There are only the regional seats that have been allocated to the districts in proportion to their population. > > But of course, you don't need to do it this way, nor does the proportionality > have to be just "party PR". With STV-PR in > multi-member districts the voters have the power to choose the winning > candidates on whatever PR basis matters to those voters. I > do appreciate that STV is totally unacceptable to quite a number of the more > vociferous members of this list, but STV-PR does > address effectively many of the issues that arise in electing properly > representative assemblies. "party PR" - can achieve accurate proportionality between parties - does not (usually) support accurate proportionality between different sections of a party - allows high number of candidates and seats per district - some methods allow votes to parties only, some allow votes to individual candidates "STV-PR" - can achieve accurate proportionality between parties - supports proportionality between different sections of a party - allows only smallish number of candidates and seats per district - allows voters to cast mixed votes that list candidates from more than one party - works also in (non-political) elections with no party structure Juho > > James > > > > > > > ----- > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2012.0.2178 / Virus Database: 2425/5044 - Release Date: 06/04/12 > ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
