On 03/14/2013 11:26 PM, Richard Fobes wrote:
On 3/11/2013 1:33 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> Here's a scenario I've been thinking about lately.
>
> Say that you have a parliament using proportional representation, and
> the voting method is party list. Then say that the situation is
> so that after the election, either the left-of-center parties or the
> right-of-center parties form a coalition.
>
> Given this, you might get a compromising strategy. [...]
>
> But if enough people vote this way, then the right-wing wins, even if
> the polls were inaccurate and it would not have won if people had
> voted honestly.
>
> Is there any way of ameliorating this? [...]
The need for a coalition -- which often occurs when PR is used --
introduces an extra layer in the political system. The layer is between
the elected representatives and the majority coalition (or ruling
coalition).
This extra layer can easily result in the opposite of what some voters
want. As an exaggerated, simplified, and non-realistic example, suppose
that half the voters in the Green party are women, and their votes for
this party are based on the party's support for gender equality. And
suppose that the Green party forms a coalition with another major party,
and in the backroom negotiations a majority of the Green party leaders
are men and agree to compromise on gender issues, in exchange for
increased focus on environmental issues.
Of course, in reality the backroom compromises are both unknown and
intertwined. Yet this example illustrates the underlying problem.
I see two ways of resolving this dilemma.
One way is to eliminate the need for coalitions. This is the purpose of
VoteFair negotiation ranking, which allows the elected representatives
to rank various proposals on various (hopefully-at-least-somewhat)
related issues. Based on these rankings the software calculates which
proposals would produce a proposed law that is "best" supported by the
elected representatives -- including support by small (but not tiny)
opposition parties. (Details about VoteFair negotiation ranking are at
www.NegotiationTool.com.)
I suppose that making every government a minority government would also
work here. The cost would be greater instability, though. How would the
negotiation ranking handle the instability (or general delay and
gridlock) that might appear?
The other approach is to replace traditional PR with an election method
that gives no advantage to strategic voting. This is what the full
VoteFair ranking system is designed to do. Specifically, each district
would use VoteFair representation ranking to elect one "majority" MP
(member of Parliament) and one "opposition" MP, and the remaining
parliamentary seats are filled using VoteFair party ranking (to identify
party popularity) and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking (to choose
which district-losing candidate wins each party-based seat). The result
does not allow even a group of well-coordinated voters to meaningfully
and predictably alter the results.
How would that method solve the left/right scenario I mentioned? Would
it give the right-of-center parties (or people) position if they had a
majority, and otherwise let the left-of-center voter's vote go to a
left-of-center candidate?
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