[AL] I'm cross-posting this to both a US/international list on election-methods: http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/cpr/election-methods.html and an Australian list on a local campaign against the two party system and for PR: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ as it is likely to be of separate interest to both. (But using BCC to avoid accidental cross-posting by others when using "Reply-All"). Suggest any discussion of implementation details be on the US/international list and any Australian oriented discussion of desirability or otherwise as a campaign policy be on the Australian list. (The first link explains that there is also a US list on campaigning for electoral reform which I am not subscribed to, which is presumably the place for discussion of US campaign policies with respect to electoral reform as opposed to details of particular methods). I propose "Any Ticket" as opposed to "Open Party List". i.e. Anybody can propose a ticket. I use the term "ticket" instead of "list" because the latter commonly implies a strict ranking whereas this proposal is equally applicable to use of any preferences including equal rankings, and also to other methods. Main point however is not the "ticket" but the "Anybody" - ie not just parties. Tickets are registered and issued a unique registration number (worst case, could be numbers as long as telephone numbers if "anybody" actually does register a ticket - undesirable but not unfeasible). Campaigns publicize their recommended ticket number. Voters write the ticket number of their choice on the ballot papers or with voting machines. Include check and/or error correction digits. With sophisticated, (e.g. internet) voting machines also including display of the actual ticket and who recommended it and their brief statement of why for confirmation. Parties campaign for their "official" ticket numbers. Party factions campaign for their faction ticket numbers - typically based on placing candidates from the same party at the head but in different relative positions and/or with different relative positions for candidates outside the party than recommended by the "official" party ticket. Issue oriented groups campaign for the tickets they would have recommended to voters as "candidates friendly to the environment/alien life forms/internet/your locality/" etc etc (with different cross combinations and positioning etc). (In Australia these campaigns include handing "How to Vote" cards to voters as they enter polling booths as well as campaign advertisements, showing the recommended numbering of ballot papers issued mainly by parties but also by other campaigning organizations. The overwhelming majority of voters follow these cards even in single member electorates used for the House of Representatives where, unlike the Senate votes with large numbers of candidates, the numbers are small enough for it to be practical to avoid doing so and there is no convenient party box encouraging them to just endorse their party's "How to Vote" card. Such "How to Vote" cards would simply be replaced or supplemented with registered ticket numbers). Used with STV (Hare-Clarke) or any other preferential multi-member system and equally applicable to hypothetical intensity/cardinal methods and also to the likely reality as opposed to the theory of Approval voting - that voters would usually follow the recommendations of campaigning organizations as to who it is in their best interests to "approve" of, taking strategic considerations into account. Advantages: a) Formally identical to the same underlying method without tickets, so eliminates the principle objection to ticket voting as such - transfer of formal freedom of choice from voters to parties. (Requires refinement 1 below for this to be completely true). b) Completely eliminates the tedium and conceptual difficulties involved in actually marking ballot papers with respect to individual candidates - the same advantage as use of party tickets, whether open or closed - and to the same extent. (Requires refinement 2 and either 3, 4 or 5 to reduce tedium as far as possible and refinement 4 or 5 to completely eliminate conceptual difficulties). c) Enables practical use of multi-member PR systems on large scale such as entire national legislatures since it is not necessary to actually mark a large number of individual candidates when voting, but only when registering a ticket. (This is the main point). With refinement 1, need not even list the candidates on ballot papers but just provide space for entering the ticket number voted for. So even more convenient than open and closed lists and small electoral divisions with reasonable number of candidates. (Even entering a ticket number as long as phone number is easier than filling in a full preferential vote for single member electoral divisions, let alone a "below the line" vote for the Australian Senate). d) Facilitates answering the diversionary objection to large scale PR that smaller territorial electoral divisions are necessary to ensure connection between representatives and constituents. (e.g. STV advocates often propose 5-9 representatives per electoral division to overcome this objection, rather than the hundreds for the entire national legislature as originally suggested by Hare, thus ensuring there would be no representation of small minorities). Becomes more obvious that people who want such a connection can simply vote for one or other of the competing "local" tickets that offer to provide it, while people who don't can vote for larger regional or national party or issue based tickets without having to impose a combination by artificial means such as MMP. (Requires refinement 6 to take advantage of this in winning the reform). e) Easier and faster to count since tickets pre-entered by registration so minimal data entry. (This is unimportant, but true). Refinements: 1. Make it easy for individuals to anonymously register a ticket even though they have no intention of campaigning for it and nobody else will be interested in "their" ticket. This enables them to vote precisely as they choose, however eccentric their choice may be. In practice the overwhelming majority of voters will follow recommendations from organizations campaigning. Most of the 5% minority who vote "below the line" in Australian Senate simply want a variation from the "official party" tickets that would reflect a ticket likely to be campaigned for by some faction or issue group anyway, so it would be much less than 5% with really individual requirements. Nevertheless it is important to cater for this despite it's unimportance for the actual outcome, so as to clearly establish the formal identity claimed as advantage a). Even with relatively small PR electoral divisions such as those for the 6 or 12 State representatives in Australian Senate elections, the number of candidates strongly discourages filling out a "full" vote "on the day" so those who want to do that are no worse off being required to do so before hand. (Numbers would probably be much smaller than those using facilities for postal and absentee voting when unable to attend in their own electoral division on polling day. Procedures for registering an individual anonymous ticket could be similar to actually casting a current Australian "below the line" vote on a ballot with all candidates listed, and could perhaps also be provided for on polling day - like absentee votes, though the time required with large numbers of candidates favors only allowing it for postal votes). 2. Allow "popular" tickets such as those registered by major parties to use more convenient alternative 2, 3 or 4 digit registration numbers that can be easily quoted and remembered in campaigns. Easily done by allocating the 100 tickets with the greatest number of registration signatures 2 digit numbers which can be used as an alternative to the long full registration number, the next 1000 get 3 digit numbers etc. 3. Provide boxes on the ballot paper or similar prominence on voting machines for a small number of the most popular tickets for even more convenience to the large majority of voters than filling in a 2, 3 or 4 digit number (plus check digits). This is much trickier to implement as such ballot prominence has a major impact on the election in practice, so simple methods such as 2 could result in manipulation such as large parties using signature campaigns for extra prominent positions just to exclude smaller ones from having any at all. Suggest use of 5 below instead of 3. 4. Related requirement to 3 is for meaningful labels on the prominent tickets so voters don't have to remember even 1 or 2 digit numbers from campaigns or be provided with "How to Vote" material showing ticket numbers for prominent tickets at all. (Also avoiding any "advantage" from perceptions about "desirable" and undesirable ticket numbers such as 1, 13, 99 etc). These would effectively be stable party/faction/issue group names and abbreviations used from one campaign to another. Provided for under current systems by adding party endorsement besides names of candidates as in Australia, but therefore limited to parties. (Opposed by many advocates of electoral reform on grounds that they are opposed to parties as such and want to emphasize the "independent" choice of individual candidates, but not opposed by most voters nor by me). 5. Simple way to cover 3 and 4 would be for the small number of prominent positions to be allocated to the tickets endorsed by incumbents in the outgoing legislature on same basis as 2 but counting only the number of incumbents endorsing each ticket. This discriminates against "new" parties, but simply reflects reality - new parties with few incumbents still get an adequate chance to displace incumbents by campaigning for their 2, 3 or 4 digit ticket numbers available when they have too few incumbents to get a prominent position. The main discrimination is in campaign funding, media attention etc and recognizing the reality of the claims of existing parties to prominence is no compromise at all of the essential demand to get rid of their monopolistic control of the actual voting method. 6. Provide for "local" and/or "regional" ballots used in different regions and/or localities within regions adding a "local" and/or "regional" set of tickets to be given prominence along with the "national" prominents. This makes the ballot paper "look" more like smaller electoral divisions or MMP (or the proposed British AV+) while allowing those who want to vote for smaller scattered minorities or to support their parties "national" rather than "locally" oriented candidates to do so. (Party national and local tickets may or may not coincide, but would certainly support each other). Possible mechanism for use with 5 would be for incumbents to declare what 1 "region" they are associated with to be allowed to endorse any registered ticket for the purpose of assigning both regional and local prominence based on the numbers of incumbents endorsing it within the region. Note that using larger regions enables parties not represented by incumbents within a small locality to still get prominence on "local" ballots within that locality as a result of whatever representation they do have. 7. Use a PR method for the prominent tickets to "win" their prominence as opposed to the simple "First Past the Post" of signatures/endorsements implied in above descriptions. Refinements 1, 2, 5 and 6 or similar would be essential for a practical system that could be seriously campaigned for. Refinement 7 also desirable though less important. I think working this out in detail would be well worthwhile to establish that "fully proportional" PR is entirely feasible without resorting to the closed party lists/tickets currently used in the few countries that have a single PR electoral division electing an entire national legislature or the open party lists/tickets and MMP used in many others. It is intended to overcome diversionary objections from people trying to maintain or only marginally expand the two party monopoly under pretence of "local" representation such as MMP and AV+. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This is the Neither public email list, open for the public and general discussion. To unsubscribe click here Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=unsubscribe To subscribe click here Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=subscribe For information on [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.neither.org/lists/public-list.htm For archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
