Re: [EM] Census re-districting instead of PR for allocating seats to districts.
Juho: I didn't understand yet fully how the voter can vote. Is it possible to vote ABC and (separately) give the national party vote to party P? (where A is the independent of party P) [endquote] In a topplng-up system, you can participate in two separate elections: 1. You can vote for who will win in your district. That can be any one of several kinds of local district election: .a) A single-winner election, such as in Germany .b) A multi-winner district PR election,as in a number of topping-up countries (1b is usually list PR, but there is no reason why it couldn't be STV. Candidates could be designated as party candidates, or not. People could have the option of voting above the line, as in Australia, meaning that they simply mark a party's published ranking.) 2. You can vote for a party (or an independent running like a party) in a national party list PR election. Then, the number of seats won by a party, nationwide, in the local district elections is augmented to bring it up to the amount allocated to it in the national list PR election. But the answer to your question is No. You speak of ...an independent of Party P . That is a contradiction in term. There is no such thing as an independent of a party. The following two paragraphs answer your concern: But your concern probably is that a party could deviously ask a candidate that they like, and who is, for all intents and purposes, a party candidate of theirs, to run as an independent, with no official party designation, and no mention of a party connection, by hir or the party. That's ok. If s/he gets votes, nationally, they're from people who _didn't_ vote for the party nationally. And if s/he gets votes from people who don't care for the party, so that hir votes + the party's votes add up to more than the party would otherwise get, that's ok too, because whatever s/he gets from non-party preferrers means that s/he has appealed to people outside the party, and is liked more generally. There's nothing unfair about such a candidate. . You continued: If this is possible [endquote] It isn't. But what I said in the previous paragraph is possible, and is completely fair to all. You continued: , and party P supporters vote this way, and many independents of party P [endquote] There is no such thing as an independent of party P. You continued: will be elected, then party P is likely to get many representatives that are independent, and the number of its non-independent representatives is smaller that its proportional share (that is derived from the national party votes), and therefore party P will get some extra seats in the top-up process. Party P will thus get its proportional share of the seats + several independents (that the method does not consider to be party P representatives, although in practice they are). That would mean that the method is vulnerable to running some candidates (likely winners) as independents to get more seats. [endquote] That's what you said before. Re-read the two paragraphs above that are immediately below the words, The following two paragraphs answer your concerns. End of reply. What follows below is just a quote of some previous discussion, including your post. Mike Ossipoff On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: On 4.7.2012, at 23.10, Michael Ossipoff wrote: But if your independent that you vote for locally doesn't win a district seat, s/he might still win an at-large seat in the national list PR allocation, because, as I said, there's no reason why an independent shouldn't be able to run as a 1-candidate party. So, if you really want to elect hir, then vote for hir in your district STV election, and also in the national PR allocation election. We're assuming that s/he's a candidate in your district, which is why you can vote for hir in your district STV election. Here you refer to a separate national PR allocation election. Is your plan maybe that the voter casts one ranked vote in the district STV election and one party vote in the national party election? [endquote] Yes. It would just be the usual topping-up enhancement, but for STV in the districts. You wrote: Note that this kind of methods may easily allow such free riding where parties list some of their strong candidates (that will be certainly elected) as independent candidates in the districts. This makes the total number of seats of that party appear smaller that it in reality is. And that may lead to more top-up seats to this party. [endquote] Nothing wrong with that. Every party supporter who votes for the independent is one who doesn't vote for the party nationwide. So the party's national count will be less. But what if the independent is someone who is popular with people other than the party's supporters too? Fine. Again, nothing wrong with that. It's fair and right that s/he gets that other support. The party isn't being unfairly
Re: [EM] Census re-districting instead of PR for allocating seats to districts.
On 5.7.2012, at 21.22, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Juho: I didn't understand yet fully how the voter can vote. Is it possible to vote ABC and (separately) give the national party vote to party P? (where A is the independent of party P) [endquote] In a topplng-up system, you can participate in two separate elections: 1. You can vote for who will win in your district. That can be any one of several kinds of local district election: .a) A single-winner election, such as in Germany .b) A multi-winner district PR election,as in a number of topping-up countries (1b is usually list PR, but there is no reason why it couldn't be STV. Candidates could be designated as party candidates, or not. People could have the option of voting above the line, as in Australia, meaning that they simply mark a party's published ranking.) 2. You can vote for a party (or an independent running like a party) in a national party list PR election. Then, the number of seats won by a party, nationwide, in the local district elections is augmented to bring it up to the amount allocated to it in the national list PR election. My question was about your proposed STV based method that includes topping-up. It seems that the local (1.) and national (2.) votes are fully independent. But the answer to your question is No. You speak of ...an independent of Party P . That is a contradiction in term. There is no such thing as an independent of a party. This gets a bit complex since I picked term independent (with quotes) from your mail. I thought that you referred to the idea of declaring some of the party candiates as independent for strategic reasons (that I discussed in the earlier mail). The following two paragraphs answer your concern: But your concern probably is that a party could deviously ask a candidate that they like, and who is, for all intents and purposes, a party candidate of theirs, to run as an independent, with no official party designation, and no mention of a party connection, by hir or the party. Yes, that's my concern. Except that I expect most party P voters to know very well that this candidate that pretends to be independent actually is set by party P. Most voters of this candidate would thus be supporters of party P. (And those voters would vote for party P in the national vote.) That's ok. If s/he gets votes, nationally, they're from people who _didn't_ vote for the party nationally. And if s/he gets votes from people who don't care for the party, so that hir votes + the party's votes add up to more than the party would otherwise get, that's ok too, because whatever s/he gets from non-party preferrers means that s/he has appealed to people outside the party, and is liked more generally. There's nothing unfair about such a candidate. . You continued: If this is possible [endquote] It isn't. But what I said in the previous paragraph is possible, and is completely fair to all. But I interpret you again so that it is possible to cast a fully separate local vote (to an independent candidate) and a national vote (to party P (that is not formally associated with the candidate of the local vote)). You continued: , and party P supporters vote this way, and many independents of party P [endquote] There is no such thing as an independent of party P. I used quotes (like you did) to refer to the candidate that is formally independent in the election but that in practice has strong ties to party P. You continued: will be elected, then party P is likely to get many representatives that are independent, and the number of its non-independent representatives is smaller that its proportional share (that is derived from the national party votes), and therefore party P will get some extra seats in the top-up process. Party P will thus get its proportional share of the seats + several independents (that the method does not consider to be party P representatives, although in practice they are). That would mean that the method is vulnerable to running some candidates (likely winners) as independents to get more seats. [endquote] That's what you said before. Re-read the two paragraphs above that are immediately below the words, The following two paragraphs answer your concerns. There was some confusion above since the terminology got mixed up. My question is still the same. Do you think that the strategy that I described applies to your proposed local STV + national party vote method? The strategy was that party P declares (deviously) some of its (well known) strong candidates as independent candidates in the election, and hopes this way to reduce the number of locally elected candidates that would be formally counted as party P candidates, and as a result the topping-up process would give party P additional seats. (The strategy is related to the
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
Hi, Juho You raised a multitude of points. re: I agree that getting rid of the financial ties and getting rid of the party internal control on who can be elected would reduce oligarchy within the parties and power of money. That's a promising start. It gives us two basic goals for our new conception: 1) Parties must not be allowed to control the nomination of candidates for public office. 2) The electoral method must not require that candidates spend vast sums of money to achieve public office. re: But I'm afraid that humans are clever enough to find some new ways to find power and control the processes in ways that are not very beneficiial to the society. The threat will be present even if we would get rid of some of the key mechanisms that cause us problems today. If you are suggesting this as a reason for accepting the corrupt system we have, we would be foolish to defeat ourselves before we start. It is better that we forge ahead, however slowly, looking for a method that lets those who follow us avoid the traps that snagged us and forestalling any new obstacles we can anticipate. Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Whether or not he actually said it, those who follow us should heed the sentiment. At the same time, we must recognize that it's not enough to just be vigilant, we must also have an electoral method that lets us counter threats when they arise. This suggests a third goal for our efforts: 3) The electoral method must give the people a way to address and resolve contemporary issues. re: I used the soviet example to point out that even in a system that, according to its idealistic supporters, was supposed to get rid of the evils of the past, people soon found ways to corrupt the system. Maybe the same applies to the U.S.A. too. It is known to be a leading fortress of democracy, but now I hear some complaints about how it works. You've chosen a good example. I spent five years in my country's armed forces and stand second to none in my love for my homeland. Because of that love, I'm keenly aware of its flaws. Instead of just lamenting them, I seek practical ways to correct them. re: No doubt, also new systems, especially if generated from scratch, would find some ways to corrupt themselves. Hopefully they are better than the previous systems, but not always. The American system was generated from scratch and was incomparably better than the previous systems. Even so, over time, it became corrupted. Our founders were aware of the dangers inherent in partisanship and did everything they could to protect the people from it, separating the powers of government to prevent the dominance of the then-perceived factions. The level of anxiety was so great our first president, George Washington, in his Farewell Address, warned us parties were likely to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government - and that's what happened. An early example of the danger of party politics was the plan advocated by the then Governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, to manipulate the size and shape of legislative districts to protect existing office-holders. The plan was opposed by the people and denigrated in the press as 'gerrymandering'. The people of Massachusetts removed Gerry from office at the next election. In spite of public opposition to the practice, it was adopted by politicians throughout the young nation and given the force of law in the several states. That wasn't the end of this sorry affair. Gerry's party, the Democratic-Republicans, demonstrated the arrogance and cynicism of party politicians by rewarding him with the Vice Presidential nomination in the 1812 national election. Elbridge Gerry, who subverted the American ideal of democracy, became the fifth Vice President of the United States under President James Madison. The people could do nothing to prevent this travesty. The party system had already evolved to the point the people were excluded from the political process. The political parties had already arrogated to themselves the right to pick the people they would let run for public office. re: We would have to keep the candiate base very wide and election process very random so that famous and powerful candidates don't benefit of their position (and money) too much. If everyone in the electorate can be a candidate, that will keep the base as wide as possible. When the people have a way to carefully examine the famous and powerful candidates to determine their integrity and their suitability for office, the danger posed by their fame and power will be judged by their peers. Stated another way, if the people can determine that
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
On 5.7.2012, at 23.24, Fred Gohlke wrote: Hi, Juho You raised a multitude of points. re: I agree that getting rid of the financial ties and getting rid of the party internal control on who can be elected would reduce oligarchy within the parties and power of money. That's a promising start. It gives us two basic goals for our new conception: 1) Parties must not be allowed to control the nomination of candidates for public office. To me this is not an absolute requirement but one approach worth a try. 2) The electoral method must not require that candidates spend vast sums of money to achieve public office. This one could be a good target for practically all societies. re: But I'm afraid that humans are clever enough to find some new ways to find power and control the processes in ways that are not very beneficiial to the society. The threat will be present even if we would get rid of some of the key mechanisms that cause us problems today. If you are suggesting this as a reason for accepting the corrupt system we have, we would be foolish to defeat ourselves before we start. Not a defence of current systems, just a warning that new systems can not be trusted either. It is better that we forge ahead, however slowly, looking for a method that lets those who follow us avoid the traps that snagged us and forestalling any new obstacles we can anticipate. Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Whether or not he actually said it, those who follow us should heed the sentiment. At the same time, we must recognize that it's not enough to just be vigilant, we must also have an electoral method that lets us counter threats when they arise. This suggests a third goal for our efforts: 3) The electoral method must give the people a way to address and resolve contemporary issues. Ok. Is the intention to say that people should be able to react (and influence) when they see some changes in the society or when the politicians start some new initiatives? re: I used the soviet example to point out that even in a system that, according to its idealistic supporters, was supposed to get rid of the evils of the past, people soon found ways to corrupt the system. Maybe the same applies to the U.S.A. too. It is known to be a leading fortress of democracy, but now I hear some complaints about how it works. You've chosen a good example. I spent five years in my country's armed forces and stand second to none in my love for my homeland. Because of that love, I'm keenly aware of its flaws. Instead of just lamenting them, I seek practical ways to correct them. re: No doubt, also new systems, especially if generated from scratch, would find some ways to corrupt themselves. Hopefully they are better than the previous systems, but not always. The American system was generated from scratch and was incomparably better than the previous systems. Even so, over time, it became corrupted. Our founders were aware of the dangers inherent in partisanship and did everything they could to protect the people from it, separating the powers of government to prevent the dominance of the then-perceived factions. The level of anxiety was so great our first president, George Washington, in his Farewell Address, warned us parties were likely to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government - and that's what happened. An early example of the danger of party politics was the plan advocated by the then Governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, to manipulate the size and shape of legislative districts to protect existing office-holders. The plan was opposed by the people and denigrated in the press as 'gerrymandering'. The people of Massachusetts removed Gerry from office at the next election. In spite of public opposition to the practice, it was adopted by politicians throughout the young nation and given the force of law in the several states. That wasn't the end of this sorry affair. Gerry's party, the Democratic-Republicans, demonstrated the arrogance and cynicism of party politicians by rewarding him with the Vice Presidential nomination in the 1812 national election. Elbridge Gerry, who subverted the American ideal of democracy, became the fifth Vice President of the United States under President James Madison. The people could do nothing to prevent this travesty. The party system had already evolved to the point the people were excluded from the political process. The political parties had already arrogated to themselves the right to pick the people they would let run for public office. re: We would have to keep the candiate base very wide
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process (Primary Thoughts)
Juho and Fred, (a) a *primary* electoral system (b) one that sponsors candidates for *public* office (c) where voting is restricted to *private* members Specifically (c) is no longer possible. ... In such a world, what *other* form of political domination could take hold? ... I would argue that domination is no longer possible. For better or worse, we would be free. Juho Laatu said: I agree that getting rid of the financial ties and getting rid of the party internal control on who can be elected would reduce oligarchy within the parties and power of money. But I'm afraid that humans are clever enough to find some new ways to find power and control the processes in ways that are not very beneficiial to the society. The threat will be present even if we would get rid of some of the key mechanisms that cause us problems today. Yes, and we should expect this. Even where freedom is a fact and takes center stage, domination remains in the wings as a possibility. Consider the choices: What is What might be -- --- 1. Domination Freedom 2. Freedom Domination If no obvious forms of domination remain after eliminating (c), then we might look at the possible forms of freedom. Especially interesting would be anything that undermined (c), since that would pave the way for a continuous transition from 1 to 2. I used the soviet example to point out that even in a system that, according to its idealistic supporters, was supposed to get rid of the evils of the past, people soon found ways to corrupt the system. Maybe the same applies to the U.S.A. too. It is known to be a leading fortress of democracy, but now I hear some complaints about how it works. No doubt, also new systems, especially if generated from scratch, would find some ways to corrupt themselves. Hopefully they are better than the previous systems, but not always. So we better be careful with them and too hgh doses of idealism. But maybe we can trust that, despite of all these risks, we are on our way from the laws of jungle to something better. Yes, I agree. Fred Gohlke said: I'm sorry, Michael, but I cannot make such an assumption. I can imagine universal equality but I cannot imagine a party where the primary decisions may no longer be restricted to members. Such an assumption defeats the party's reason for being. I am unable to imagine an entity that does not include its essential characteristics. Yes, I agree. The party could not exist. It follows that if (c) were eliminated, then the party would also be eliminated. Right? Is it necessary to imagine 'party' as existing before universal equality? Would it not be better to imagine 'party', and the exclusivity that is inherent in the concept of 'party', as a natural outgrowth of universal equality? (I try to explain my aim at bottom.) Moreover, since one non-party individual can only join one of the existing parties, the individual's influence on and reaction to the influence of the party is indeterminate. As an imaginary example, an assertive, strong-willed non-partisan may influence and be influenced by a liberal party to a completely different extent than the same person would influence and be influenced by a conservative party. I may misunderstand. To be sure, one needn't join a party. A single individual (member or not) may participate in the primaries of every party, or no party, or something in between. This is the assumption I cannot accept. It defies the party's reason for being. I can imagine a system where parties nominate candidates that advocate the party's position, and then subjects those candidates to the judgment of non-partisans, but I cannot imagine a party operating outside the dictates of its membership. Exactly. So the parties are gone. I agree we need to let the people impress their moral sense on their government. That is not possible when parties choose the candidates for public office. Is there a way we can pursue this line of inquiry without making assumptions that strip political parties of their essential nature? We agreed that parties are incompatible with a substansive democracy. One way or another, they had to go. So we aimed straight for the heart and now they are gone. Could we proceed otherwise in reality? Whatever else we do, we cannot avoid trespassing on the essence of the party system and displacing it *en passant*. But I wanted to be clear about the form we'd be displacing, the particular form of exclusivity that parties depend upon, because I think it tells us something about the practical means of moving forward. (Persuasion won't work. The parties cannot be beaten on that ground.) How exactly do we proceed? -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
On 06/27/2012 07:10 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote: I am enjoying this discussion and I thank Fred for starting it. However, I have only a little to add: 1. Under plurality, parties are a necessary evil; primaries weed the field and prevent vote-splitting. Of course, plurality itself is an entirely unnecessary evil, mostly because it makes parties necessary. 2. Even without plurality, there would probably still be named, structured groupings. Unstructured anarchy may be desirable, but it's not very stable. That's not to say that there's no way to make the power dynamics inside the party less pernicious, though. 3. As I envision PAL representation, the PR system I designed, parties would simply be a label that any candidate could self-apply. To keep out wolves in sheeps clothing, any candidate would have the power to say, among the other candidates who share their chosen party label, which ones they do not consider to be allies. I think those dynamics – free to join, no guarantee you won't be shunned by the people who already have joined, but the binary shun-or-not choice should help prevent cliques of gradated power – would be relatively healthy. I'm not sure why the To of this message was set to my address, but while we're adding our ideas to it, here are mine: - Aristotle says that elections impart upon a system an element of aristocracy. In this, I'm inclined to agree, because elections involve the selection of a choice (or choices) from those that are known to the people doing the voting. Thus, if a minority has the power to be more visible, representatives will tend to be chosen from that minority. - Whether this is a good or bad thing depends upon whether you think aristocracy can work. In this sense, aristocracy means rule by the best, i.e. by a minority that is selected because they're in some way better than the rest at achieving the common good. The pathological form of aristocracy is oligarchy, where there's still a minority, but it's not chosen because it's better. If aristocracy degenerates too far or too quickly into oligarchy, that would negate the gains you'd expect to see from picking someone who's better rather than just by chance alone. - I think that, in practice, the collection of rules that make up the electoral system has a significant influence on both the nature of politics in that country as well as on the quality of the representatives. It's not too difficult to see that if you take it to extremes: for example, if you'd devise a system where only parties given permission to operate by already-permitted parties would be allowed to exist, you'd get political monopoly in short order. - Thus, it's not too hard for me to think there might be sets of rules that would make parties minor parts of politics. Those would not work by simply outlawing parties, totalitarian style. Instead, the rules would arrange the dynamics so that there's little benefit to organizing in parties. - For instance, a system based entirely on random selection would probably not have very powerful parties, as the parties would have no way of getting their candidates into the assembly. Of course, such a system would not have the aristocratic aspect either. Hybrid systems could still make parties less relevant: I've mentioned a sortition followed by election within the group idea before, where a significant sample is picked from the population and they elect representatives from their number. Again, parties could not be sure any of their candidates would be selected at random in the first round. While that method tries to keep some of the selection for best, it disrupts the continuity that parties need and the effect of marketing ahead of time. - Gohlke has also suggested a method he thinks would diminish the power of parties, wherein people meet in small groups (of three, but could be extended) and elect a subset (one of them according to his idea), and these then repeat the process until the number of representatives is reduced to the number you'd want. Parties could still exist as organizations that help people be better at the process, but party members can't secure a position by appealing to masses; rather (at least this is the idea), they must be able to defend/compromise in a thorough discussion of their ideas that the small-group setting supports. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
Kristofer Munsterhjelm said: - Thus, it's not too hard for me to think there might be sets of rules that would make parties minor parts of politics. Those would not work by simply outlawing parties, totalitarian style. Instead, the rules would arrange the dynamics so that there's little benefit to organizing in parties. Such rules would be difficult to implement while the parties are still in power. They control the legislatures. I think we need to look at the primaries. A system of open primaries would be beyond the reach of the parties, and it might undermine their power. Has anyone tried this approach before? -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
