Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
On 02/20/2012 03:34 AM, Richard Fobes wrote: On 2/19/2012 1:24 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 02/19/2012 06:18 AM, Richard Fobes wrote: ... More specifically, European politicians seem to be as clueless as U.S. politicians about what is needed to create jobs and restore widespread economic prosperity. Let me just say that, as a Norwegian, that does not match my experience at all. Ah, indeed Norway has a better political system than the main European nations (France, Germany, Spain, etc.). Also, oil exports put Norway in a much better position economically than what's going on here in the U.S. (and tighter budgets result in greater dysfunctionality). And, culturally, Norwegians seem to be enlightened more so than many other countries. I won't deny that oil exports help, but the other Scandinavian/Nordic countries seem to be doing well, too. For instance, the Wikipedia article on Sweden's economy says that the government budget has improved dramatically from a record deficit of more than 12% of GDP in 1993, and from 1998 to present, has run a surplus in every year except 2003 and 2004.. The US public debt, on the other hand, is around 60% of GDP. As for the people being more enlightened, do you think politics could have a feedback effect in that respect? One could imagine that a more civil state of politics, more focused on issues rather than who's electable or who can sling words in one-on-one debates the best, could in turn lead the people to be more interested in actual politics. (On the other hand, Warren does say the actual improvement due to democracy may be minor and that it's only compounding over time that makes democracies much better that non-democracies. He uses an example of Pakistan and what became the US having comparably similarly sized economies 300 years ago, but now the US's GDP/capita is 19 times that of Pakistan, which works out to about a 1% greater annual growth rate for the US.) The need for Norway to resist the European Union in its effort to bite off too much underscores my point about European nations, on average -- which implies a lack of wise leadership in both the EU and the countries that dominate the EU. I get the impression that, although some people wanted political integration from the start, the EU has mainly grown by exceeding its scope and then formalizing its new extended scope. It started off being special-purpose (as the European Coal and Steel Community), then grew from there into/was absorbed by the European Economic Community (depending on how you look at it). At that point, it had its own inertia and was no longer unambiguously subordinate to the national leadership. This is not a pattern unique to the EU. I think that has happened in the US, as well, although there the political climate may have supported the organizations' expansion, particularly in the cases of the DHS and TSA. One could of course say that the politicians have failed in reining in the Union's expansion of scope. To the degree they had a responsibility to keep the Union from growing, that is true. What I'm trying to say is that the Union is not without its internal dynamics: it did not simply rest while the politicians encouraged it to grow, but the bureaucracy had its own reasons to expand. A point about the EU: Personally I think that creating the Eurodollar as a monetary unit that is represented in currency was a mistake. Before the Eurodollar was instituted, I publicly (in The Futurist magazine) suggested that something called a Unidollar should be created as a monetary unit that is defined in a way that does not inflate or deflate with respect to tangible things and services, but without being available as a tangible currency. That would allow people in different countries to talk about monetary amounts in Unidollars without having to know the conversion rate for the country of the person they are talking to. (They only have to know the conversion rate between their country's currency and the Unidollar.) Would that be like the IMF special drawing rights? Perhaps a little, but if it were to be inflation-neutral, it would have to be adjusted, somehow. Things and services would still have different Unidollar prices in different economies, so the comparison would be limited. The fact that the EU leaders didn't anticipate the possibility of Greek and Italian (and other) defaults before they even instituted the common currency (and did not realize that just asking new EU nations to make a promise to spend taxpayers' money wisely, with no real way to back up those promises) reveals a lack of wisdom. I agree. Compromises sometimes fail to help either party, and moreso if the consequences haven't been considered thoroughly. As for the U.S., the biggest (but not the only) election unfairness occurs in primary elections as a result of vote splitting. Special interests -- the people who give the largest amounts of
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org wrote: Another way to understand the second problem is to consider what would happen if 55% of the voters in a state favor the Republican Party, and the remaining 45% favor the Democratic Party, and there is an even distribution of these preferences throughout the state. If STV uses 3 seats per district, the likely result would be that two thirds of the elected representatives would be Republicans, and only one third would be Democrats. If they were single seaters, then it would be 100% Republican. Small districts inherently don't give good PR, but a 1/3 to 2/3 split is better than 100% to one, if the votes are 55% to 45%. If STV is used with 4 seats per district, in a (different) state that strongly favors a third party, the fourth seat would yield unpredictable results. Here I'm assuming that the first three seats would be filled by one Republican, one Democrat, and one third-party politician. There would be a little randomness, but it should balance out somewhat when averaged over many districts. Tiny parties would still have a very hard time. 4 seats means a quota of 20%. If both Republicans and Democrats are 40%, then they both get 2 seat each. An odd number of seats has the feature that if a party gets a majority of the vote, it gets a majority of the seats. In contrast, my view is that first we -- the voters -- need to reclaim control of the Republican and Democratic parties, and then we can decide whether we need one or more third parties. (I expect that we will need small third parties, but that they will primarily serve as a way for voters to steer the two main parties in wiser directions.) The issue is that if the 2 parties work together, then they can ignore the voters, since they effectively hold a duopoly. Everyone must choose one or other, so there is relatively little control. With third parties, it is possible for voters to move to one of the third parties. Even if only a small number do it, it still acts on as a check, since each voter who leaves represents loss of power for the party. Currently, the only way to leave is to switch vote from one party to the other, which is a big step for many people. Remember that state legislatures and Congress use a voting method (for choosing which proposed laws to pass) that works reasonably well with just two main parties, but that voting method would break down into chaos if a legislature or Congress had to form coalitions (in order to get a majority of support for each proposed law). Certainly, there would need to be changes in the customs/rules of order in the House. The Senate would likely not be PR based anyway, due to the 2 Senator per State rule. Also remember that in Congress (and presumably in state legislatures) the chairmanship of each committee switches to a committee member who is from the majority party; there is no graceful way to choose which committees switch their chairmanships to which of three (or more) parties. That could be handled either by having a formal coalition (the coalition agreement would include how to split the chairmanships) or maybe doing it via PR, or some other compromise. You seem to be focused on accommodating a transition to a three-party system, without also accommodating a later transition back to a two-party system. PR is unlikely to switch back to a 2 party system. There is little benefit in reducing voter choice. However, if the voters mostly vote for the 2 biggest parties, PR allows it to move back to 2 party. Election-method reform must (first and foremost) cut the puppet strings that currently connect politicians -- of both parties -- to the biggest campaign contributors (special interests). That is one of the main points about PR. By giving the voters more choice, they can move their support away from parties that don't represent them well. A 2 party system inherently, only has 2 choice. If a voter hates one party and dislikes the other, then he isn't likely to move his vote to the party he hates. The more voters who are in that situation, the less voter control their is over the party. That alone will change the political landscape dramatically, and that change might result in a stable two-party system that all the voters like. I assume you mean campaign contribution reform? That isn't actually an election method. Also, because of the FPTP method, politicians can ignore the public, as long as both parties agree. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
On 02/19/2012 06:18 AM, Richard Fobes wrote: I have in mind European parliaments where coalitions are typically needed. In my opinion, coalitions require back-room compromises that most voters would not like (if they knew what those compromises were). I have not seen any parliamentary democracies in which voters are able to elect problem-solving leaders. Instead, special-interest puppets are elected. More specifically, European politicians seem to be as clueless as U.S. politicians about what is needed to create jobs and restore widespread economic prosperity. Let me just say that, as a Norwegian, that does not match my experience at all. Clearly, politics here isn't perfect. I would say that the current coalition's largest member (the Labor Party) holds certain positions about which the majority does not agree, and that said party uses its power as a majority of a majority (i.e. the largest - majority - party within the largest - majority - coalition) to push its own views through even when they're unpopular. (I'm thinking of the Labor Party accepting (de jure optional) European Union regulations too readily, in particular, because the party likes the idea of the EU even though the union has been growing steadily less popular with the people due to the whole business with Greece.) However, the coalition did manage to steer the country through the last (European/American-induced) economic turbulence without too much problem; and the Labor Party had to concede on some local-vs-central issues because of the nature of coalition government, whereas they probably would not have had to do so if they were the majority in a two-party state. Instead, I'd say that the European problem is that the ones in power are trying to bite off too much. The European Union, in growing so quickly, had to be built on compromise at all costs, and that compromise has led to many solutions that only go some of the way. The Euro matter is a good example: the management of the currency (along with attendant financial policy) is partially centralized, partially decentralized, and that doesn't work. They also have their undemocratic, bureaucrat-ruled past to deal with, though they've come some way by giving some of the Commission's power to the Parliament. I agree that a lot can be accomplished without making this change. I also agree that there are no unchangeable laws that would prevent changing how voting is done in Congress. Yet special interests -- i.e. the biggest campaign contributors -- will never intentionally allow such changes -- because they know how to control (rig) the system under the current laws/rules. That seems to say that you can't expect the rules to change to favor third parties first, because under the current system, the campaign contributors would want the status quo to prevail. So you'd have to weaken the power of the campaign contributors. And how would you do so? Perhaps by competition? I guess the risky part would be that you get multipartyism, and then the rules don't work, and then instead of the coalitions altering the rules so that they *do* work (now that campaign contributors can't buy all the parties off), the people say oh, it's not working, let's return to the old lesser-evil system -- at least that did work. Is that something like what you're imagining? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
David L Wetzell Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2012 8:21 PM If voters can help elect a 3rd party more easily then it doesn't matter if there's a stronger role for party hierarchy in the determination of their party's candidate. This is far from the reality - it matters a great deal. Most parties are coalitions, to greater or lesser degrees. For example, here in the UK we still have left and right wings within the Labour Party and we have pro-EU and anti-EU wings with the Conservative Party. If the party hierarchy can impose one political viewpoint by putting candidates from one wing of the party in all the winnable places on the party's list the many of the supporters of that party will be faced with a hold your nose choice - either vote for they party's list dominated by the other wing or vote against the party altogether and let the opposition in. And that's not theoretical - we have seen it done here in the UK where, sadly, we do have some party-list PR elections. dlw: All that is true, but it does not change my point that election reform got on the ballot in large part because the use of quasi-PR in more local elections helped the LibDems to continue to rival the two biggest parties. When third parties can gain foot-holds, there's inevitably going to be pressure away from FPTP. This is also very far from the reality. The role of the Liberal Democrats in UK-level politics has not been fostered by the use of PR voting systems (of various kinds) in some sub-UK elections. The two things are not at all related and certainly had nothing to do with preparing any imaged climate for the AV referendum. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 6:58 PM, James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.ukwrote: David L Wetzell Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 7:31 PM James Gilmour: But why would you want all these differences and complications? dlw: Because context matters. I have great difficulty in believing that there are such context specific differences. I could believe that there are differences in the hostility of the political parties to proposals for reform of the voting system at different levels of government and that reforms that the parties might accept at one level would not be acceptable at another - especially their own election! dlw: well there are diffs in voter awareness and interest in different elections. If voters are less into more local elections then more options via STV or what-not wouldn't be as helpful for most voters. They might appreciate the reduced number of candidates, since this reduces the cost of becoming an informed voter in a given election. They also might like the less competitive elections with 2 safe seats. The candidates wouldn't be taking each other to the cleaners but they would be doing their best to promote their parties. dlw: 1. There are benefits to party-list PR, relative to STV. I do not agree that there are any benefits of any party-PR voting system that outweigh the benefits to the voters of STV-PR. Like I said, it may depend on the context the benefits of STV-PR vary with the interest level of the voters in the election. Elections are for electors - or at least, they should be - and to change that balance in favour of the voters should be one of the key objectives of any reform of a voting system. If voters can help elect a 3rd party more easily then it doesn't matter if there's a stronger role for party hierarchy in the determination of their party's candidate. JG: We had to accept local government wards electing only 3 or 4 councillors as part of our STV-PR package - that's practical politics. But that reform has transformed our local government - no more one-party states. dlw: Undoubtedly, and this is what made the AV referendum possible, no doubt. The reform of the voting system for local government in Scotland in 2007 had absolutely nothing to do with the 2011 UK referendum on AV (= IRV, not approval voting). THE problem with the AV referendum was that no serious reformer wanted AV. Some party politicians wanted AV, but far more party politicians (especially Conservatives) were opposed to any reform at all. The Liberal Democrats (whose party policy is for STV-PR) decided that a referendum on AV was the best they could extract from the Conservatives in the negotiations to form the coalition government. The negotiating teams were under a great deal of pressure and wanted to achieve an agreement before the UK financial markets opened on the Monday morning after the Thursday election. dlw: All that is true, but it does not change my point that election reform got on the ballot in large part because the use of quasi-PR in more local elections helped the LibDems to continue to rival the two biggest parties. When third parties can gain foot-holds, there's inevitably going to be pressure away from FPTP. dlw James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
On 2/17/2012 12:54 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: From: Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org As for STV, going beyond two seats easily produces unfair results. And in the U.S. the results also would be quite unstable (i.e. not mesh well with the current two-party system). Can you elaborate? I don't see why 3-5 seat STV with a droop quota wouldn't have results like what you described that would maintain yet transform the US's 2-party system. If STV is used with an odd number of seats (3 or 5) per district, in a (U.S.) state that feels well-represented by the Republican and Democratic parties, two problems arise. The first is that it would give an undeserved advantage to a third party in every district (which is more obvious in the 3-seat case, but still applicable in the 5-seat case). The second problem is that luck or (more likely) political manipulations, would determine which party wins the third (or fifth) seat, and that would increase the need for more party-based seats for the purpose of correcting the imbalance. Another way to understand the second problem is to consider what would happen if 55% of the voters in a state favor the Republican Party, and the remaining 45% favor the Democratic Party, and there is an even distribution of these preferences throughout the state. If STV uses 3 seats per district, the likely result would be that two thirds of the elected representatives would be Republicans, and only one third would be Democrats. If STV is used with 4 seats per district, in a (different) state that strongly favors a third party, the fourth seat would yield unpredictable results. Here I'm assuming that the first three seats would be filled by one Republican, one Democrat, and one third-party politician. As I see it, accommodating proportional results in any state (and in the United States overall) has to occur at a higher level than the district level. Instead of the 3, 4, or 5 seats per district that you recommend, if STV were used with just 2 seats per district, many districts would choose one Republican and one Democrat, some districts would choose one Republican and one third-party candidate, and yet other districts would choose one Democrat and one third-party candidate. In that case, relatively few additional proportional seats are needed to accommodate either third parties or an imbalance between the Republicans and Democrats, or (more likely) both. You -- and many other fans of third political parties -- view third parties as the solution to the current problem of government not doing what voters want. In contrast, my view is that first we -- the voters -- need to reclaim control of the Republican and Democratic parties, and then we can decide whether we need one or more third parties. (I expect that we will need small third parties, but that they will primarily serve as a way for voters to steer the two main parties in wiser directions.) Remember that state legislatures and Congress use a voting method (for choosing which proposed laws to pass) that works reasonably well with just two main parties, but that voting method would break down into chaos if a legislature or Congress had to form coalitions (in order to get a majority of support for each proposed law). Also remember that in Congress (and presumably in state legislatures) the chairmanship of each committee switches to a committee member who is from the majority party; there is no graceful way to choose which committees switch their chairmanships to which of three (or more) parties. My main point is that any voting system used in the United States has to accommodate both times of transition and times of stability. You seem to be focused on accommodating a transition to a three-party system, without also accommodating a later transition back to a two-party system. Remember that a two-party system is not necessarily bad -- if voters control both parties. The two-party situation we are in now is bad because special interests (not the voters) control both parties. Election-method reform must (first and foremost) cut the puppet strings that currently connect politicians -- of both parties -- to the biggest campaign contributors (special interests). That alone will change the political landscape dramatically, and that change might result in a stable two-party system that all the voters like. We have to allow for that possibility -- rather than to assume that voters will always be unhappy. In summary, any well-designed election method not only must accommodate a transition to fairer elections, but also must accommodate whatever stable situation follows the transition. I do favor having more than two parties, but I don't see how three (or more) strong parties can be accommodated until after Congress and state legislatures use voting methods that are compatible with more than two parties. I'll add that I don't see
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
Hi Richard, De : Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org À : election-meth...@electorama.com Envoyé le : Samedi 18 février 2012 14h47 Objet : Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? I do favor having more than two parties, but I don't see how three (or more) strong parties can be accommodated until after Congress and state legislatures use voting methods that are compatible with more than two parties. Do you have real world examples in mind here? Have you looked at assemblies, to which no executive is responsible, that are elected by party list or that for some other reason have multiple parties? I have trouble imagining that this is a major issue. Congressional rules based on the assumptions of there being two parties aren't in the U.S. constitution. They can be changed. But they definitely won't see revisions until there is a need to revise them! I think I might agree with you to some extent, in that I don't really care how many party labels there are. Whether there are two, three, ten, or zero, doesn't tell me much of anything by itself. Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
On 2/18/2012 1:49 PM, Kevin Venzke wrote: Hi Richard, *De :* Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org I do favor having more than two parties, but I don't see how three (or more) strong parties can be accommodated until after Congress and state legislatures use voting methods that are compatible with more than two parties. Do you have real world examples in mind here? Have you looked at assemblies, to which no executive is responsible, that are elected by party list or that for some other reason have multiple parties? I have in mind European parliaments where coalitions are typically needed. In my opinion, coalitions require back-room compromises that most voters would not like (if they knew what those compromises were). I have not seen any parliamentary democracies in which voters are able to elect problem-solving leaders. Instead, special-interest puppets are elected. More specifically, European politicians seem to be as clueless as U.S. politicians about what is needed to create jobs and restore widespread economic prosperity. I have trouble imagining that this is a major issue. Congressional rules based on the assumptions of there being two parties aren't in the U.S. constitution. They can be changed. But they definitely won't see revisions until there is a need to revise them! I agree that a lot can be accomplished without making this change. I also agree that there are no unchangeable laws that would prevent changing how voting is done in Congress. Yet special interests -- i.e. the biggest campaign contributors -- will never intentionally allow such changes -- because they know how to control (rig) the system under the current laws/rules. I think I might agree with you to some extent, in that I don't really care how many party labels there are. Whether there are two, three, ten, or zero, doesn't tell me much of anything by itself. Well said! Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. I don't. I think that party-list removes voter freedom, and ranked choices is too much of a burden on the voter. While either would be better than what we have, I prefer to use delegation a la SODA. Thus my favored system is PAL representationhttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/PAL_representation. It's true that PAL still has some (very attenuated) party-list-like aspects, because party affiliation is used to match candidates to districts at the end; but if you were willing to give up this (overlapping) geographical representation aspect of PAL, you could make a similar delegated PR system in which parties played no explicit role. Jameson Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
But why would you want all these differences and complications? If you are going to use STV-PR for some of these elections, why not use STV-PR for all of these elections to the various representative assemblies (councils, state legislatures, US House of Representatives, US Senate). STV-PR works OK in both partisan and non-partisan elections, so it should give fair and proper representation of the VOTERS in all these different elections. Of course, with districts returning only 3 to 5 members, the proportionality and direct representation MAY be a little limited, but if small numbers are needed to make the system acceptable to the vested interests, then so be it. STV-PR with 3, 4 or 5 member districts is greatly to be preferred to plurality in single-member districts and to plurality at large. We had to accept local government wards electing only 3 or 4 councillors as part of our STV-PR package - that's practical politics. But that reform has transformed our local government - no more one-party states. James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of David L Wetzell Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 2:49 PM To: EM Subject: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? It seems to me that a common sense solution would be to base which gets used on the propensity for voters to be informed about the elections. Also, the two types seem to be bundled with different types of quotas. STV gets marketed with the droop quota here in the US. I'm not complaining because it's good to simplify things. But if STV were bundled with Droop then 3-seat LR Hare might prove handy to make sure that 3rd parties get a constructive role to play in US politics. So I propose that 3-5 seat STV with a droop quota, perhaps using AV in a first step to simplify and shorten the vote-counting and transferring process, for US congressional elections or city council elections and 3-seat LR Hare for state representative and aldermen elections. The latter two elections are less important and get less media coverage and voter attention. Is it reasonable to expect voters to rank multiple candidates in an election where they often simply vote their party line? Why not keep it simple and use the mix of Droop and Hare quotas to both keep the system's duopolistic tendencies and to make the duopoly contested? It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. I think it is a matter of context and that both can be useful, especially when no explicit party-list is required for a 3-seat LR Hare election. The vice-candidates who would hold the extra seats a party wins could either be selected after the victory or specified before hand. So what do you think? I'm keeping the seat numbers down because I accept that those in power aren't going to want an EU multi-party system and I'm not sure they're wrong about that, plus the US is used to voting the candidate and having their representative and they could keep that if there are relatively few seats per election. dlw Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 9:26 AM, Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.comwrote: It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. I don't. I think that party-list removes voter freedom, and ranked choices is too much of a burden on the voter. While either would be better than what we have, I prefer to use delegation a la SODA. Obviously, you are not most folks 1. Your igoring my key-arg of context. Less freedom is not always less for rationally ignorant voters. 2. Up to 5 rankings is not a burden, since voters can choose to do as many as they wish and rely on intermediaries for discernment. Thus my favored system is PAL representationhttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/PAL_representation. It's true that PAL still has some (very attenuated) party-list-like aspects, because party affiliation is used to match candidates to districts at the end; but if you were willing to give up this (overlapping) geographical representation aspect of PAL, you could make a similar delegated PR system in which parties played no explicit role. 3. I haven't looked at PAL for a while. I'm sticking with 3-5 seat forms of PR that don't challenge the existence of a 2-party system. This keeps the complexity down. I figure we can challenge the constitutionality of denying state's rights to decide whether they want to use a multi-seat election rule for congressional candidates, on the basis of its discriminatory effect against minorities. Clarence Thomas is known to be favorable to this. James Gilmore: But why would you want all these differences and complications? dlw: Because context matters. 3-seat LR Hare is not complicated. It works almost just like 1-seat LR Hare, better known as FPTP. And I'm keeping STV-PR to keep down the diffs and complications, since it works similarly to IRV, the best known alternative to FPTP among progressives in the US. JG: If you are going to use STV-PR for some of these elections, why not use STV-PR for all of these elections to the various representative assemblies (councils, state legislatures, US House of Representatives, US Senate). STV-PR works OK in both partisan and non-partisan elections, so it should give fair and proper representation of the VOTERS in all these different elections. dlw: 1. There are benefits to party-list PR, relative to STV. 2. STV-PR has been bundled with the droop quota. The hare quota is far more 3rd party friendly. 3. Some elections get less voter attn and the benefit of giving voters more options is less than cost of having too many candidates clamoring for your ranked votes. JG: Of course, with districts returning only 3 to 5 members, the proportionality and direct representation MAY be a little limited, but if small numbers are needed to make the system acceptable to the vested interests, then so be it. STV-PR with 3, 4 or 5 member districts is greatly to be preferred to plurality in single-member districts and to plurality at large. dlw: Hare quota w. 3 seats is somewhat preferable to Droop quota w. 3 seats. 3-seat LR-Hare is biased in favor of bigger 3rd parties, which offsets the continued use of single-member elections for state senate and what-not. Now, you could pair the Hare quota w. STV, but why not keep the bundling of STV w. the Droop quota to keep things simpler? JG:We had to accept local government wards electing only 3 or 4 councillors as part of our STV-PR package - that's practical politics. But that reform has transformed our local government - no more one-party states. dlw: Undoubtedly, and this is what made the AV referendum possible, no doubt. This is why I argue that the strategic use of low-seat PR for more local elections is a key way to change the dynamics of US politics. Which is in turn why I keep insisting that |Xirv-Xoth| Pirv-Poth for single-member seats. dlw Jameson Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
On 2/17/2012 6:49 AM, David L Wetzell wrote: ... It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. ... So what do you think? I don't see this as an either/or choice, nor do I see a viable both option being suggested. So I'll again suggest VoteFair ranking: VoteFair ranking uses ranked choices (1-2-3 ballots and pairwise counting...) for identifying the most popular candidate -- for filling the first seat in a legislative district. VoteFair ranking fills the second district-based seat with the second-most representative candidate. In the U.S., even without asking voters to indicate a party preference, that would usually be the most popular candidate from the opposite party (i.e. the opposite party compared to the first-seat winner). To further increase proportionality, VoteFair ranking fills some proportional seats based on the favorite party of the voters. (Whichever party has the biggest gap between voter proportion and filled-seat proportion wins the next seat.) We don't have to choose between proportionality (PR) and ranked methods. We can get both. And in a U.S.-compatible way. If election-method reform is to happen in the U.S., it has to merge with the reality of the two-party system. And I believe it should accommodate third parties only to the extent that voters are unable to regain control of the two main parties. As for STV, going beyond two seats easily produces unfair results. And in the U.S. the results also would be quite unstable (i.e. not mesh well with the current two-party system). Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
From: Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org To: election-meth...@electorama.com Cc: Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:01:16 -0800 Subject: Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? On 2/17/2012 6:49 AM, David L Wetzell wrote: ... It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. ... So what do you think? I don't see this as an either/or choice, dlw: U2 apparently are not among most folks... nor do I see a viable both option being suggested. dlw: viability is a low-blow at this stage, but I guess it's a blow I use quite often. So I'll again suggest VoteFair ranking: VoteFair ranking uses ranked choices (1-2-3 ballots and pairwise counting...) for identifying the most popular candidate -- for filling the first seat in a legislative district. VoteFair ranking fills the second district-based seat with the second-most representative candidate. In the U.S., even without asking voters to indicate a party preference, that would usually be the most popular candidate from the opposite party (i.e. the opposite party compared to the first-seat winner). To further increase proportionality, VoteFair ranking fills some proportional seats based on the favorite party of the voters. (Whichever party has the biggest gap between voter proportion and filled-seat proportion wins the next seat.) We don't have to choose between proportionality (PR) and ranked methods. We can get both. And in a U.S.-compatible way. If election-method reform is to happen in the U.S., it has to merge with the reality of the two-party system. And I believe it should accommodate third parties only to the extent that voters are unable to regain control of the two main parties. dlw: I agree with the reality of the 2-party system. I also believe that we need to make the case that our 2-party system will work much, much better if we give 3rd parties a constructive role to play in it. Giving them access to one-third of the seats in the state assembly so they get to determine which major party is in power in that body every two years is such a constructive role. It will give folks more exit threat from the two major parties, thereby making both of them more responsive to the moving center. As for STV, going beyond two seats easily produces unfair results. And in the U.S. the results also would be quite unstable (i.e. not mesh well with the current two-party system). Can you elaborate? I don't see why 3-5 seat STV with a droop quota wouldn't have results like what you described that would maintain yet transform the US's 2-party system. dlw Richard Fobes -- Forwarded message -- From: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com To: David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:35:58 -0600 Subject: Re: [EM] JQ wrt SODA If first-mover is all that counts, then I'm afraid we're stuck with plurality. Obviously, I hope and believe that's not true. Jameson 2012/2/17 David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com IRV's got a first mover advantage over SODA and to catch up you need to convince someone like Soros to help you market it. It wouldn't matter if you got the whole EM list to agree with you that it was hunky-dory. But in the context of a 2-party dominated system, there aren't as many serious candidates and so what relative advantages there are of SODA over IRV will be less, which then makes the first-mover marketing problem more significant, especially if IRV can be souped up with the seemingly slight modification of the use of a limited form of approval voting in the first stage. dlw On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:27 PM, election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com wrote: Send Election-Methods mailing list submissions to election-methods@lists.electorama.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com You can reach the person managing the list at election-methods-ow...@lists.electorama.com When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Election-Methods digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: Real-world examples of chicken dilemma? (Kristofer Munsterhjelm) 2. STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? (David L Wetzell) 3. SODA arguments (Jameson Quinn) 4. Re: STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? (Jameson Quinn) 5. Re: STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? (James Gilmour) 6. Re: Question about Schulze beatpath method (Markus Schulze) -- Forwarded message -- From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_el...@lavabit.com To: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com Cc: EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:51:10 +0100
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
I give a rebuttal to the Electoral Reform Society's assessment of party-list PR for the case of 3-seat LR Hare. http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2011/05/electoral-reform-society-united-kingdom.html dlw On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 2:54 PM, David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com wrote: From: Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org To: election-meth...@electorama.com Cc: Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:01:16 -0800 Subject: Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? On 2/17/2012 6:49 AM, David L Wetzell wrote: ... It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. ... So what do you think? I don't see this as an either/or choice, dlw: U2 apparently are not among most folks... nor do I see a viable both option being suggested. dlw: viability is a low-blow at this stage, but I guess it's a blow I use quite often. So I'll again suggest VoteFair ranking: VoteFair ranking uses ranked choices (1-2-3 ballots and pairwise counting...) for identifying the most popular candidate -- for filling the first seat in a legislative district. VoteFair ranking fills the second district-based seat with the second-most representative candidate. In the U.S., even without asking voters to indicate a party preference, that would usually be the most popular candidate from the opposite party (i.e. the opposite party compared to the first-seat winner). To further increase proportionality, VoteFair ranking fills some proportional seats based on the favorite party of the voters. (Whichever party has the biggest gap between voter proportion and filled-seat proportion wins the next seat.) We don't have to choose between proportionality (PR) and ranked methods. We can get both. And in a U.S.-compatible way. If election-method reform is to happen in the U.S., it has to merge with the reality of the two-party system. And I believe it should accommodate third parties only to the extent that voters are unable to regain control of the two main parties. dlw: I agree with the reality of the 2-party system. I also believe that we need to make the case that our 2-party system will work much, much better if we give 3rd parties a constructive role to play in it. Giving them access to one-third of the seats in the state assembly so they get to determine which major party is in power in that body every two years is such a constructive role. It will give folks more exit threat from the two major parties, thereby making both of them more responsive to the moving center. As for STV, going beyond two seats easily produces unfair results. And in the U.S. the results also would be quite unstable (i.e. not mesh well with the current two-party system). Can you elaborate? I don't see why 3-5 seat STV with a droop quota wouldn't have results like what you described that would maintain yet transform the US's 2-party system. dlw Richard Fobes -- Forwarded message -- From: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com To: David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:35:58 -0600 Subject: Re: [EM] JQ wrt SODA If first-mover is all that counts, then I'm afraid we're stuck with plurality. Obviously, I hope and believe that's not true. Jameson 2012/2/17 David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com IRV's got a first mover advantage over SODA and to catch up you need to convince someone like Soros to help you market it. It wouldn't matter if you got the whole EM list to agree with you that it was hunky-dory. But in the context of a 2-party dominated system, there aren't as many serious candidates and so what relative advantages there are of SODA over IRV will be less, which then makes the first-mover marketing problem more significant, especially if IRV can be souped up with the seemingly slight modification of the use of a limited form of approval voting in the first stage. dlw On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:27 PM, election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com wrote: Send Election-Methods mailing list submissions to election-methods@lists.electorama.com To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com You can reach the person managing the list at election-methods-ow...@lists.electorama.com When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Election-Methods digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: Real-world examples of chicken dilemma? (Kristofer Munsterhjelm) 2. STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? (David L Wetzell) 3. SODA arguments (Jameson Quinn) 4. Re: STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? (Jameson Quinn) 5. Re: STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
I don't see why anyone would want to use a party-list voting system when there are more voter-centred alternatives that fit much better with the political cultures of countries like USA, Canada, UK. Why anyone would want to use the Hare quota when, with preferential voting, it can distort the proportionality - in a way that Droop does not. Why anyone would want to restrict the voting system to 3-seat districts instead of adopting a flexible approach to district magnitude to fit local geography and recognised communities.. James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of David L Wetzell Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 9:21 PM To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? I give a rebuttal to the Electoral Reform Society's assessment of party-list PR for the case of 3-seat LR Hare. http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2011/05/electoral-reform-society-united-kingdom.html dlw On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 2:54 PM, David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com wrote: From: Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org To: election-meth...@electorama.com Cc: Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:01:16 -0800 Subject: Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? On 2/17/2012 6:49 AM, David L Wetzell wrote: ... It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. ... So what do you think? I don't see this as an either/or choice, dlw: U2 apparently are not among most folks... nor do I see a viable both option being suggested. dlw: viability is a low-blow at this stage, but I guess it's a blow I use quite often. So I'll again suggest VoteFair ranking: VoteFair ranking uses ranked choices (1-2-3 ballots and pairwise counting...) for identifying the most popular candidate -- for filling the first seat in a legislative district. VoteFair ranking fills the second district-based seat with the second-most representative candidate. In the U.S., even without asking voters to indicate a party preference, that would usually be the most popular candidate from the opposite party (i.e. the opposite party compared to the first-seat winner). To further increase proportionality, VoteFair ranking fills some proportional seats based on the favorite party of the voters. (Whichever party has the biggest gap between voter proportion and filled-seat proportion wins the next seat.) We don't have to choose between proportionality (PR) and ranked methods. We can get both. And in a U.S.-compatible way. If election-method reform is to happen in the U.S., it has to merge with the reality of the two-party system. And I believe it should accommodate third parties only to the extent that voters are unable to regain control of the two main parties. dlw: I agree with the reality of the 2-party system. I also believe that we need to make the case that our 2-party system will work much, much better if we give 3rd parties a constructive role to play in it. Giving them access to one-third of the seats in the state assembly so they get to determine which major party is in power in that body every two years is such a constructive role. It will give folks more exit threat from the two major parties, thereby making both of them more responsive to the moving center. As for STV, going beyond two seats easily produces unfair results. And in the U.S. the results also would be quite unstable (i.e. not mesh well with the current two-party system). Can you elaborate? I don't see why 3-5 seat STV with a droop quota wouldn't have results like what you described that would maintain yet transform the US's 2-party system. dlw Richard Fobes -- Forwarded message -- From: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com To: David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:35:58 -0600 Subject: Re: [EM] JQ wrt SODA If first-mover is all that counts, then I'm afraid we're stuck with plurality. Obviously, I hope and believe that's not true. Jameson 2012/2/17 David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com IRV's got a first mover advantage over SODA and to catch up you need to convince someone like Soros to help you market it. It wouldn't matter if you got the whole EM list to agree with you that it was hunky-dory. But in the context of a 2-party dominated system, there aren't as many serious candidates and so what relative advantages there are of SODA over IRV will be less, which then makes the first-mover marketing problem more significant, especially if IRV can be souped up with the seemingly slight modification of the use of a limited form of approval voting in the first stage. dlw On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:27 PM, election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com wrote: Send Election-Methods mailing list submissions to election
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
David L Wetzell Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 7:31 PM James Gilmour: But why would you want all these differences and complications? dlw: Because context matters. I have great difficulty in believing that there are such context specific differences. I could believe that there are differences in the hostility of the political parties to proposals for reform of the voting system at different levels of government and that reforms that the parties might accept at one level would not be acceptable at another - especially their own election! dlw: 1. There are benefits to party-list PR, relative to STV. I do not agree that there are any benefits of any party-PR voting system that outweigh the benefits to the voters of STV-PR. Elections are for electors - or at least, they should be - and to change that balance in favour of the voters should be one of the key objectives of any reform of a voting system. JG: We had to accept local government wards electing only 3 or 4 councillors as part of our STV-PR package - that's practical politics. But that reform has transformed our local government - no more one-party states. dlw: Undoubtedly, and this is what made the AV referendum possible, no doubt. The reform of the voting system for local government in Scotland in 2007 had absolutely nothing to do with the 2011 UK referendum on AV (= IRV, not approval voting). THE problem with the AV referendum was that no serious reformer wanted AV. Some party politicians wanted AV, but far more party politicians (especially Conservatives) were opposed to any reform at all. The Liberal Democrats (whose party policy is for STV-PR) decided that a referendum on AV was the best they could extract from the Conservatives in the negotiations to form the coalition government. The negotiating teams were under a great deal of pressure and wanted to achieve an agreement before the UK financial markets opened on the Monday morning after the Thursday election. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
