STV-MD PR

[Steve Eppley]

Kevin's arguments in the ER list a couple of months ago about why
plain STV PR isn't good for electing a huge number of seats swayed
me--it's too many candidates to rank, and it's not safe to rank 
only a few because some of one's weight will probably get wasted.

However, that still leaves open the possibility of a multiseat-
districted STV (should I abbreviate it STV-MD?), in case the people
would prefer to avoid party-based PR or would prefer to have
districts to retain some emphasis on local accountability.  (Or
there's also the kitchen-sink PR I described, where each voter can
intermix rankings of candidates and parties, and the rankings
published by the candidates and parties get automatically appended to
the voter's ballot to minimize wastage.  But that's not the point of
this message.)

I've a theoretical question:  Suppose a 20 seat body is being
elected using STV from two districts each with an equal population.
Should each district elect 10 seats?  Or should each district's
apportionment depend on the number of voters who turn out?  (One 
simple way to do this would be to tally all the ballots together,
using a quota based on the total seats and total votes.)

If based on turnout, there'd be an additional incentive to increase
turnout.  But which would be more democratic, and which would waste 
fewer votes?

---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)