An election method to replace MMP

[Gary Swing]

On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, IH Farrow wrote:

Ian: The real difficulty with MMP is not the "overhang mandate" that can
mean additional politicians, but rather the fact that it is a non-ordinal 
system that requires voters to accept candidate rankings on Party Lists 
submitted by the political parties.  
>
Gary: I've filed language for a proposed MMP ballot initiative in Colorado
which would use open (but pre-ordered) party lists. Voters would have the
option of casting their second vote either for the pre-ordered list or for
one candidate within the list. 
 
Ian: MMP is a politician's dream, since losers in the constituencies on
the Saturday (in New Zealand) can be resurrected through the Party Lists 
on the following Monday.  Party List casual vacancies do not need to be 
replaced through by-elections, but can simply be replaced by their 
political party.  Party List politicians are also not bothered by the 
needs of constituents.

Gary: MMP is a compromise measure for societies which are accustomed to
winner-take-all district elections. It preserves some districts
(constituencies) while also establishing proportional representation. I
suspect that, at least in the US, the district seats would go almost
entirely to the two major parties, while alternative parties could win
seats based on the party lists. The parties are accountable to their
supporters, regardless of where they happen to live. MMP provides fair
representation to both minorities and majorities, but perhaps not as
ideally as with a purely open list system with no single-member 
districts.
 
Ian: MMP is a fraud for voters since the only vote that really counts in 
the composition of the Parliament is the Party List vote (since a win 
in a constituency means one less Party List seat entitlement) while 
the system requires the completion of two ballot papers, leading the 
voters to believe that they have 'two votes'.

Gary: Both votes count. One for a local representative, one for
proportionality.
 
Ian: The system suggested by Donald seems extremely complicated.  I
suggest that most of the issues he seeks to resolve are easily addressed
in elections for the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly 
and the Tasmanian House of Assembly by STV proportional representation 
using the Hare Clark voting system.  The only downside in these elections 
is the perpetuation of the Australian anachronism of compulsory voting.