Proposed MMP ballot initiative in Colorado

[IH Farrow]

The Colorado ballot initiative appears to be almost a carbon copy of the German and New Zealand MMP systems.  It appears to have most of the vices of those systems, and my critique is (in brief) the same:

It is a non-ordinal system that (generally in this case) requires voters to accept candidate rankings on Party Lists submitted by the political parties.  

It is a politician's dream, since losers in the constituencies can be resurrected through the Party Lists as a consequence of dual nomination.  Casual vacancies in the constituencies do not need to be replaced through by-elections or re-count of votes, but can simply be replaced by their political parties.  

The only votes that really count are the Party List votes (since a win in a constituency means one less Party List seat entitlement).  It therefore deceives voters into believing that both votes are equally important.

It has can create an 'overhang mandate' of extra politicians for the purposes of satisfying proportionality (MMP = means more politicians).


I suggest that any campaign for electoral reform will be more than half won when a change is made to an ordinal system where voters are able to indicate preferential choice for candidates.   
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