MMP vs STV

DEMOREP1 at aol.com DEMOREP1 at aol.com
Mon Aug 24 17:32:33 PDT 1998


Having a zillion parties (i.e. party lists) is not necessary.  

For 5,000 years the political struggle has been having (A) more government or
(B) less government.   

However, having a single dominant pro or con government party over a long
period tends to produce major problems (e.g. the semi-continuous 1861-1932
Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives; the semi-continuous
1933-1994  Democrat control of the U.S. House of Representatives).

Having a zillion special interest parties produces major chaos (e.g. Israel
with many parties having only a few seats with continuous threats to bring
down the government).

Thus, again I suggest that there be about 5 seats per district using STV with
each winner having a voting power equal to the votes that he/she receives.  

Districts can have unequal numbers of voters (i.e. lower numbers in low
density areas, higher numbers in high density areas) and follow major
boundaries and be semi-permanent (rather than the chaos in the U.S. following
each 10 year census).

Larger parties will divide. Smaller parties will combine.  Candidates get on
the general election ballot only by voter nominating petitions.

Language--
(a) An Elector may vote for one or more legislative candidates on the ballot
in a district (plus not more than [2] write-in votes) by voting "1", "2" and
so forth for his or her first, second and so forth choices. (b) If there are
more than [5] candidates (or remaining candidates) in the district, then the
candidate having the lowest number of votes shall be a losing candidate. (c)
Each vote for a losing candidate shall be transferred to the Elector's next
choice (if any) who is a remaining candidate in the district. (d) The two
prior steps shall be repeated until there are [5] remaining candidates in the
district who shall be elected. (e) A lottery shall be held if tie votes occur
in any step. (f) Each member of a legislative body (or his or her replacement)
shall have a voting power in the legislative body and its committees, in
person or by written proxy, equal to the votes that the member finally
receives in the election. (g) Example-
C = Candidates          Voting Power
C1  21          = 21 +   1   = 22
C2  20          = 20 +   5   = 25
C3  15          = 15 +   3   = 18
C4  12 + 5    = 17           = 17
C5  12 + 1    = 13 - 13   =   0
C6  11 + 3    = 14 +   2   = 16
C7   9  - 9     =   0          =   0
VNT 0            =   0 +   2  =   2
    100            100           100
   C7 Loses   C5 Loses
VNT= Votes not transferred

Technically head to head math should be used for accuracy (all combinations of
5 versus 1).   But for legislative bodies, instant run- off is close enough.



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