[EM] PR in student government...

[Tim Hull]

We do have district elections, though the "districts" are the various
schools/colleges at the University (Literature Science & Arts, Engineering,
Business, etc).  These have seats proportional to the number of students in
the school, with a minimum of 1 seat for each school.  Literature, Science,
& Arts (LSA), the largest school, gets 19 seats, followed by the Rackham
Graduate School with 7, Engineering with 6, Business with 3, and the smaller
colleges with 2 or 1 depending on size.  These seats are also further
divided between two yearly elections (for instance, LSA elects 10 in the
spring and 9 in the fall).

Currently, if I were to propose STV it would be with the existing divisions
and electoral cycles.  Obviously, there wouldn't be proportionality in the
single-member districts, though these schools are generally won by
independent write-in candidates that aren't part of a major party slate due
to their small size and the fact that these students are typically less
interested in student government. It doesn't seem like it would be that
large of an issue to just use IRV (or even plurality) for these seats.
However, 75% of the seats (and around 90% of those who actually SHOW UP at
meetings) are in the larger schools with multi-member districts.  Those also
happen to be the ones that are dominated by the party slates...

The problem, of course, seems to be selling people on STV.  I'm only one
person, and though I'm an elected representative (and thus can introduce a
resolution), I do need 2/3 of the other representatives to vote for this in
order to hold a referendum to adopt it.  That is the problem - they see the
existing ranking system (points-based) as "simple" compared to the complex
transfers of STV.  In fact, STV was actually used at one point and scrapped
for this very reason (though this was 20 years ago back when paper ballots
were still used).

Any other suggestions?

Tim

On 4/16/07, Bob Richard <electorama at robertjrichard.com> wrote:
>
> Tim and all,
>
> Among colleges and universities adopting proportional or
> semi-proportional systems, STV is the overwhelming favorite.  If
> students at (for example) Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon can
> figure it out, then students at the University of Michigan probably can
> too.
>
> The (alleged) complexity of STV is entirely a matter of the counting
> process; the task for the voter is actually very simple.  Having said
> that, the conventional ways of explaining the count invariably lose
> audiences, and we need to learn how to present it better.
>
> If you currently had district elections (from dormitories or
> neighborhoods), you could propose mixed member proportional (MMP).  But
> that doesn't sound like your situation.
>
> Bob Richard
> Publications Director
> Californians for Electoral Reform
> http://www.cfer.org
> P.O. Box 235
> Kentfield, CA 94914-0235
> (415) 256-9393
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: election-methods-bounces at electorama.com
> [mailto:election-methods-bounces at electorama.com]On Behalf Of Tim Hull
> Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 9:30 AM
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Subject: [EM] PR in student government...
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I e-mailed this list a while back about election methods in student
> government.  I'm at the University of Michigan, and we use a variant of
> the Borda count for our elections where you get as many votes as open
> seats.  Slates of candidates typically contest elections as "parties",
> and most discussion of elections revolves around these parties.
>
> Anyway, the system as-is works better than at-large plurality, but it
> still leaves much to be desired.  The biggest problem with the current
> system is that the largest party slate always wins a disproportionately
> high number of seats - so large, in fact, that competition has generally
> withered away.
>
> As a result, I'm looking at proportional representation systems - and
> possibly introducing one as a ballot initiative for next year. However,
> I have experienced great trouble in finding a system that people like.
> Single Transferable Vote seems ideal, but it has the drawback of being
> complex (and, as a result, hard for people to comprehend).  Party lists
> are simpler, but they force voters to support an entire party - not
> ideal at all.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions?  I was actually recently elected to a
> representative seat as the only independent candidate to defeat the
> dominant party slate, and am planning to introduce something.  I just
> need to be able to convince others...
>
> Tim Hull
>
> ----
> election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
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