[EM] MultiGroup voting method

[Juho]

On Apr 7, 2007, at 0:34 , James Gilmour wrote:

> Juho> Sent: 06 April 2007 22:25
>> Also, to give more power directly to the voters, while maintaining an
>> easy way to vote, easy understanding of what the candidates stand
>> for, and with accountability.
>
> If that is what you want, why not just use STV-PR?
> Then there would be no party-controlled voting at all.
> James Gilmour

I like STV-PR but its properties are somewhat different.

"to give more power directly to the voters"
- STV-PR and MultiGroup are both reasonably strong here (Asset Voting  
gives part of the power to the (trusted) candidates)
- Direct democracy and "continuous elections" are stronger than  
"representative democracy with periodic elections"
- In STV-PR the votes are very flexible and expressive and this might  
give them some additional power in some situations (to be defined)

"easy way to vote"
- MultiGroup (vanilla version) uses just one "bullet vote", STV-PR  
requires more
- ease of voting is good if one wants to maintain wide involvement  
among the citizens and direct individual level decision making among  
the voters in public elections

"understanding of what the candidates stand for"
- In MultiGroup the candidates clearly state their position (or at  
least some key points of it)
- In STV-PR voters need to follow and then form their own opinion on  
all major candidates to understand their targets
- The clear announcement of targets in MultiGroup makes it harder for  
the candidate to give different kind of promises to different audiences

"accountability"
- MultiGroup nails down the key promises for the next election period  
(voters will know what they vote and candidates know and have to  
remember what they promise to work for)

"party-controlled voting"
- I don't oppose the party system as such. I rather think it is a key  
component and basic tool of democracy to offer people the right to  
organize themselves and to influence in the development of their  
society.
- The fact that in some "markets" the parties behave badly or have  
achieved (or appear to have) more power than the some citizens would  
like them to have is a problem but maybe not a reason to abandon the  
party structure altogether
- There can be too much control, there can be control as intended in  
a representative democracy

In one of my recent emails I wrote: I think STV is good for elections  
where we don't want to emphasize the grouping of candidates to  
"separate parties" and for elections where the candidates are quite  
well known by the voters (their viewpoints are well known).

When compared to that MultiGroup may be well suited for large scale  
elections for general public when we want to present the targets of  
the candidates clearly to them, and to influence the development of  
the political parties by giving them clear (simplified) guidance.

STV-PR is maybe at its best in small elections where the candidates  
are well known. In large systems I'd expect some kind of groupings  
and associations to emerge and be part of the management structure  
even if the voting method would not formally recognize them. STV-PR  
is possible and works also in large systems but I haven't really  
carefully thought what the benefits of keeping the voting method  
"party-free" while still expecting some interest groups (parties) to  
be present in the background would be.

The MultiGroup method is also direct evolution from some existing  
multi-party systems and therefore possibly a reasonably acceptable  
way forward.

Juho



	
	
		
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