[Election-Methods] Measuring power in a multi winner election

[Juho]

Some random observations on the theme.

"Seats != power" seems to assume that there is a hard party  
discipline (=all party representatives will/must vote as told by the  
party). Or alternatively representatives could have different weights  
(different number of votes each).

You skipped the "normal" rule of proportional systems where votes =  
seats quite quickly. It has its problems but I guess also possible  
power measurement based methods would have some problems. Let's say  
there is a rule that one can modify the constitution with 75% of the  
votes. There are three parties: 45%, 45% and 10%. Should we now give  
the smallest party more power by allowing it to modify the  
constitution together with one large party in some cases (with only  
55% of the votes)?

With 50% limit and parties 30%, 30%, 30%, 10%, should we allow  
minority decisions in some cases to allow the small party to decide  
in some cases?

One alternative approach would be to require higher percentage of  
votes in some cases, e.g. after decisions have been made with lower  
percentages for few times. In this case 30%+30% would not be enough  
any more in some cases but the the approval limit would go up from  
50% e.g. to 65% at some point.

Note that if the parties will make majority decisions that then  
require all the party representatives to vote as decided this means  
that some of the party representatives may have to vote against their  
will. The party is allowed to wield power but part of the  
representatives will wild the power against themselves. The party has  
power but the representatives and supporters would in some cases be  
hurt by this power (maybe the alternative that lost had majority  
support among (all) the representatives and voters). The party "won"  
but maybe not all of its representatives and supporters.

I guess the basic idea behind party discipline is that this way the  
party is able to reach a better negotiation position. A party that is  
internally split 50%-50% on some question can still do horse trading  
and agree with some other party to support that party in this vote if  
that party will support this this party in some future vote. The  
power of the parties now follows the power measurement schemes  
instead of "votes = power". But in principle parties that together  
have sufficient majority may take a dictator role. It is hard to  
design systems that would eliminate the possibility of this kind of  
party negotiation level voting discipline (if one party can do this,  
why not a group of parties too).

Voting methods that would take the power measurement aspects into  
account may give more power to the small parties in order to allow  
them to decide more than they would otherwise be allowed to. This  
could lead to a strategic for the big parties to split at least  
formally but still after the elections use strong party discipline  
that would now cover all the party fragments.

How about using the more traditional votes = seats method and  
discouraging the use of the party discipline? That could be just a  
recommendation, or maybe a rule that would ban disciplinary actions  
towards representatives that have voted against the party majority  
opinion. One approach would be to introduce more structure in the  
party structure. I have few times promoted the idea of allowing a  
tree like structure within the parties (and between them too). That  
would make it easier to the right or green wing of a party to vote  
differently than the rest of the party (they could feel close to  
being required to do so in some "right" or "green" situations).

Also methods that do not rely on the party structure (e.g. STV) are  
more likely to lead to a having representatives that will make  
independent decisions, maybe sometimes working together with other  
right wing representatives, sometimes together with other greenish  
representatives etc.

I'm not aware of methods that would take some of the power  
measurement formula into account.

I welcome multi-winner discussions. No need and no reason to limit  
the discussions to the single-winner theme. (What would be the reason  
to do so? Often single-winner and multi-winner systems are  
alternatives to each others => both needed to cover the field properly.)

Juho


On Sep 21, 2007, at 18:22 , Howard Swerdfeger wrote:

> I know that this list is primarily single winner elections but I  
> thought
>   given the low volume as of late a slight change of topic would be  
> welcome.
>
> with that, I was wondering about multi winner elections. specifically
> the  parliamentary kind typical of most former British colonies.
>
> Do to the inadequacies of the FPTP system in creating a government  
> many
> of these countries are looking at alternative systems, New Zealand  
> moved
> to MMP, Scotland as well, BC tried to once, and will try again move to
> STV, Ontario is looking at MMP.
>
> The drive behind thes moves it usually that the old system fails to
> translate votes into seats "fairly". (Votes != Seats)
>
> but most of these reforms fail to recognize that that Seats do not  
> equal
> power. So we are still still stuck with a similar problem (votes !=  
> power)
>
> I was looking into 2 methods of measuring power in a weighted  
> voting system.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banzhaf_Power_Index
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley-Shubik_power_index
>
> I was wondering first if there are any methods of measuring power in a
> legislature that I am unaware of? Secondly if anybody has tried to
> design a generic system where by votes are kept proportional to power,
> via allocation of seats?
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for  
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