[EM] Idiots and tyrants?

[David Catchpole]

Of course, that's why in several elections the Right has won on something
like 1/3 of the vote because the Left is split between Labour and the
Liberal Democrats! That's why it IS within the interests of Labour to
introduce a new system. The problem in any parliamentary system is to
balance the three ideas of representing the community at large and
locally, and reflecting the people's preferred choice of government.
Single member first-past-the-post (again, using my indigenous political
language) dismally fails on all of them. Which is, of course, why Julian
invented PR cubed.

I personally favour systems (for lower houses) which
are even more blatant- Have a system much like the Jenkins model
(Continental-style MMP using STV, only using an at-large STV election
like that for the Australian Senate to work out the make-up members, who
make up just less than of the house because of the nature of the quotas)
and an accompanying part of the ballot with the list of parties (and their
declared allies) asking "who do you wish to form the majority in the house
(along with their declared allies)?" The vote is counted by STV and the
party that will lead the government is selected. After being diminished by
the local election, the votes which contributed to the successful party's
win are distributed in make-up, ignoring all preferences excluding those
for the party and its allies, until the party and its allies make up more
than half of the house or run out of votes. From then, as normal. 


On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Wiseman, Julian wrote:

> Or neither, just someone who has observed SMP work well in practice in that
> part of the real world called the United Kingdom. Perhaps others are better
> (as I've written elsewhere, my preferred system is described at
> http://www.jdawiseman.com/papers/electsys.html), but SMP is neither idiotic
> nor tyrannical. 
> 
> Minority representation is a mixed blessing. A system that penalises small
> parties does give Communists and Fascists an incentive to take their pick
> from the more mainstream parties. In a Europe that has just started the
> largest economic experiment since Bolshevism (consider the word carefully),
> I very much favour electoral systems that penalise the extremists. SMP does
> so clumsily (see URL), but compared to pure PR, is a great result for the
> blacks and Jews who don't want the anti-immigrant parties holding the
> balance of power. A system that elects a single-party government is much
> preferable, and that isn't classic PR or its obvious variants. 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:	DEMOREP1 at aol.com [SMTP:DEMOREP1 at aol.com]
> > Sent:	Wednesday, July 28, 1999 8:09 AM
> > To:	election-methods-list at eskimo.com
> > Subject:	Re:  RE: [EM] U.K. Voting Systems, 3rd edition
> > 
> > Any supporter of pure single member districts is a math idiot and/or a
> > tyrant.
> > 
> > Simple 3 district example--
> > 
> > District     Party A votes    Party B votes    Total
> > 
> > 1                 49                      51                    100
> > 2                 49                      51                    100
> > 3                100                      0                     100   
> > 
> > Totals       298                    102                    300
> > 
> > Party B has 2 of the 3 seats with a mighty 102/300 or 34 percent of the
> > votes.
> > 
> > In a larger legislative body, the plurality system (the infamous first
> > past 
> > the post system) results in around 25-30 percent indirect minority rule (a
> > 
> > plurality in a bare majority of the districts with only 2 parties per 
> > district and equal voters in each district) (which becomes less than such
> > 25 
> > percent in multi-party elections (as in the U.K. or Canada).
> > 
> > Democracy (for the enlightenment of the Monty Python type retards/ idiots
> > on 
> > this list) means indirect majority rule (or direct majority rule depending
> > on 
> > the election system).
> > 
> > Thus, the use of SMD is an exercise in tyranny (i.e in electing an
> > elective 
> > oligarchy) in every election.
> > 
> > The Democracy remedy- proportional representation (to get BOTH indirect 
> > majority rule and minority representation).
> 
>