[EM] Israeli party-list primary elections

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Tom,

to my opinion, the best way to guarantee that the nominations are more
democratic is to make it as simple as possible to be elected without
having to be nominated by his party.

Example: The nominations in Israel are more democratic than in Germany
because it is more simple in Israel (because of the low threshold of 1.5%
and because of the small size of Israel) for rejected persons to form their
own party and to win seats than in Germany (because of the high threshold
of 5% and the large size of Germany).

You wrote (12 Mar 1999):
> Thanks, Markus, I read and printed your document without any problems. The
> article greatly clarified the matter for me. The last I had read on Israeli
> candidate selection [a book by Lijphart or Ranney, I think, published circa
> 1980] simply said the party executives drew up the lists. Incidentally, do
> you know if I'm correct about German parties filling each list position by
> separate majority vote?

You are correct about German parties. Each list position is filled separately,
beginning with the first list position. If there is only one candidate for a
list position, then the delegates can approve or disapprove this candidate and
this candidate wins the nomination if more delegates approve than disapprove.
If there are more than one candidate for the same list position, then
plurality
is used. Effectively this means that a majority of the delegates can fill all
the list positions with their own candidates.

> The electoral methods used in Israeli primaries seem to be all forms of
> first-past-the-post -- either "block limited vote" (ie, voting for a number
> of candidates somewhere between a minimum and a maximum that are both less
> than the number to be elected) or an Austrian-style points system.

As far as I know, primaries in Austria are not binding and usually they don't
have any influence on the nominations. Their task is to mobilize the members
of a party and not to make a decision.

> I dislike all non-preferential voting systems but, if forced to choose
> one, I think the best _ uniform _ rule would be to ask each voter to put an
> X for either one, two or three candidates, regardless of the number of
> seats. This would translate into something like Approval Voting for 1, 2 or
> 3 seats, and then a semi-proportional Limited Vote for 4 or more seats. It
> would mitigate the evils of a split vote on the one hand and of a "winner
> take all" clean sweep on the other.

It is sad that preferential election methods are completely unknown outside
English speaking or formerly English ruled countries.

Markus Schulze