[EM] One District P.R. Method

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

A one district proportional representation method for a legislative body (for 
folks not wanting districts or surplus fractional vote transfers) ----

1. Candidates get listed in an election pamplet by a nominating petition only 
(no primaries- no party lists).   

2. Each candidate would have his/ her rank order list of other candidates 
(who would receive his/ her surplus votes for step 6 below) put in the 
pamphlet.

3. On the election ballots a voter would write in (or type in on a computer 
screen) each candidate's pamphlet number.

4. A voter could number rank (1, 2, etc.) his/ her choices.

5. Each candidate getting a Droop (? Hare) Quota of votes would be elected.

6. Each candidate getting more than a Hare (? Droop) Quota of votes would 
transfer the surplus votes (using the above rank order list for remaining 
candidates) (i.e. no fractional vote transfers of surplus votes).

7. The candidate with the lowest number of votes would lose and have his/ her 
votes transferred according to each voter's next choice of remaining 
candidates.   Presumably the voters of each party would vote for the other 
candidates of such party.

8. Repeat until all seats are filled.

9. If exact results are needed (especially for legislative bodies with a 
small number of voters and/ or a small number of seats), then each winner 
should have a voting power in the legislative body equal to the number of 
votes he/ she finally receives (since the votes/ seats ratios for different 
winners are almost never equal).

For new folks- 

Hare Quota = Total votes/ Total Seats

Droop Quota = (Total Votes/ (Total Seats +1)) +1  
(i.e. smaller than the Hare Quota)

Very large legislative bodies (i.e. 435 seats in U.S. House of 
Representatives, etc.) are mob rule scenes such that perhaps the number of 
seats can be greatly reduced.   

My experience is that about 50 seats should be the limit for a legislative 
body (i.e. about 2 percent for a seat) (especially so that each member can 
directly see/ hear and remember each other and reduce monarchial/ oligarchial 
control in such bodies).